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When the move to using prior-prior year (PPY) income information on the FAFSA went into effect last October, some worried institutions might move admissions or financial aid application deadlines earlier, negatively and disproportionately impacting lower-income students who tend to apply for aid later in the process. Out today, the findings from a May 2017 survey—designed by NASFAA’s PPY Implementation Task Force to assess the implementation of Early FAFSA—show that for schools that provided admissions and/or financial aid application priority-filing deadlines for 2016-17 and 2017-18, the overwhelming majority did not change their deadline. Read on for the full results of the survey.

Taxpayers provide funding for public higher education because the institutions are intended not only to educate students and help prepare them for the workforce, but also to provide other benefits to society at large through research and social mobility. But a significant amount of taxpayer dollars are being funneled to selective public institutions that fulfill neither of those broader duties, according to a new paper from The Brookings Institution.

Want to see how proposed budget cuts would affect your campus? NASFAA's new Budget Effect Estimator (BEE) paints a picture of what proposed cuts in President Donald Trump's fiscal year 2018 budget proposal will mean for students at individual colleges across the country. Watch our short tutorial to see how the BEE works and what information you can collect on your institution. After you've armed yourself with school-specific information, consider reaching out to your member of Congress to let them know how the budget cuts would affect your school and urge them to push back against the cuts.

Two bills that would eliminate origination fees, the fiscal year 2018 House education funding bill, and a bill attempting to improve the verification of non-filing status issue highlight a few of the bills introduced in July and August in Congress. In total, 16 different student aid-related bills were introduced last month on Capitol Hill. NASFAA's Capitol Recap provides summaries of each bill introduced in July and August, while the NASFAA Legislative Tracker provides a comprehensive list of all student aid-related bills introduced so far this session.

"It has become trendy to predict that higher education is on the verge of a major collapse, what with enrollments falling as loan debt and rising tuition cause students and families to ask harder questions about the value of a college credential," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"Every year, many students who have overcome daunting obstacles in high school receive good news — they've been accepted to college. These kids represent a success story: through hard work and determination, they've made into college, and perhaps even on to a better life. Except it doesn't always work out that way," NPR reports.

"Mitch Daniels went from running the state of Indiana, as its two-term Republican governor, to running its top flight public university, Purdue University, based in West Lafayette," NPR reports. "Since Daniels began his tenure in 2013, Purdue has made plenty of headlines."

"Total student loan debt has now climbed to a record $1.3 trillion in the United States. The good news is that with the improving economy, default rates have declined over the last four years. Nonetheless, 11 percent of borrowers are in default — which is bad news both for those borrowers and for U.S. taxpayers. Congress should address this when it reauthorizes the Higher Education Act," Monica Herk writes for The Hill.

"As president, Trump has expressed sympathy for the Dreamers’ plight and has left the DACA program alone even as he ramped up deportations and ended Obama’s planned extension of protections to parents of citizens and legal residents, but who are themselves in the United States illegally. Yet Trump also has not endorsed DACA, likely fearing backlash from political supporters who bought into his draconian views on immigration," the Los Angeles Times' Editorial Board writes.

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