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NASFAA, along with several partner organizations, sent a letter to the Department of Education (ED) on Friday about verbal guidance given by ED's Privacy and Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) that has upended many years of common practice. According to the new PTAC guidance, even with written consent from the student, institutions may not disclose financial aid award information to outside entities, such as outside scholarship providers, unless the disclosure is for specific purposes tied to federal, state, or institutional aid programs. The letter urged ED to develop a process that helps students apply for outside scholarships without additional burden and requested clear written guidance as soon as possible.

Student loan origination fees were originally put in place in the 1980s to defray the operating costs of the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program. But now that the FFEL program is defunct, these fees work solely as a federal budget deficit reduction tool, to the detriment of students. Origination fees generated a staggering $1.6 billion in revenue for the federal government in award year 2016-17, and $8.1 billion over the past five award years. NASFAA's new policy issue brief delves into origination fees and stresses that eliminating them is a crucial simple step toward increasing transparency and college affordability.

Democrats on the House Education and the Workforce Committee on Wednesday introduced the Simple FAFSA Act of 2017, an ambitious bill that seeks to remove barriers to higher education by simplifying how students apply for and receive federal student aid.

NASFAA has been awarded a grant to convene the Forward50, a group of seeking forward-thinking campus leaders tasked with developing policy solutions. We are currently college presidents, enrollment managers, admissions staff, bursar's office staff, and other leaders from public and private two- and four-year institutions across the country to serve on the committee over the next 18 months. If there is someone on your campus in one of the offices listed on our charter, or someone that you have worked with from another institution, who you think may be a good fit, please encourage them to apply by Friday, December 1 using our volunteer form.

Learn the answer to this question and learn how to instantly find credible and reliable solutions to your most pressing regulatory and compliance questions with NASFAA's AskRegs Knowledgebase. The Knowledgebase guide and video tutorials highlight the many features of this tool.

The COD Processing Update provides information related to COD System processing and includes the following sections: COD News and Updates, Current Issues (with a subsection for All Programs, Direct Loans, and Grants), and Reminders.

The Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) School Relations Center will allow for COD School Testing for the 2018–19 Award Year from January 2, 2018 through December 21, 2018.

"Democrats on the Committee on Education and the Workforce recently introduced new legislation that would simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form," according to Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. NASFAA's Megan McClean Coval is quoted in the article. 

"Rep. Judy Chu (CA-27) introduced the Streamlining FAFSA Act of 2017. This bill would ensure that all students are eligible to benefit from the Automatic Zero Expected Family Contribution (EFC) when applying for financial aid using the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA," Arcadia Weekly reports. "This bill is supported by the Center for American Progress (CAP), the National College Access Network (NCAN), and the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA)."

"Republicans on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina), appear poised to introduce a Higher Education Act (HEA) reauthorization bill in the coming weeks," according to Community College Daily.

"The number of undocumented students in California applying for financial aid for college has dropped 20 percent this year, which advocates say is a direct result of immigration fears and the termination of the DACA program," according to the LA School Report. 

"College affordability—two simple words. Two critically important, yet distressingly hollow words. Policymakers, college administrators, and student advocates all use this term, but no one seems to precisely define what it means or what achieving it would look like. Without a clear definition it’s hard to measure progress toward this goal," Zakiya Smith writes in an opinion article for Lumina Foundation. 

"Chances are you’ve heard this accusation: For-profit schools live exclusively on federal funding. Here’s the truth. Such statements ignore the demographics of these schools’ students — large numbers of single parents, first-generation students and minorities," Steven Gunderson writes in an opinion article for The Hill. 

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