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Student Connections. No matter your scope or budget, you can simplify the complex task of helping students repay their loans and improve your results, whether measured in reduced CDRs or higher repayment rates. Learn more how the industry’s only patented solution is creating real-time transparency for more than 500 campuses, at studentconnections.org.

After a two-hour weather delay followed by a three-hour caucus closed to the public, negotiators finally came to a tentative agreement Wednesday on some of the Department of Education’s (ED) proposals related to expanding gainful employment (GE) regulations and removing sanctions.

In December 2016, the Department of Education (ED) published final rules relating to state authorization of distance education. Master calendar requirements in the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA), as amended, forced the effective date of these final rules to July 1, 2018, since regulations must be published by November 1 in order to become effective the following July. With just five months until schools must comply with these regulations, we are revisiting the provisions included in the final rule.

The 2018 Conference Mentor Task Force has been hard at work developing events for our first-time attendees, with Amy Berrier from the University of North Carolina Greensboro serving as the task force chair. The task force is currently seeking NASFAA members who will attend the 2018 conference to serve as conference mentors to ensure first-time attendees have a positive conference experience. If you want to serve in this capacity, please review the task force charter and complete this short online form by June 11. The task force will contact mentors with their mentees assignments in mid-June.

For many college students, the first point of contact comes from the enrollment management office, which focuses on student recruitment, retention, and graduation. Forward50 members have been tasked with identifying emerging policy issues that impact students and the higher education landscape, with a focus on access, affordability, transparency, and accountability. The members representing enrollment management offices include Angel B. Perez of Trinity College, Angela Johnson of Cuyahoga Community College, Chuck Knepfle of Clemson University, Consuela Mitchell of Southern Methodist University, and Dan Mann of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Learn more about them, and the other members of the committee at http://forward-50.org/members.

FSA Coach Basic Training for Foreign Schools, an introductory web-based tutorial on federal student aid program administration in a foreign school setting, is now available for the 2017–18 Award Year.

The Department of Education's federal offices as well as some of its Title IV processors and contact centers will be closed on Monday, February 19, 2018 to observe the Washington's Birthday federal holiday. See the attachment for the various centers' operation status on the holiday.

The Federal Student Aid (FSA) Feedback System will be unavailable for an extended period of time during the weekend of February 9-11, 2018 due to upgrades being made to the system. The FSA Feedback System home page is being updated to simplify the feedback submission process for student aid recipients.

"With their attention occupied by tax reform last year, the higher education lobby had a muted response to the GOP's first crack at overhauling the student aid system and how it keeps colleges accountable," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"A federal appeals court has upheld the $25 million settlement President Donald Trump agreed to in a bid to resolve long running lawsuits claiming fraud in his Trump University real estate seminar venture," POLITICO reports.

"Senate leaders on Wednesday looked poised to reach an agreement on a two-year budget deal that would lift spending caps put in place in place at federal agencies by Congress in 2011," Inside Higher Ed reports. "The lifting of those caps has long been sought by higher ed institutions who say they threaten sustainable funding of research."

"As Congress moves to reauthorize the Higher Education Act, University President Drew G. Faust raised concerns about the bill's impact on federal financial aid at a Faculty meeting Tuesday evening," The Harvard Crimson reports.

"Over 50 years ago, with the creation of Pell Grants and federal student loan programs, college access became a national priority for higher education. In the last decade, a broad agreement has emerged that institutions also need to do more to help students complete their degrees. These targets of college access and completion are now taken for granted as guiding goals for postsecondary institutions," Peter McPherson, president of APLU, writes for Inside Higher Ed.

"A new U.S. Department of Education pilot program could change the way that student loans are disbursed, which could impact millions of students," Zack Friedman writes for Forbes. "According to the U.S. Department of Education, starting this spring at some educational institutions federal financial aid may be disbursed through a debit card - known as a Federal Student Aid (FSA) Payment Card - to enable the Education Department to track more closely how students spend financial aid."

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