NASFAA's Role in Response to Katrina

Dear Colleagues,

The role of financial aid administrator has taken on a whole new meaning on many campuses these past several weeks.

For dozens of schools in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, dispensing aid has included helping their students relocate, find housing, and reunite with family members. It has also meant working to restore a sense of normalcy, both for their students and for their aid operations.

For aid administrators on hundreds of campuses throughout the nation, dispensing aid has meant offering a home to the thousands of students whose schools were closed, helping students at their own schools whose homes are in the hurricane area, and helping colleagues in affected aid offices to recover from the terrible disaster of Hurricane Katrina.

Some members have asked me what role NASFAA is playing in the recovery efforts. While Today's News and our Katrina Web site have described much of what we have done, those articles are focused primarily on students and aid offices without necessarily highlighting the Association's contributions. Allow me to address our role briefly below; later I'll post a more detailed chronicle of how NASFAA responded to this tragedy.

• First, NASFAA is carrying out our founders' intent by focusing on the policy and procedural aspects of the situation as they apply to financial aid offices and the students they serve. This is a situation unlike any other encountered by NASFAA and the Department of Education, and requires an entirely new set of guidelines and waivers. From the beginning we have been in continuous discussions with ED regarding waivers of certain Title IV policies and procedures to help schools and students. We have been passing on to ED for consideration many of the questions and suggestions submitted to us by our members - including those sent to AskRegs - that are not addressed adequately by current guidance. ED alerts us whenever new guidance is to be issued and we post the information to our Web site as soon as it is received.

• We have also submitted to Congress an analysis of issues raised by Katrina so that those items may be considered when crafting legislation to assist students and schools. We welcome your help in identifying additional items. For more information please see the article at http://www.NASFAA.org/publications/2005/NIdentifyKatrinaIssues091605.html.

• Shortly after the extent of the damage became known, NASFAA launched a Hurricane Katrina Resource Page at http://www.NASFAA.org/Katrina.asp, which we are updating continuously. Devoted to a wide range of financial aid and ancillary issues, the site provides a central source of information for schools. Many associations, organizations, and postsecondary news sites have established links to our Katrina site.

• We have worked to make certain that assistance is provided not just to students at schools affected by the hurricane, but also to students who live in the areas hit by the hurricane and attend schools elsewhere.

• We are supporting all manner of humanitarian efforts to help the victims of the tragedy. We encourage members to donate their time and financial support as they are able to the various agencies that are coordinating relief efforts. NASFAA's Katrina site includes a number of links for those who wish to contribute or donate. We have also established a way for schools that need help and schools that are volunteering help to find each other.

Dallas Martin
NASFAA President

Posted September 16, 2005 on www.NASFAA.org, the Web Site of the
National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA).
Copyright 2005. Redistribution to non-NASFAA institutions is prohibited
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