Meet Angela Johnson, executive director of enrollment and financial aid at Cuyahoga Community College. Angela got her start in financial aid in 1990 as a student employee at The Ohio State University. She later became a financial aid counselor at Ohio State and, prior to joining Cuyahoga Community College in 2000, worked at Bryant and Stratton College as a financial aid manager. Find out her story, as well as what she would change about the current financial aid system, what three wishes she would like granted, and what has been her most motivating experience.

Join us tomorrow at 2:00 pm ET as the NASFAA policy team provides an update on the fast-approaching Prior-Prior Year (PPY) implementation, including summaries of PPY guidance and an overview of the NASFAA tools and products in the PPY Toolkit to aid in implementation and communication. In addition, the webinar will provide an opportunity for the NASFAA membership to ask questions and share concerns about PPY implementation. NASFAA policy staff will be on hand to answer questions and offer explanations. Register Now.

As part of NASFAA's ongoing effort to bring more on-the-ground voices to Capitol Hill, Janet Balok, director of financial aid at Murray State University, and Shannon Crossland, associate director of administrative maintenance and compliance at Texas Tech University, participated in NASFAA's Advocacy Pipeline program. Crossland and Balok met with the offices of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX), and Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The duo discussed the importance of the earlier availability of Pell charts in the context of Early FAFSA and prior-prior year income (PPY), and also noted some of the implementation challenges in the previous iteration of year-round Pell. If you're interested in volunteering for a future Pipeline event, fill out our Advocacy Pipeline Interest Form.

The Department of Education (ED) has posted a draft of the 2017-18 Paper Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and other related documents (e.g., Paper Student Aid Report). The documents can be found under Forms and Instructions in the docket on the regulations.gov website. Comments are due by May 31, 2016.

In April, NASFAA resumed its partnership with Beyond 12 and the Center for Research on Educational Access and Leadership to help the thousands of students negatively affected by receiving inaccurate information or by a sudden school closure, as in the case of Corinthian Colleges. In total, nearly 80 financial aid administrators from across the country have volunteered to help answer questions submitted by more than 2,300 students – nearly 1,600 of which were related to financial aid. Since resuming the partnership in April, financial aid administrators have assisted more than 150 students move forward, and will continue to help students through the end of June.

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.

Earlier this month, the primary contact at your institution/organization was mailed a hard copy of NASFAA's dues renewal invoice. If your renewal payment is on the way, thank you. If you did not receive your invoice, please contact Membership Services or call (202) 785-0453 Ext. 1 to request an invoice be sent to you via email. If you have not yet paid your dues, and you do not wish to make any changes to the renewal invoice, you may log in and pay your NASFAA membership dues online. If you do not have your login information you may request it here.

"During his summer internship with a New Jersey congressman, Matthew Schaller will work eight hours a day, three days a week. He will not be paid. He is paying $3,100," Inside Higher Ed reports. "That's the cost of a three-credit summer course at Seton Hall University, where Schaller will get credit for his work. He is a diplomacy major, and the degree program requires an academic internship."

"Student debt is taking a staggering toll on new graduates to the point where many feel their lives are 'hung up' and they can’t make major moves such as getting married, buying a house or pursuing more education, a new survey released Tuesday states," according to Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.

"A divided Supreme Court on Monday declined to wade into a dispute over the rules governing the rehabilitation of student loans after a default, prompting a sharp rebuke from Justice Clarence Thomas in dissent," Courthouse News Service reports.

"To reach the Ivy League after growing up poor seems like hitting the jackpot. Students get a world-class education from schools that promise to meet full financial needs without making them take out loans. But the reality of a full ride isn't always what they had dreamed it would be," The Washington Post reports.

"Since Republicans assumed the majority in North Carolina’s legislature six years ago, the state has become a sort of lab for unorthodox higher-education-reform proposals. ... Lawmakers’ latest idea: Cut tuition for in-state students to $500 a semester at five UNC campuses, including four minority-serving institutions," The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

"At a time when many highly selective colleges are looking for ways to enroll more low-income students, Amherst College President Carolyn (Biddy) Martin often finds herself discussing the issues that can stem from diversity on the campus of an elite higher education institution," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"A year after President Obama raised the challenge to make community colleges free for all, two-year colleges across California are responding with a flurry of tuition-free offers, scholarships and other efforts to lower costs and boost dismal completion rates," the Bay Area News Group reports.

"The American higher education system is broken. As a high school student, I’ve heard this refrain constantly. But this year, as a senior experiencing the college hoopla firsthand, I discovered how right this sentiment is," Claire Schultz writes for The Hechinger Report.

"The financial services industry erupted earlier this month, soon after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau published a set of proposed rules for limiting the use of forced arbitration clauses by broad range of entities, including certain providers of financial products and services," Mitchell Weiss writes for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

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