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"Accreditor approval to offer financial aid has always been a part of the aid process, but lately there seems to be a renewed interest in the related minutiae of it all," Nick Prewett, director of student financial aid at the University of Missouri, writes in the latest article from Voices From the Aid Office. "Differences in the need for accreditation, and which accreditor’s approval is required, can vary across programs. ... Let’s focus on three issues my office at Mizzou has faced and the information requested by the Department of Education."  

USA Funds on Wednesday announced that it will transfer ownership of its education loan guarantor affiliates United Student Aid Funds and Northwest Education Loan Association (NELA) to Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation. The transfer will be effective January 1, 2017.

The Department of Education (ED) on Wednesday said it will allow the sale of Apollo Education Group –– which owns the University of Phoenix –– but with strict conditions, according to reports in POLITICO and The Washington Post. Chief among ED's requirements for the $1.1 billion sale would be acquiring a $385 million letter of credit, about 25 percent of the federal student aid the University of Phoenix and Western International University receive. ED would also require the schools to cap enrollment and prohibit them from starting new programs for a period of time, among other conditions.

In a letter sent to Education Under Secretary Ted Mitchell on Monday, five Democratic senators – including Dick Durbin of Illinois, Patty Murray of Washington, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut – urged the Department of Education (ED) to increase protections for students and taxpayers in the wake of the loss of federal recognition for the Accrediting Council of Independent Schools and Colleges (ACICS). Among several actions, the senators asked ED to halt new student enrollments at institutions not making progress to obtain new accreditation. Read the entire letter here.

The NASFAA Title IV Eligibility: Adding Programs Webinar originally scheduled for Wednesday, December 14, 2016,  has been postponed. In developing the webinar content, NASFAA staff felt it necessary to request clarification from ED on several aspects of program eligibility. We apologize for the short notice of cancellation, but it is essential we provide our webinar attendees with the most accurate information possible. Once we receive guidance, the webinar will be rescheduled. Watch Today’s News for more information.

This is your last chance to register for NASFAA U’s Consumer Information Online Course. Focusing on institutional disclosure and reporting, when and how reports and disclosures are to be made, as well as best practices for compliance, Consumer Information is an ideal foundational course for new staff and a great regulatory refresher for experienced staff - Register Now.

In response to recent questions from institutions that are accepting transfer students who have been affected by a school closure, the Department is issuing this announcement to remind institutions of the eligibility requirements that apply if a student wishes to receive a closed school discharge of a Title IV loan.

This document provides notice of the computer matching program between the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The computer matching program will begin on the effective date specified in paragraph 5.

"The national college completion agenda has reached an inflection point. Republican control of the White House, U.S. Congress and most state capitols likely means less focus on the production of higher education credentials, at least those earned at traditional, four-year colleges," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"In an interview with Time magazine for its Person of the Year cover story, President-elect Donald J. Trump offered sympathetic -- albeit nonspecific -- comments regarding the so-called DREAMers, young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"When he first moved to Miami, Waltter Teruel says working as a recruiter for ITT Technical Institute was a welcome change from his life in New York where he was selling antiques and life insurance," NPR reports. "As a recruiter, Teruel says ITT Tech took care of the pitch to potential students for you. Recruiters used scripts set out in detailed Powerpoint presentations and got long lists of prospective students to call. But soon the welcome change faded. 'Most of these students, they were looking for a job,' not more school, says Teruel."

"President-elect Donald Trump's get-tough stance against illegal immigration faces a key test on his first day in office: whether to follow through on his campaign trail pledge to revoke President Barack Obama's 2012 directive that gave undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children a chance to work here legally without getting deported," POLITICO reports.

"Chalk graffiti supporting Donald Trump for president started to appear on stone stairways and wooden benches at the Emory University campus just around the time the school's admissions office was preparing to send acceptance letters to successful applicants for this fall's freshman class," according to The Hechinger Report. "Among those potential new students, according to a university official, were several dozen undocumented immigrants with temporary residency status that exempts them from deportation under the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA."

"Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring on Tuesday said his office is notifying about 5,300 people who attended a chain of defunct for-profit colleges of their eligibility for federal student loan forgiveness," The Washington Post reports.

"Sometimes Olivia Rausch, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln freshman from small-town South Dakota, wondered if she should pack up and go home. Rausch felt like a stranger in a big place, alone with her thoughts of five dear nieces and nephews back home and tests bearing down on her like weights," the Omaha World-Herald reports. "Rausch, part of a fairly new UNL program called First Husker for first-generation college students, met with her academic success coach, Cheryl Pflueger. They talked about homesickness and Rausch's dream of attending law school."

"In the post-World War II era, whites fled the center city to the leafy-green suburbs and better neighborhood schools. Today, a similar trend has taken root in American higher education, only this time whites are fleeing the underfunded and overcrowded two-year and four-year open-access colleges for the nation’s top 500 universities," Anthony Carnevale writes for The Washington Post.

"More than $111 million in America's Promise grants were awarded to 23 regional workforce partnerships across the country to connect more than 21,000 Americans to education and in-demand jobs. The grants, awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor, will support tuition-free education and training for jobs in industries that use the H-1B temporary visa program to meet industry workforce needs," according to the American Association of Community Colleges.

"Student loan debt in the United States is now over $1.25 trillion, nearly three times as much as just a decade ago. The typical student graduating with a bachelor's degree with debt (about 70 percent of all students) now owes between $30,000 and $40,000 for their education, about twice as much as a decade ago. Although taking on modest amounts of debt in order to pay for college is generally a good bet in the long run, colleges with similar admissions standards and resource levels leave students with different amounts of debt," Robert Kelchen writes for the Brookings Institution's Brown Center Chalkboard.

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