Brought to you by:

College Board. For more than six decades, the College Board has been a leader and innovator in financial aid. College Board’s fully integrated financial aid solutions are designed to help your institution develop equitable, effective, and efficient financial aid policies and processes. Visit us at collegeboard.org.

In anticipation of the reinstatement of year-round Pell, NASFAA and its members “stand ready to be of assistance” as the Department of Education (ED) begins the implementation process, NASFAA President Justin Draeger said in a letter submitted last Friday to the Department.

President Donald Trump on Friday signed into law a spending package Congress passed earlier last week, which funds the government through the remainder of fiscal year (FY) 2017 (award year 2017-18), and includes the restoration of the "year-round Pell Grant," and a cut to the Pell Grant program surplus. The budget deal maintains the 2017-18 maximum Pell Grant of $5,920, but removes $1.56 billion in funding for the Pell Grant program. The Department of Education (ED) is also instructed to issue guidance on year-round Pell not later than July 1, 2017. NASFAA on Friday sent a letter to ED outlining financial aid office priorities for the implementation of year-round Pell.

Over the weekend NASFAA relocated to a new office in Washington, D.C. Our new address is 1801 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 850, Washington, DC 20006-3606. The most convenient Metrorail stops to the NASFAA office are still Farragut West (on the Blue and Orange Lines) and Farragut North (on the Red Line). If you've got an upcoming trip to D.C. planned, drop us a note to let us know and swing by our new office to check it out and say hello.

Are you familiar with NASFAA's new Polices & Procedures (P&P) Builder? If not, now is the time to get acquainted. Schools that complete the Disbursements section of their policies and procedure manual by Monday, May 15 can enter to win one of two complimentary registrations to the 2017 or 2018 NASFAA National Conference. All NASFAA members are encouraged to participate. The two winners will be announced in Today's News on Tuesday, May 16 and will be contacted via email by NASFAA's Membership Services department. Read on for more details on how to enter.

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.

For each award year, the Secretary publishes in the Federal Register a notice announcing the FAFSA information that an institution and an applicant may be required to verify, as well as the acceptable documentation for verifying FAFSA information. This is the notice for the 2018-2019 award year.

The Federal Direct PLUS Loan Request for Supplemental Information serves as the means by which a parent or graduate/professional student Direct PLUS Loan applicant may provide certain information to a school that will assist the school in originating the borrower's Direct PLUS Loan award, as an alternative to providing this information to the school by other means established by the school.

"In February, President Trump invited leaders from historically black colleges and universities to the White House, a move they hoped signaled his support for the institutions and showed an effort to give them more clout in his administration. But critics had a more cynical description of the Oval Office meeting: a photo op," The Washington Post reports.

"Many students choose to attend their state's public college because it offers the best deal, but increasingly these schools are charging some students more depending on what they study," MarketWatch reports.

"As some of the largest for-profit institutions in the country lost federal funding or were punished or closed by federal and state agencies, many experts wondered what would happen to the students who relied on federal aid and left those institutions," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"Gov. Susana Martinez said Wednesday that she has a plan to restore funding for New Mexico colleges and universities, after using her line-item veto authority last month to ax all money for higher education from a $6.1 billion budget plan approved by the Legislature," the Albuquerque Journal reports.

"Campus police officers across Texas would have unfettered authority to check the immigration status of students who have been detained for minor violations such as rolling through a red light or drinking under age, under legislation the governor is expected to sign any day," The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

'Tens of millions of Americans together owe more than a trillion dollars in student debt. For the financial health of their households and the entire economy, ensuring a fair and smoothly functioning student loan system is critically important," Susan Dynarski writes for The New York Times' The Upshot. "But with a series of regulatory changes, the Trump administration is taking us in the wrong direction, making student loans riskier, more expensive and more burdensome for borrowers."

"So many of us have heard the myth of the struggling college student – from movies to well-meaning pep talks, pulling all nighters and subsisting on cold pizza are often portrayed as part of the classic college experience. It makes you 'tough' or it means you're 'working hard,'" Allie Aguilera writes for Young Invincibles.

VIEW NEXT ISSUE

Contact us to submit questions, content or to purchase advertisements.