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Since proposed on the 2016 presidential campaign trail, calls to allow student loan borrowers to refinance their debt and take advantage of lower interest rates have increased, gaining bipartisan support in the Congress and from the White House. But is student loan refinancing really the solution to the country’s growing student loan debt among low-income individuals?

In response to recent Department of Education guidance, NASFAA’s Ethics Commission has released an update of last year’s white paper, Financial Aid Data Sharing, that explores the issue from both legal and ethical perspectives. This paper was developed to highlight the scope of applicable laws and regulations, analyze case studies and provide recommendations to assist financial aid professionals in navigating the legal restrictions when responding to various types of internal and external data requests.

Student aid programs are again on the chopping block in new budget proposals. Join NASFAA at our kick-off event for the #Fight4FinAid campaign at 3:15 pm PST on Tuesday, June 27, at the 2017 NASFAA National Conference. Can't make it to the conference this year? Use our template to make your own rally sign to show your colleagues why you #Fight4FinAid. Join the movement online by posting your sign to Twitter or Facebook on Tuesday, June 27 using #Fight4FinAid.

In a guest blog post for WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET), NASFAA Reporter Allie Bidwell imparts some wisdom from practicing financial aid administrators to help those outside the aid office better understand financial aid and what aid administrators do each day. "The typical financial aid administrator wears many hats, and provides resources not just to students and families, but also to the larger community, the institution as a whole, other campus administrators, and even to lawmakers and their staff," she writes. 

NASFAA is seeking volunteer judges to collaborate with NASFAA Training and Regulatory Assistance staff members to participate in a formal review process known as an "Angoff Study." During an Angoff Study, a team of judges evaluates the difficulty level of each credential test question and defines a minimally competent candidate in terms of passing or failing the test. Volunteer Judges will be assigned to one or more of 12 different teams, based on subject matter expertise and availability. View the volunteer form for more information.

"Then the U.S. Education Department proposes a rule, one reaction is guaranteed across the political spectrum: dread at the prospect of more negotiated rule-making," The Chronicle of Higher Education reports. A NASFAA news article is referenced in this article.

"For the second time in as many months, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has suggested that it’s time to scrap the legislation that governs federal higher-education policy and to start afresh. During a speech on Tuesday to the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, Ms. DeVos said the Higher Education Act of 1965 may have outlived its usefulness," The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

"A petition asking Education Secretary Betsy DeVos not to consolidate the nation’s federal student loan service providers has gathered over 18,000 signatures," The Hill reports.

"The nation's largest servicer of federal student loans has lobbied against states' efforts to license student loan servicers in Maine and elsewhere this year as it seeks to become the nation's single servicer of student loans under a plan backed by U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos," The Associated Press reports.

"The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and the Distance Education Accrediting Commission just happened to be the two agencies whose turn it was to appear before the federal panel on accreditation that met here Tuesday," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"For the first time since 2014, the interest rates on federal student loans are going up. Loans disbursed between July 1, 2017, and June 30, 2018, will carry the new rates, which are 0.69 percentage points higher than those of federal loans that have gone out since July 1, 2016," CBS News reports.

"Oscar Hernandez has just one year left before he completes his degree in public policy at Arizona State University. But his education hit a sudden roadblock on Tuesday when the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that undocumented students such as Hernandez are not eligible for lower in-state tuition," The Arizona Republic reports.

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