Get Planning: Share A Trifecta of Federal Burdens Will Affect Student Loans Sooner Than You Think
Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time. Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.
SCUP Link When the new CDR formula is implemented, campuses may face a no-win situation. Even if federal sanctions are avoided, the campus may be pummeled by public opinion. Cohort default rates are published in the media nationwide. The public lacks a precise understanding of CDRs, and they may make snap judgments about institutional quality from default rates. Missing from the factual picture may be the number of students who actually borrow, the dollar amount of loans in default, or how one campus compares to a similar institution serving similar students . . .
Schools must also tread carefully on the origination side of student loans as they help borrowers obtain federal and private student loans. New regulations go into effect on July 1st, and many schools are questioning how much – if any – assistance they should provide to students trying to choose a student loan that works best for them. Investigations by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo led to new federal and state laws that increase disclosures to students and place strict restrictions on how schools help borrowers find and choose lenders . . .
The burden of compliance completes a trifecta of institutional liability. Schools that try to save money by shortchanging compliance could be leaving themselves and their students open to major disruptions in financial aid. Using financial aid as the carrot, the government regulates everything from student housing to campus safety. The safety regulations even define the term “fire.” (Any instance of open flame or other burning not intended to contain the burning or in an uncontrolled manner.”)
SCUP's Planning Institute: Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers while you engage in one of the three SCUP Planning Institute Steps. In addition to being offered on demand, on campuses to teams of campus leaders, the institute steps are also offered to all professionals at varying times and venues. Currently scheduled are: - May 22–23, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
- July 10, Minneapolis, MN - Step I (in conjunction with SCUP–45)
- October 2, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
- January 21–22, Tuscon, AZ - Step II and Step III
Labels: compliance, federal policy, student loans
Summary of Education Provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010
Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time. Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.
SCUP Link As you probably know, there were some postsecondary education related items within the total package of provisions recently passed by the U.S. Senate and House. The American Council on Education (ACE) has published this summary of the pertinent education-related positions: Summary of Education Provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (PDF). Those provisions include: 100 Percent Direct Lending; Pell Grants Changes & Increases; Investment in HBCUs, HSIs, and Tribal Colleges; Community College and Career Training Grant Program; College Access Challenge Grants; Income-Based Repayment; Technical Assistance for Institutions; Perskins Loan Program; State Not-for-Profit Servicing Contracts; and Loan Servicing Jobs in the United States.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: - April 5–7, San Diego, CA - "Smart Planning in an Era of Uncertainty"
- April 7, Houston, TX - "Sustaining Higher Education in an Age of Challenge"
Labels: federal policy, HCER, health care reform, recession, student aid, student loans
Most Graduates’ Debt Load Is Manageable
According to a new College Board policy brief, “People think students are drowning in debt, and there is a small proportion of students that borrow an exorbitant amount, but most students graduate with a manageable debt load,' . . . bachelor’s degree recipients who did borrow, the median loan debt was $19,999, up 5 percent from $18,973 four years earlier."As was the case four years ago, about one-third of all graudating seniors have accumulated no debt at all. This link to a New York Times article; this one to the policy brief itself.Labels: access, affordability, cost, debt, student loans
Tying Pell Grants to Inflation to Maintain Purchasing Power?
Need a College Loan? Ask Your Friends Online.
Somehow, we expect that to some people, using your social networks to get money for college might sound like, well, socialism. Hmm. This article specifically examines GreenNote's business model and use by students, as well as CollegeDegreeFund, CharityforDebt, and GradeFund. We've been using Kiva.org to make microloans in developing countries and this sort of feels the same. As higher-education costs rise and families feel the squeeze on traditional sources for college funding, students are on the hunt for innovative ways to pay their bills. In addition to loan websites like GreenNote, other sites are cropping up where students can raise donations for college. Easy money? What's the catch? Some of the gifts come in exchange for earning good grades or for performing nonprofit volunteer work. And so far, the aura of potential on these sites is much greater than the actual money flow. In the near-term, at least, it appears unlikely that enough donors or lenders will come forward to meet even a fraction of the clamor for cash. In fact, traffic to peer-lending sites may be driven, in part, by a lack of information about resources available to students and parents, financial-aid experts say.
Labels: affordability, financial crisis, student aid, student loans, trends
Colleges Scramble to Help Cash-Strapped Students
We guess that even a "cash-strapped" college has more liquidity than a cash-strapped student? Facing job losses, dwindling college-investment accounts, and a tight credit market, students and parents have been streaming into financial-aid offices, asking for adjustments to their aid packages. Colleges are trying to help, but as the second semester starts up, some students have had no choice but to drop out or scale back the number of classes they're taking.
To expand financial aid, many colleges are cutting back on hiring, and construction projects are going on hold. Some institutions are getting creative on the fundraising front – think special appeals to alumni. Another tactic: Some colleges are offering leniency to students with unpaid balances.
School officials thought the trouble would hit this past fall. Instead, overall enrollments were "perfectly normal," says Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) in Washington. But now, he says, "people are apparently running out of steam."
Midyear departures are particularly disruptive. Schools create budgets based on enrollments for the year. And for students, "it's very hard, having done one semester, to then [temporarily stop or transfer] and not end up losing a lot of credits and a lot of time," Mr. Nassirian says.
Nearly a quarter of private colleges and universities and 13 percent of publics expect second-semester retention to be worse than last year's, according to a survey of 214 chief financial officers by The Chronicle of Higher Education and Moody's Investors Service. Labels: affordability, cost, credit crunch, financial crisis, student loans, tuition
Wobbly Time for College Tuition
"For this academic year, the average sticker price of four-year colleges was up less than 1 percent over inflation, and financial aid was up about 5.5 percent over inflation in 2007-08." So, these two new reports from the College Board are good news! But according to this article there could also be some pretty bad news, too, possibly resulting in a reversal of those trends: Based on what's happened in past recessions, tough budget periods are now anticipated at both public and private colleges. On the public side, at least 17 states have already handed down budget cuts to their higher-education systems, which "will likely mean tuition increases," says Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education, a research and advocacy group in Washington. "Even the places where the governor is trying to protect higher education, they're still going to take a big haircut," she says. Labels: cost, financial crisis, student loans, tuition
NAICU Survey Finds Impact from Student Loan Crunch, but No Widespread Loan Crisis for Fall 2008 Semester
NAICU surveyed its 953 member institutions about the effect of the credit crunch on student loan availability for ths current semester. Good news: Not much of a strong impact, yet. Here's the press release and here's the full report. This quote is from the press release: While there was no widespread student loan crisis this fall, there were multiple instances of students taking time off of school, switching to part-time status, and turning to alternative forms of financial support, according to the results of a survey conducted by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. The survey, released today, also found a considerable amount of behind-the-scenes scrambling by private colleges to keep loan capital flowing to their students.
"In the main, the survey shows that independent higher education and our students weathered the student loan crunch through September," said NAICU President David L. Warren. "To varying degrees, individual students and institutions were impacted by the crunch, but no widespread access crisis materialized in the first half of the fall semester.
"However, the full-blown effects of the credit crunch and the nation's economic struggles are yet unknown," Warren said. "It is impossible to predict the possible future consequences of the nation's continuing economic struggles on students and colleges." Labels: credit, credit crunch, finances, financial crisis, student loans
Commercial Education Companies Scrambling to Cope With Credit Squeeze
The subprime trouble leaks into everything: "Not everyone believes that retrenchment in commercial education would be bad. 'High-risk borrowers with low academic achievement who are pursuing post-secondary training should not go to expensive, low-quality proprietary schools,' said Michael Dannenberg, director for education policy at the New America Foundation in Washington. 'They would be better off going to community colleges, which are lower cost and open enrollment, for the most part.'" Labels: economy, for-profit, student loans
Lots of Action (or, at least news) About Student Loans
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