Federal Updates

• Newly Approved Teacher Loan Forgiveness and Unpaid Refund Discharge Forms
  The wait is finally over. The Department of Education (ED) recently published Dear Guaranty Agency Director Letter GEN-01-15 announcing the approval of highly anticipated forbearance, forgiveness, and discharge forms.
• PLUS App/Prom Note Extended Again
  The expiration date for the Application and Promissory Note for Federal PLUS Loan has been extended again. As announced in the July 2001 issue of Shoptalk, the form, which was originally set to expire on July 31, 2001, was extended for three months to October 31, 2001.
• Deadline Extended for Child Care Forgiveness
  The Child Care Provider Loan Forgiveness Program (CCPLFP) deadline has been extended. According to the Department of Education's (ED's) website at www.ed.gov/studentaid/payback.html, "Contrary to the previously published deadline of September 17, 2001, borrowers may continue to submit 2001 applications for forgiveness until the available funds are exhausted."
• NSLDS Is In, FATs Are Out
  With the spring semester quickly approaching, many aid offices are beginning to package financial aid for mid-year transfer students (also called current-year transfers).
• Correction
  In the November 6, 2001, issue of Shoptalk Online, in the article titled "TG Offers Support for Electronic Signatures," TG mistakenly printed the following sentence under the subheading Lender Interface: "To facilitate the data exchange, lenders must build a CommonLine 5 interface to be able to receive an Application Send File from TG."

TG Updates

• TG Offers Online Distance Education Resource
  Distance education has been around for a long time—in the forms of correspondence courses and closed circuit television.
• Seventh Annual FAFSA Teleconference Scheduled
  TG is gearing up for Financial Aid Awareness month by making plans for the seventh annual FAFSA Teleconference scheduled for Thursday, February 7, 2002.
• EAS Launches Student Focused Online Recruitment website Called JobGusher™
  If you've been searching for the perfect online recruitment service for students, you've found it.

Trends and Issues

• Two-year Colleges May Apply for .edu Internet Addresses
  A recent rule change by the U.S. Department of Commerce now makes .edu web addresses available to two-year colleges.

Texas Legislative Report

• The November 7 edition of TG’s Legislative Report includes a federal appropriations update and a couple of articles relating to interim charges issued to the Higher Education Committee and the Senate Education Committee for the 78th Texas Legislature. In addition, the edition includes an article about a distance learning website recently launched by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Find out more at http://www.tgslc.org/tgslc/publications/lege_report/
  2001/lr_011107.cfm.

Common Manual

• Common Manual Updates
  Information on recent updates to the Common Manual.

This, That, and the Other

• According to The College Board's recently released Trends in Student Aid 2001, "Loan aid has increased by 136 percent during the past decade in constant dollars, while grant aid has increased by 64 percent...Over the past quarter century, federal student aid has drifted from a grant-based to a loan-based system, producing a sea change in the way many students and families finance postsecondary education."
  
  For additional information about the evolution of the federal aid programs, you can view Trends in Student Aid 2001 in its entirety at http://www.collegeboard.org/press/cost01/html/TrendsSA01.pdf.

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