TG Updates

TG announces Fall 2005 Lender and Servicer Training Webinar
Join your colleagues on Friday, Sept. 16, 2005, from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. CDT for an afternoon of online training and support specifically geared to student loan lending and servicer professionals.

Meet Ken Garcia, business integration team coordinator
When schools and lenders begin using TG's electronic products, they get more than just great software for application and loan processing — they get an entire team of specialized staff for training and support.

Skill builders: How to lead like Santa Claus
Learning how Santa Claus manages his workshop year-round in order to meet the high demands of a single season is a valuable tool for any manager, but is especially relevant to those in the financial aid office.

Question of the week
Does the 30-day delayed disbursement rule apply to first-time PLUS loan borrowers?

Trends and Issues

The "in-school" consolidation aftermath: Lender reporting of underlying loan statuses
Shoptalk Online continues its series on the implications of the in-school consolidation rush that occurred earlier this summer. This week's article concerns the reporting of loan statuses when processing a Consolidation loan.

Mapping Your Future™ encourages schools to regularly retrieve Online Student Loan Counseling records
Schools must maintain documentation substantiating compliance with ED loan counseling regulations, 34 CFR 682.604 (f) and (g), for each borrower. For security reasons, Mapping Your Future's Online Student Loan Counseling (OSLC) notification s provide very limited information regarding the counseling session. However, the counseling record obtained from the website's secure Financial Aid Offices (FAO) Access Area provides all information collected on each student form at the conclusion of each counseling session. Therefore, Mapping Your Future recommends that schools retain a copy of the OSLC confirmation record in each student's file.

This, That, and the Other...

In the financial aid community, the name Stafford is associated with the Federal Stafford Loan Program. But do you know for whom the program is named?

Robert T. Stafford is most noted as a statesman who served the public for more than 30 years before retiring from the U.S. Senate in 1988. Stafford received his law degree from Boston University in 1938 and is a naval veteran of both World War II and the Korean War. Stafford held every major statewide office in Vermont, including governor and U. S. representative, before becoming a U. S. senator.

During his time in Congress, Stafford was an advocate of the Superfund law that was passed in response to several environmental disasters in the late 1970s. In addition, he sponsored the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, comprehensive disaster relief legislation that joined individual disaster relief directives under one law. Finally, Stafford was a strong advocate of improving higher education accessibility. As a tribute to his advocacy, in 1989 the government renamed the Guaranteed Student Loan Program the Federal Stafford Loan Program in his honor.