TG Updates

Meet Tracy Samsel, lead for TG's customer assistance team
Annually, TG’s customer assistance representatives field more than 150,000 customer queries, most by phone but some by letter or . Questions cover many topics, but generally center on policies and procedures of the FFELP as well as TG's services and products, including TG Loans By Web™. To help shape customer assistance into such an effective team, TG relies on financial aid professionals like team lead Tracy Samsel. Equal parts coach and mentor, project director and quality assurance check, Samsel sets the tenor for the team.

Call for papers: TG announces a new publication on enrollment management and requests manuscripts
In December 2007, TG and the Department of Educational Administration at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln will publish the first edition of a refereed journal on enrollment management, titled Enrollment Management Journal: Student Access, Finance, and Success in Higher Education. The journal aims to raise discussion on campus enrollment, retention, and graduation rates, and, ultimately, help improve efforts in all these areas. The journal is now accepting empirical and conceptual manuscripts along with a variety of other material for publication.

TG releases updated Your Guide to Borrowing for Education
The brochure has been updated in accordance with changes required by the Higher Education Act (HEA). On July 1, 2007, loan limits will increase for Federal Subsidized Stafford loans. The brochure’s Stafford Loan Maximums chart details what amounts students can borrow by year and by student type, including graduate and professional students.

Trends and Issues

Wish your graduates well with effective exit counseling
Graduation is around the corner. One of the best graduation gifts you can give your students is exit student loan counseling. A strong session of exit counseling can cement your graduates' understanding of their student loan obligations, or even give them a few tools to secure a brighter financial future.

Question of the week
If a student was enrolled at least half-time in the spring and intends to enroll at least half-time in the fall, but enrolls less than half-time in the summer, is the student covered by the summer bridge extension? Does the school have to provide exit counseling for the student in the summer?

This, That, and the Other...

Two recent studies look closer at the graduation rates of community college students who intend to graduate from a four-year institution. One study tracked 1,700 students who entered community colleges in Ohio in academic year 1998-99. When they began college, these students indicated that they planned to earn four-year degrees. Six years later, only 20.6 percent of them had graduated with a bachelor's degree or were working toward such a degree.

The second paper drew on data from the National Education Longitudinal Study, which tracked thousands of students from 1988 until 2000. The paper focused on a group of 641 students who had entered community college in 1992 and later transferred to four-year institutions as juniors. Once in a four-year setting, the students were just as likely as any student to graduate — coming from a two-year college did not appear to affect their completion rates.

Both studies were recently presented at the American Educational Research Association in Chicago. Neither study is conclusive; however, authors of the reports say their findings underscore the need for state governments, community colleges, and four-year institutions to offer students stronger resources for making a successful transition to four-year schools.

The source for this week's "This, that, and the other" is located at http://chronicle.com/news/article/1985/studies-examine-how-starting-at-a-community-college-affects-the-path-to-a-4-year-degree.

Note that the Chronicle of Higher Education requires a paid subscription to review some content.