Federal Updates

ED secretary launches Task Force on Student Loans
Today, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced via press release that she is forming a Task Force on Student Loans "to recommend regulations to the Secretary on key lender issues."

Three negotiated rulemaking teams conclude; one achieves consensus
Last week, three teams finished their last sessions of deliberations with ED in the process of negotiated rulemaking (Neg Reg). Unfortunately, only one team, the General Provisions team, achieved consensus on the proposed rules developed by ED based on the team's discussions.

ED shuts down NSLDS access for certain Title IV participants
On April 18, ED suspended access to the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) for financial partners — lenders and guarantors — while ED examines the database in order to "determine if there was unauthorized use of NSLDS".

TG Updates

Three new members join TG's Board of Directors
Three new members have joined TG's Board of Directors following unanimous confirmation by the Texas State Senate. Phil W. Worley of Bruni, Dr. Connie S. Sitterly of Fort Worth, and Ivan Arturo Andarza of Austin — who were appointed by Gov. Rick Perry — will serve six-year terms that expire in January 2013.

2007 TG Conference earns stellar survey scores
The 2007 TG Conference was an unmitigated success according to all indicators — high attendance levels, stellar customer satisfaction scores, and the many praising comments, which participants made throughout the event.

Trends and Issues

Sticky situations: Increasing loan amounts
In this edition of Shoptalk Online, we offer another installment in our series on difficult policy issues that come up occasionally in the Title IV programs (see previous articles in editions 384, 390, and 394). This article will present several common scenarios involving a student's request for an increased loan amount after the school has already certified the student's original loan.

Question of the week
A school has a summer term with two mini-sessions, and considers the summer to be a single standard term with a single payment period. A student is enrolled in both mini-sessions at three hours each (for a total of six hours; thus, at least half-time). The student's school has certified a Stafford loan for the student for the full summer term. May the school deliver the student's funds at the beginning of the first mini-session? And if so, what happens if the student does not attend the second summer mini-session?

Legislative Update

The First Session of the 110th Congress is in the final stages of approving a FY 2008 budget resolution by the end of April. After that, both chambers' appropriations committees will begin crafting their eleven FY 2008 appropriations bills. Either as a part of this process, or through stand-alone legislation, the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act will also begin in earnest. To learn more about these developments and about education legislation under current review, read the full report on TG Online at www.tgslc.org/lege_report/index.cfm.

This, That, and the Other...

Community college enrollment growth is coming increasingly from online students, leading many institutions to create extensive online student service operations.

Those are some of the findings from a new study on e-learning in community colleges, conducted by the Instructional Technology Council, a group of nearly 500 colleges — almost all of them two-year institutions — with a strong interest in online education.

According to the survey — completed by 320 institutions, a representative sample of community colleges nationally — online enrollments had increased by 15 percent on average over the last year, during a period when community colleges' total enrollment was up by 2 percent.

In addition, 70 percent of responding institutions reported that there was more student demand for distance learning than they could meet.

Read the complete Inside Higher Ed article on the survey at www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/16/aacc.