Federal Updates

Closed school corner
The Department of Education announces one new closure and one correction.

TG Updates

TG is a one-stop shop for Consolidation loans
Since its inception, student loan consolidation has been based on the premise of simplicity and convenience: a borrower can combine multiple loans and thus make one payment to one lender at one interest rate. TG makes convenience a priority in all its guarantee and support services, whatever the loan type — Stafford, PLUS, or Consolidation. If you're looking for a guarantor that can provide you and your borrowers with a one-stop shop for consolidation services, consider TG.

TG upgrading mainframe infrastructure
To provide increased capacity and reliability for TG's customer products, TG is upgrading its mainframe infrastructure.

Mapping Your Future™ honors TG team member at annual conference
During the 2007 Annual Conference held in Colorado recently, TG’s assistant vice president for communications Michael Gee received an MYF Award of Excellence. Michael has worked with MYF since the inception of the program in 1996.

Trends and Issues

Question of the week
A school that uses summer as a trailer to its scheduled academic year wants to award a second-year student his or her full Stafford annual loan limit in the summer term — because the student didn't borrow in the prior fall or spring. The school has already certified for the student the current Stafford base annual loan limit of $3,500. Since the summer term includes, i.e., crosses over, July 1, 2007, can the school increase the certified amount to $4,500 to take advantage of the increased Stafford base annual loan limits that are effective this July 1?

Common Manual

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

This, That, and the Other...

Federal agencies are offering student loan repayments to attract and keep highly qualified employees. The FBI spent nearly $17 million on student loan repayment benefits for 1,900 employees in FY 2006. The Pentagon provided more than $4.6 million in student loan repayments to 1,383 employees, including 198 mechanical engineers, 128 nuclear engineers and 94 electronics engineers.

A report recently sent to Congress on the federal student loan repayment program showed that spending for loan repayments has grown by tenfold since the program's rules were revamped in late 2001.

Under the program, agencies may provide up to $10,000 a year to employees who sign an agreement to remain at their agencies for at least three years. The lifetime maximum that can be provided is $60,000.

The report, prepared by the Office of Personnel Management, showed that 34 agencies in FY 2006 spent about $35.9 million on the benefit, providing an average loan repayment of $6,245 to 5,755 employees. Compared with FY 2005, that represented a 31 percent increase in the number of employees in the program and a 28 percent increase in spending.

To read the entire Washington Post article on the government's student loan repayment program, visit www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001651.html?hpid=topnews?hpid=topnews.