Federal Updates

Help for schools affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
Last week, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced additional grant funding for schools affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The $30 million in grant funds, awarded under the Hurricane Education Recovery Awards program authorized by the Higher Education Act, will be used to construct or renovate facilities, provide grants for students that would have been covered by lost revenue, and fund faculty and staff positions.

Changes in FAFSA distribution
Citing a steady decrease in the submission rate of the paper FAFSA versus the FAFSA on the Web (FOTW), ED has released an Electronic Announcement notifying schools that the 2008-09 paper FAFSA will not be available for ordering via FSAPubs.

TG Updates

Read about the largest and growing segment of students — the "nontraditional" kind — in TG's Edufacts™
According to a study by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the typical first-year undergraduate isn’t what we might normally identify as a run-of-the-mill freshman. These days, three-quarters of all undergraduate students may delay enrollment after high school graduation, attend college part time, work full time, or have one or more children.

Can your students pass the financial fitness test? Help them with this four-step model
Each fall, you probably encounter at least one or two students just learning the basics of money management. For these students, the financial aid check means more than ready cash for tuition and books — it also means getting a crash course in handling their finances responsibly and strategically. Luckily, TG offers some readymade training in financial literacy that you and your students can take advantage of.

Scholarship connection: Offer your students help in their funding search with AIE™
AIE's Scholarship Search contains information on more than 10,000 scholarships with a combined value of more than $7 billion. Among other things, the search feature offers students a variety of key information about scholarships, including award amounts, deadlines, sponsor and/or contact information, the number of awards offered, and the type of award.

Your instant conference planner: TG's Events Calendar
TG offers its own form of a "conference planner" with its Events Calendar, a Web page listing of important industry-related trainings, including TG's annual schedule of conferences.

Trends and Issues

Question of the week
What are the conditions under which loan proration is necessary?

This, That, and the Other...

A recent College Board study provides the statistical back-up for what many in higher education already believe, even base their careers on. According the organization's report — "Education Pays 2007: The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society" — a college degree enriches both students and society as a whole. Education helps the individual in the form of better wages and more benefits; and it serves the interests of the common culture, since college graduates are more likely to volunteer, vote, and contribute to the overall health of a community by, for example, donating blood.

The report — the latest in an annual series from the College Board — finds that benefits increase with each degree an individual earns. According to the organization, "almost 70 percent of full-time employees with at least a bachelor's degree have access to pension plans while only 53 percent of high school graduates have that access. The percentage drops to 32 for employees who do not have a high school degree."

At the same time, society benefits as levels of unemployment and poverty go down. Also, the report notes that an education contributes to socially-valuable behavior like tolerance for the opinions of others.

While noting the many positive aspects of an education, the report also points to the continuing disparity in college access across demographic groups. Immediately after high school, more graduates from the highest income bracket enroll in college than those from the lowest bracket. The study also shows significant differences in college enrollment related to ethnicity.

You can learn more about the report and find a link to a copy of it at www.collegeboard.com/press/releases/185478.html.