Federal Updates

Closed school corner
The Department of Education announces two new closures.

Current special allowance rates: Quarter ending September 30, 2007
Special allowance rates for the quarter ending September 30, 2007, are now available.

TG Updates

College Cost Reduction and Access Act training event rescheduled
TG’s College Cost Reduction and Access Act (CCRAA) webinar has been rescheduled. Please join us on the new date and time for this timely and informative training — Tuesday, October 16, from 1:00-2:30 p.m. CST.

Ray De Anda, a TG customer relationship specialist, serves up financial aid expertise in Spanish and English
This Christmas, Ray De Anda, a TG customer relationship specialist, will mark his 17th year with TG's customer assistance team — a testament to his loyalty to customers and to the challenge he finds in the complicated field of financial aid.

Spotlight on TG's Public Benefit Program: Saved By The Bell Academic Intervention Program
Statistics paint a difficult picture for many students of Bibb County, Georgia. According to census data, 57 percent of resident families live at or below the poverty line and only 27 percent of adults have a bachelor’s degree. The county also has a population of about 1,300 school-age youth in the custody of Child Protective Services and Child Placement Services. For these young people, many factors work against their graduating from high school and going on to college. The Middle Georgia Center for Academic Excellence has developed an intervention program especially for this group called Saved By The Bell.

Trends and Issues

Management workshop: The essential manager's skill — listening
Listening involves the all-important ability of comprehension — perceiving and understanding the meaning in what you’re being told. If you’re managing a team of coworkers with varied jobs and personalities, you’ll soon learn how valuable it is to perfect your listening skill. With it, you’ll be able to understand and speak to the needs of others, set a direction for your team that all understand, or defuse potential conflicts.

Question of the week
A student increases grade level at the end of the fall semester, and requests a corresponding increase in his or her Stafford loan amount in the spring semester. Can the school increase the original loan amount even if the loan has been partially or fully disbursed? Or would the additional amount have to be certified as a new loan?

This, That, and the Other...

The College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 (H.R. 2669) promises a large increase in federal student aid over the next several years as well as lower interest rates on need-based loans and larger Pell Grant scholarships. These changes will be funded largely by cutting lender subsidies on specific types of loans. To help illustrate the increase in aid and offer students a tool for computing what they'll save, the U.S. Workforce Committee on Education and Labor has put together an interactive website.

The website offers a roll-over map showing a state by state breakdown of student benefits. By moving your mouse over each state, you can see the total aid increase for that state as well as the average savings per student by interest rates cut and the number of projected Pell recipients. In another section, students can answer a series of questions to find out how much they will save, given the amount of subsidized loans, number of years to repay those loans, and the projected number of years in school.

You can find this interactive resource at http://edworkforce.house.gov/college/.