Federal Updates

Neg Reg begins
Over the last couple of weeks, members from various sectors of the financial aid and higher education communities have gathered in Washington, D.C., to participate in the first sessions of the 2007-08 negotiated rulemaking (Neg Reg) process. Unlike last year's Neg Reg, which addressed a wide variety of issues affecting our industry, this year's teams will focus on only two areas, the TEACH Grant Program and student loan issues.

TG Updates

Stanley joins TG as director of student persistence and success
Elizabeth Holland Stanley has been named TG's new director of student persistence and success. She has 14 years of experience in college enrollment and higher education services.

New TG training model merges default aversion and student retention
TG and the Council for the Management of Educational Finance have issued a second edition of "A Clear and Present Danger to Institutional and Student Success: A training model for embedding student loan default aversion within strategic enrollment management."

Make sure your students understand alternative loans with TG's new brochure
Given the multitude of alternative loan packages on the market, TG created a tool to help educate your students and borrowers — the Alternative Loans brochure.

Trends and Issues

Question of the week
Does a PLUS borrower have to file a FAFSA?

Legislative Update

During the second session of the 110th Congress, the remainder of the HEA stands a good chance of being reauthorized. The last comprehensive HEA reauthorization was in 1998. Though the calendar for this congressional session is crowded, comes with a shortened timeline, and takes place during a General Election year, the HEA reauthorization job should get done in short order. There are two bills before the Congress that propose to reauthorize the HEA — S 1642 (The Higher Education Amendments of 2007) and HR 4137 (The College Opportunity and Access Act of 2007). The final bill that will be passed and signed into law this year will be a compromise bill. Learn more about ongoing developments by reading the complete Legislative Report at www.tgslc.org/lege_report/2008/lr_080109.cfm.

This, That, and the Other...

Web video opens a new form for scholars looking to participate in an increasingly visual culture. Big Think™, a new Web site, hopes to be "a YouTube for ideas." The site offers interviews with academics, authors, politicians, and other thinkers. Most of the subjects are filmed in front of a plain white background, and the interviews are chopped into bite-sized pieces of just a few minutes each. The short clips could have been served up as text quotes, but Big Think believes video is more engaging.

YouTube™ wants to be a venue for academe also. In the past few months, several colleges have signed agreements with the site to set up official "channels." The University of California at Berkeley was the first, and the University of Southern California, the University of New South Wales, in Australia, and Vanderbilt University soon followed.

YouTube was surprised by how popular the colleges' content has been. Lectures are long, after all, while most popular YouTube videos run just a few minutes. Yet some lectures on Berkeley's channel scored 100,000 viewers each, and people were sitting through the whole talks.

Learn more about the growing popularity of Web video lectures at http://chronicle.com/free/2008/01/1159n.htm.