TG Updates

TG's 2008 Annual Training Conference offers tools to manage regulatory and industry change

If you're feeling challenged or even a bit anxious about the recent changes in the regulatory world, you're not alone. TG offers some support with its 2008 TG Annual Training Conference, a three-day event designed to offer insight about federal regulatory developments and leave you with the technical knowledge to survive and prosper in the coming academic years.

This year's conference, which will be held April 23-25 at the Renaissance Austin Hotel in Austin, Texas, organizes itself around the idea that training — or education, like the kind you help your students receive — lays the foundation for managing your financial aid program well. According to Vickie Tanner, TG's assistant vice president for product training and event management, the theme for this year's conference — 'Training today, Preparing for tomorrow' — encapsulates that idea.

"This year's conference theme speaks to the priority TG places on providing customers with the best in FFELP-related tools and knowledge," said Vickie.

To that end, TG has crafted a series of workshops, breakout sessions, and open forums that offer multiple educational tracks — or series — on various topics like default aversion, program integrity, and college access. Particular sessions are significant given recent changes in the FFELP, including sessions on the impact of new regulations and laws on schools and lenders; developments in the world of Consolidation loans; effective entrance and exit counseling; verification; trends in private loans; and more.

Conference preview
Each year, TG offers a conference experience that is reliable both for the quality of its presenters and the comprehensive content. This year's conference will include events from previous years; however an opening day luncheon has been added as a kick-off for Wednesday at noon.

To give you a sense of the variety of sessions that offer you resources for managing in a changing regulatory landscape, consider the workshop descriptions that follow.

• Verification for Rookies: Do you ever wish you could bat a thousand in the verification ballgame? Verification can be one of the most challenging aspects of a financial aid administrator's job. This session will provide you with the right knowledge and tools so that you hit a home run for every verification. Among other things, you'll learn the purpose and scope of verification, identify what information must be verified, and determine acceptable documentation.
• Consolidation loans — How are they shaping up?: In this session, participants will discuss how the Consolidation Loan Program has been affected by recent legislation. After attending, you will have a better understanding of those changes and how they have affected access to Consolidation loans. You'll also explore available resources for borrowers.
• Federal Update: School Impact: Participants will learn more about the regulatory and legislative changes that affect school policies and operations. Discussion will focus on the final rules and current and upcoming changes mandated by the College Cost Reduction and Access Act (CCRAA).
• Financial Aid and Student Money Management: This session explores an innovative and dynamic collaboration between an established financial aid office and a newly-created financial literacy program that is successfully advancing the money management knowledge and expertise of students. The workshop will focus partly on what financially-related questions students most frequently ask, and what barriers stand in the way of student financial success.
• Collaborative Communication on Campus: Interdepartmental communication between admissions, financial aid, the registrar, business office, and even faculty is critical in maintaining compliance requirements. This session offers a total campus perspective to help all interested parties work together for the common good of the college and its financial aid program.
• Effective Entrance and Exit Counseling: New regulations affect how schools provide entrance and exit counseling. This session will help you learn the new requirements and discover some training tools to help train your staff in the new policy as well as in providing comprehensive entrance and exit counseling for students.

To register and to learn more
Visit TG Online at www.tgslc.org/tgconference/index.cfm to register or to find out more about the 2008 TG Annual Training Conference. Registration fees are waived for school attendees.

If you prefer to speak with someone directly, contact Judith Cunningham at (800) 252-9743, ext. 2905, or send an e-mail message to judith.cunningham@tgslc.org.

  Back to Top

TG and University of Nebraska publish inaugural issue of Enrollment Management Journal

TG has released the first issue of a new scholarly publication developed in collaboration with the University of Nebraska — Lincoln that is a refereed journal on enrollment management.

Enrollment Management Journal: Student Access, Finance, and Success in Higher Education is co-edited by Barbara Y. LaCost and Brent D. Cejda, professors in the Department of Educational Administration at the University of Nebraska — Lincoln. The publication aims to disseminate the work of researchers and college professionals to improve efforts to help schools enroll, retain, and graduate more students.

An initiative of the Council for the Management of Educational Finance, the new refereed journal focuses on issues of student access and success, and the role financial aid plays in whether students achieve their educational goals. Enrollment Management Journal, which is available by subscription, will be published twice this year before becoming a quarterly publication in 2009.

Each issue of the publication will include three sections — Scholarship and Research, From the Field, and Legislative Update. The first section focuses on blind, refereed, empirical or conceptual manuscripts written by academic researchers of enrollment management. The second section highlights campus enrollment management activities or strategies that have proven successful. The Legislative Update presents an overview of higher education legislation enacted by the U.S. Congress or state legislatures, and its ramifications on colleges and universities.

Future issues of Enrollment Management Journal will offer perspectives that provoke action on campuses, scholarly presentations that represent multiple research methodologies, and accounts of successful student retention efforts in selected postsecondary institutions.

To learn more
Additional information for prospective authors can be found at www.tgslc.org/emj, or by contacting Barbara Y. LaCost at (402) 472-0988, or Brent D. Cejda at (402) 472-0989.

About the Council for the Management of Educational Finance Established in 1997, the Council provides leadership in innovative efforts to include default prevention and debt management throughout the higher education community. Seventeen professionals representing institutions and the lending community serve on the Council.

  Back to Top