Significant changes made to incentive compensation rules
ED has made substantial changes to current rules on "incentive compensation" to clearly prohibit any incentive-based payments by schools to a person or entity involved in student recruitment, admissions, or financial aid awards, including management personnel responsible for these activities.

Stronger rules on misrepresentation
The Program Integrity final rules seek to strengthen ED's regulatory enforcement authority against a school that engages in substantial misrepresentation, by providing more specific, clear, and comprehensive guidance in the federal regulations.

New requirement to evaluate the validity of a high school diploma
Effective July 1, 2011, the Program Integrity final rules require a school to develop and follow procedures to evaluate the validity of a student's high school diploma if the school or ED has reason to believe that the high school diploma is not valid or was not obtained from an entity that provides secondary school education.

Legislative update
The recent General Election has created a split government that may make it difficult to pass any higher education-related legislative reform, at a time when the industry faces such potential challenges as increasing student loan default rates, implementing cost-control measures to address funding shortages, and school risk-sharing (which was previously addressed by guarantors and lenders for schools participating in the FFELP). The one student financial aid topic likely to garner the most attention in the next two years will be funding for the federal Pell Grant program, which again is facing funding shortages based on increasing enrollments as many Americans return to school due to a sagging economy and a difficult labor market.

TG releases NSLDS submittal schedule for 2011
TG's data reporting team has released the TG National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) reporting schedule for 2011.

Using IDA℠ to reach out to Spanish-speaking borrowers
TG has released a redesigned version of its Integrated Default Assistant℠ (IDA℠), a multipurpose tool that helps schools track their cohort default rate (CDR) and communicate with borrowers who have delinquent student loans.

A perspective on default management trends: Q&A with TG's Shelia Dunlap
Effectively managing default has been a continuing challenge for many institutions, and recent industry changes and trends in student loan default have elevated conversations and expanded research into the topic. Shoptalk recently sat down with Shelia Dunlap, TG's assistant vice president for default prevention, to gain her perspective on some of the trends in student loan default.

On-demand training: Using webinar recordings on TG Online
TG offers an assortment of webinar trainings that provide insight on industry and policy issues as well as TG products. TG Online has a "TG Webinars" Web page to help schools, lenders, and servicers register for upcoming webinars and provide quick access to archived webinars.