TG Speakers Bureau

To schedule a program or to find out more about the TG Speakers Bureau, contact your TG account executive at (800) 892-1357.

New Offerings

Visit this page frequently for the latest updates on new offerings from the TG Speakers Bureau.

Default Aversion

Managing Student Loan Repayment
While students receive information during loan counseling, they often have questions about how loan repayment works. Designed for students and financial aid administrators, this session describes the repayment options available to students as they prepare to enter the workforce. Topics include: taking inventory of your student loans; understanding the available repayment plans (including Income-Based Repayment) and the advantages of each; reviewing the basics of consolidation; and learning about deferment and forbearance.
Transitioning to a 3-year Cohort Default Rate
In this session, participants will learn how a school's cohort default rate (CDR) is calculated and how the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) has impacted CDRs, including how the shift from a 2-year to a 3-year calculation has influenced CDRs. Participants will also learn about the benefits for schools with low default rates and the consequences of higher default rates. The session will also highlight default prevention initiatives to assist schools in managing their CDR.

Financial Literacy

Building a Successful Financial Literacy Program
Many students lack the basic financial literacy skills they need to successfully manage their personal finances. Student aid professionals can help students manage their money and make smarter financial choices through campus-based financial literacy programs. This interactive workshop will provide participants with critical information and skills they need in order to create and sustain such an initiative. Participants will learn tips and strategies for developing their own financial literacy initiatives. They'll also learn how to identify areas for improvement, take away best practices from specific case studies, and hear about TG's financial literacy tools and solutions.

Industry Basics

IBR Basics
By now, many within the financial aid community have heard of Income-Based Repayment (IBR), the new student loan repayment plan that became available to FFELP and Direct Loan borrowers beginning July 1, 2009. IBR will benefit certain borrowers by minimizing monthly payments and by providing loan forgiveness in some cases. Educating borrowers about this repayment plan and its benefits, through the loan counseling process and other information dissemination efforts, will provide the key to realizing IBR's full potential. This session presents a high-level introduction to the IBR plan, including how borrowers qualify for IBR, the forgiveness component of IBR, the benefits IBR provides to the borrower and the school, and ideas for educating borrowers about IBR.
Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP)
To be eligible for FSA funds, a student must make satisfactory academic progress — that seems simple enough. However, the duality of SAP's quantitative and qualitative standards complicated by frequency, consistency, and consumer information requirements can confound anyone. This session unravels SAP's complexity, addresses special situations, and explains the issues of regaining eligibility.

Building and Managing Teams

Leading Your Team through Challenging Times
Ever feel like change is happening too quickly in your Financial Aid Office? Are you facing budget cuts and reduced FTEs? Struggling with industry issues or switching to a new FAMS? To learn ways of leading your team through challenging times like these, TG provides a fun, interactive exercise. This program provides participants with an opportunity to guide their teams through a challenging scenario, working both individually and in small groups. This exercise is designed to show how, when functioning as a team, the group can outperform the individual. Do you and your team have what it takes to prioritize competing tasks and successfully weather these volatile times? Come find out!

Communication

What’s My Communication Style?
What’s My Communication Style? is a fun, interactive workshop designed to help participants discover the strengths and weaknesses of different communication styles. Using an assessment, participants will learn their preference for one of four communication styles, identify the various facets of communication, and learn how to use their own style to improve communication with students, parents, and their colleagues in the higher education industry. (Note that class size is limited to a maximum of 30 participants.)

Effective Work Habits

Best Practices in Customer Service
Based on years of in-depth research with financial aid administrators, TG has developed a list of customer service principles specifically for financial aid offices. In this interactive workshop hosted by TG, participants will share their expertise to identify specific steps and procedures that have proven successful when implementing customer service principles. Participants will take away dozens of best practices and a copy of TG's new publication, Customer Service in Financial Aid, which reinforces the link between customer service and student recruitment and retention.
Trends in Financial Aid
Changes are happening in the financial aid industry. Required skill sets, desired staff qualifications, the scope of job responsibilities, staff diversity, technology, ethical paradigms, and organizational structures have all changed. If they haven’t in your office, they probably need to. In this session we will have an open discussion about what’s happening in the industry and why and give participants a chance to sound off on what’s happening in their office. This program is designed for financial aid association conferences or regional events where multiple schools are present.
Working with You Is Killing Me™: Freeing Yourself from Emotional Traps at Work
Feeling caught — or "hooked" — in an emotionally distressing situation at work? This session helps participants "unhook" from emotional pitfalls in the financial aid office as well as manage difficult personalities.