<p>BREAKING NEWS
Houses Passes Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act with Amendments
The House of Representatives passed H.R. 3221, the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009, this afternoon by a 253 to 171 vote. The bill would use savings from eliminating the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) to bolster the Pell Grant program, fund a new Federal Direct Perkins Loan program, and increase funding in other higher education and K12 programs. “While the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act is not the perfect bill, it demonstrates that lawmakers and the Obama administration are committed to removing financial barriers to higher education to ensure students realize their potential and help the U.S. remain a leader in the global economy,” NASFAA Interim President and CEO Joan Crissman said in a statement. “We look forward to working with lawmakers to improve this bill as it moves through the legislative process.”</p>
<p>Don’t get too excited … the recent changes I have seen to aid programs have made things MORE difficult. Year-round Pell is ridiculously confusing. If that is how aid is being streamlined, our rule makers are hopelessly out of touch with reality.</p>
<p>From what i could understand the FFELP will be replaced by all direct loans. Is that right? My daughter’s school does DL already and it seems more straightforward from our side of things. I do wonder how the CC I go to will manage with a change in system - getting the Stafford sorted out is so much more complicated there than the DL at my daughter’s school. My sons g/f and my loan both did not get certified properly this semester so have been delayed by a couple of weeks. Happened to a bunch of people and the school is not sure what went wrong (I gather the certifying is something from the school’s end?).</p>
<p>Interesting about the year round Pell. I was hoping my daughter would get the summer Pell if she decides to do summer classes next summer.</p>
<p>It will be interesting to see how long loan disbursements are delayed because of this change. With the legal requirement making all schools transfer to Direct Loans by July , 2010, loans wil probably be delayed. The last time there was a major rush into Direct, some schools faced delays up to 6 months…can you imagine the problems this is going to cause for students who rely on some of the funding to cover the costs of living?</p>
<p>As an FAA, I am concerned about how long it will take to get my staff trained to process loans using Direct…we’ve always been a FFELP school. Any longer than 2 months wait time to get fuly trained and my institution will automatically fall 4 months behind in loan processing.</p>
<p>This could be an absolute nightmare for FAO’s and students alike.</p>
<p>Direct loans are so much easier in the long run though I’m sure it’ll be a nightmare during the change. If they really wanted to help low income students, they’d allow summer Pell to be used at the lower cost CC’s and public U’s instead of making the kids take classes through the college where they’re matriculated. There’s generally no housing available during summer sessions and it’s just not a practical option unless the home college offers the needed classes online.</p>
<p>The requirement that students be enrolled in a degree-seeking program in order to receive aid is what keeps students from getting the summer Pell at another, lower-cost school near home. </p>
<p>Year round Pell is a good idea, but there are some rules that make it hard to explain to students & hard for students to figure out what they’ll actually get. Basically, all students can receive 100% of their scheduled annual award during a school year. After the first 100%, a student can get another 100% … maybe. Trimester schools will only be able to disburse 150%. Students cannot receive any of the second 100% if they aren’t enrolled at least half time. In addition, schools have to go back & see how many hours a student actually COMPLETED (not enrolled in) during the terms in which he completed the first 100%. If the student did not actually complete enough credits to have earned a year’s worth of credits (as defined by the school for a financial aid year), the student is not eligible to receive the second 100%.</p>
<p>Direct loans are easier in the long run for schools … but there are many operational changes that must be made when making the switch. That’s what makes it tough. We switched last year. We were fortunate in that we were using software that made it relatively easy to make the switch … but every student had to complete entrance counseling again & sign a new MPN. You’d think that’s an easy thing, but it wasn’t.</p>
<p>Any chance they might amend the regs to allow students to take courses that would apply/transfer to the program they’re matriculated in? That would be so much more cost effective - even if it came in the form of a refund after the credits transferred to the degree granting program. Seems it would also allow the student to concentrate fewer courses per semester and perhaps have a more successful college experience. Are they overlooking the number of Pell eligible students who drop/fail classes?</p>
<p>Sounds like you will have fun with the year round Pell!</p>
<p>So to get another 100% would a student have to take 24 hours in the summer? To make it like another full year? That would be pretty demanding. Actually at my daughter’s school you can only take 12 hours in the summer without doing a ‘petition for excessive hours’. She did 13 hours this summer and had to petition. </p>
<p>I did a summer live math class and an online computer class. The math class was three weeks and did a whole semesters math in that 3 weeks. It was intense! For tests it was easier in some ways as they came very soon after learning the material. I am good at math and got an A but really felt I didn’t master some of the stuff the way I would have in a semester course. The online class wasn’t so bad.</p>
<p>No … the student has to have completed a year’s worth of credits in order to become eligible for the second 100% of their 200%. And if they do become eligible for the second 100%, they will only get it if they are enrolled at least half time at that time. The second 100%, if the student gets it, works like the first – other than the fact that the student in this case must take at least 6 credits. It’s confusing. At this point, the regs aren’t even fully passed … but we have to act like they are & do what we THINK they will say we must do, as it is retroactive to July 1, 2009. </p>
<p>Another part of the proposed YRP regs is this one: Say it’s next summer. If a student has both 2009-10 and 2010-11 FAFSAs on file at a school during the summer term, the school must use the EFC that will be most beneficial to the individual student. The school will be required to pay Pell for the summer term using the lower EFC. So summer Pell will either be the first 100% (if the 2010-11 EFC is lower) … or the second 100% (if 2009-10 is lowerr & the student has already received the first 100% for the year). Of course, if the 2009-10 was lower but the student didn’t complete a year’s worth of credits during the terms in which he received the first 100%, we would have to use the higher 2010-11 EFC because it would be to the student’s benefit. Of course, we don’t know how yet loans would play into that … would we be required to use the Pell EFC for loans & then the eligibility for loans comes into play because of annual limits. Yikes … I get a headache every time I look down the road. When I say that recent financial aid changes are NOT making things more simple, I am not kidding!</p>
<p>When you say it is retroactive to July 2009 that would be for schools that include summer as part of the following year right? Not schools that include summer as part of the preceding year. My daughter did summer classes 5 hours in June and 8 hours in July but her school includes summer as part of the previous school year so I’m guessing we’re not likely to see a Summer Pell suddenly appear for last summer. </p>
<p>Actually we were pleasantly surprised by her summer aid. Her tuition waiver scholarship that we thought did not apply to summer school (because it says it does not generally apply to summer classes) was given to her for the summer classes much to our surprise (I even had her go see them and double check when it was awarded to her as I didn’t want any ‘oops we made a mistake and we want it back’ surprises down the road). And they gave her some SEOG money which was a very unexpected and pleasant surprise. I am guessing they had some unexpected funds 2008-2009 SEOG left and it has to be used in the current school year? Anyway she had some loans for summer school but got much better aid for summer than we expected. We were expecting all loans.</p>
<p>Fortunately for financial aid offices (not always fortunately for students), the summer Pell thing being mandatory won’t be effective until next summer. Some of our area schools started doing 09-10 Pell this summer when they ordinarily would not have. That in itself has been a headache, because enrollment dates at one school overlap with our fall start & I am getting concurrent enrollment messages. I swear, I didn’t know it was this difficult!</p>
<p>Her school probably had SEOG left over … they want to use it up, because not spending it will cause future funding to decrease. She got lucky as a result!</p>
<p>Well, I did find out the answer to my question about how using the “best” Pell year for the student affects other aid … the school still decides if it is a header or trailer & pays all aid as one or the other … but PELL can be either year if the term includes June 30th & July 1st (crossover period between two years), regardless of whether the school is header or trailer.</p>