Every year millions of students and families sit around their kitchen tables and grapple with how they are going to pay for college. All too often they approach what may be the most important financial decision of their lives armed with incomplete, confusing, or inaccurate information about their options. College financial aid offices have a…

To address some of the financial challenges facing low-income students, federal policymakers enacted a provision in the 2008 Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) that makes financial literacy a required service of all TRIO programs (or, in the case of McNair, simply makes permissible). Effective August 2008, these programs started offering…

Despite action by Congress and the Bush administration to shore up the student-loan industry, some state-authorized organizations say they may not return to the loan business this year, and others are cutting some of the borrower benefits and services they provide. Nine state loan agencies stopped issuing either new federally backed or new private…

During this period of continued economic uncertainty, higher-education institutions are facing a variety of challenges that by now are very familiar to governing boards and institutional leaders, including poor investment returns, reduced liquidity, limited choices in how they structure debt issues, and threats to flexibility in tuition pricing.…

The investigations of student-loan programs around the country echo previous scandals in the financial world involving stock offerings and mutual funds. The relationships between lenders and financial-aid officers seem to raise the same questions about impropriety, conflict of interest, and possible fraud. Indeed, lessons from Wall Street can…

Federal Student Aid's core mission is to ensure that all eligible Americans benefit from federal financial assistance--grants, loans and work-study programs--for education beyond high school. The programs administered comprise the nation's largest source of student aid: during the 2007-08 school year alone, approximately $83 billion in new aid was…

The Supplemental Loans for Students (SLS) program provides market-rate loans to postsecondary students. This report presents information on SLS loan volume and default data for the 10 largest SLS lenders from nine guaranty agencies, for fiscal years 1987, 1988, and 1989. Data for both proprietary and nonproprietary schools and for both freshmen…

This collection of best practices shares how 18 higher education institutions across the country have successfully evaluated and redesigned their student financial services programs to improve services to students and their parents and find cost savings for the institution. This volume illustrates how other institutions have successfully tackled…

Oversight hearings on the Student Loan Marketing Association (Sallie Mae) are presented. Sallie Mae was established by the Education Amendments of 1972 to provide liquidity for Guaranteed Student Loan (GSL) lenders by purchasing GSL portfolios from lenders or making loans on GSL loans held by lenders. In 1982, Sallie Mae had total cumulative…

This publication reports the results of a National Student Expense Budget Conference, attended by members from all echelons of the national financial aid community. The conference's purpose was to arrive at definitive positions regarding the components of budgets, the methodology of budget construction and the variables which may properly be…

A survey on the Guaranteed Student Loan Program (GSL) was conducted in 1986 by the Consumer Bankers Association (CBA). Responses by 103 member institutions provided information on student loan operations, the student lending climate, and proposed amendments to the GSL program. Institutions were divided into four asset categories. The larger…

Some students receiving financial assistance for their education from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) may not also be eligible for tax benefits for education under the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 (P.L. 105-34). For students to be eligible for the tax benefits, they must have incurred their educational expenses at schools eligible to…

Colleges must investigate financing options before they are needed by their students and be ready to help students find new and creative ways to fund their education. Tax-exempt financing options, new sources of loan capital, cooperative arrangements with state agencies, and new federal aid are among the possibilities to explore. (Author/MSE)

Creative ideas recently emerging to help families cope with rising educational costs are reviewed, including state and federal level savings plans, alternative loan programs, guaranteed access plans, and public service proposals. (Author/MSE)

Enhanced magnetic strip cards and "smart cards" offer varied service options to college students. Enhanced magnetic strip cards serve as cash cards and provide access to services. Smart cards, which resemble credit cards but contain a microchip, can be used as phone cards, bus passes, library cards, admission tickets, point-of-sale debit…