MAE 2009 Volume: 4 Issue: 5 (September/October)
Diana L. McGonigle
With sadness, KMI Media Group announces the passing of our friend and co-worker, Copy Editor Diana L. McGonigle, who died August 15. A skilled editor with a fierce dedication to accuracy and timeliness, Diana had been a valued member of the KMI team since 2005. She will be missed.
Proposal to Eliminate FFEL Gains Ground
The House Education and Labor Committee in late July approved a proposal in the 2010 budget submitted by the Obama administration to eliminate the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program and provide all government-backed students loans directly through the Federal Direct Loan Program.
Launched in 1965, FFEL has generated criticism for establishing what a recent policy paper by the New America Foundation (NAF), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, refers to as “unnecessary middlemen”—35 non-federal guaranty agencies that administer loans but assume no risk in issuing them. In the NAF policy paper, “Rethinking the Middleman,” author Benjamin Miller argues that guaranty agencies operate under a conflict of interest, receiving incentives both for helping borrowers having difficulty making payments as well as for collecting on defaulted loans.
In calling for the elimination of FFEL, Obama said it has led to “rampant abuse by lenders of our student loan programs,” including practices the White House in a press release described as including “everything from banks providing all-expensepaid trips to college financial aid officers to a lender making $600,000 payments to a university in exchange for a first shot at lending money to its students.”
Advocates for FFEL, including the Washington-based trade association America’s Student Loan Providers, say guaranty agencies provide expertise that the Obama administration, public policy groups like NAF, and others don’t appreciate.
“The nonprofit guarantors and some lenders have been doing work in the areas of default prevention, debt management, financial literacy as well as college awareness that the federal government couldn’t possibly replicate anytime soon,” said Kevin Bruns, the association’s executive director. “The administration’s proposal will leave many borrowers high and dry—in a deep recession without the focused default prevention services that private and nonprofit organizations have developed over the years.”
At press time, Congress had not yet voted on the proposed budget. Among other education-related provisions, the budget would also simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and allocate $2.5 billion for improvement to U.S. community college facilities.
California, VA Fix ‘Fee/Tuition’ Problem
California and the Department of Veterans Affairs announced a fix to the Post-9/11 GI Bill to cover both tuition and fees up to the highest amount charged by a public university in the state. Public schools in California traditionally don’t have “tuition” but charge relatively high fees that effectively cover the cost of what is tuition for schools in other states.
To address the problem, California public universities recently began using a new billing line item called “Educational Fee/Tuition.” The VA will now consider this new billing line item as “tuition” in calculating maximum payments made for uses of the new GI Bill in the state. In addition to reducing the encouraging use in California of the new education benefits, the VA said, the change will also make participation in the Yellow Ribbon program less expensive for private colleges and universities in California.
“As a result of this interpretation, the maximum basic benefit VA can pay in California will increase, dramatically reducing the ‘gap’ to be made up by California schools under the Yellow Ribbon agreement,” said the VA’s under secretary for benefits, Patrick W. Dunne.
Big Response to GI Bill
The Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits appear so far to be popular, with the VA by mid-August receiving some 200,000 claims, with close to 140,000 applications approved. Though some schools, including the University of Maryland, have reportedly expressed concern about the length of time required for processing of application and disbursement of funds, the VA has said its goal is to turn around applications within 30 days.
Among the various services, the Navy reported great interest by sailors in transferring benefits to spouses or children, with about 7,500 such applications processed as of the end of August. Officials said that the Navy Personnel Command (NPC) hired additional temporary staff to handle the increase in applications, and that they are giving priority to applications by family members attending school this fall.
“We’ve taken care of approving the transferring of benefits for students attending classes right away so our doors are open to those attending in the near or distant future,” said NPC GI Bill Program Manager Kathy Wardlaw in a press release.
Better Transition Assistance Needed for Vets, Report Finds
A new report produced by the Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges (SOC) and several university associations notes a number of areas where universities could improve services provided to their military-related students, including the assistance provided to veterans moving from military to academic life and the process by which veterans re-enroll following deployment.
Called “From Soldier to Student: Easing the Transition of Service Members on Campus,” the report was funded by the Lumina Foundation for Education and is based on data from 723 institutions of higher learning. Several groups collaborated to produce the report: the American Council on Education (ACE), SOC, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, NAPSA—Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, and the National Association of Veterans’ Program Administrators.
Among other things, the report finds that only 22 percent of colleges and universities serving military-related students provide “transition assistance,” 40 percent train faculty and staff to help military-related students make the transition to academic life, 22 percent expedite the re-enrollment of recently deployed veterans, and 32 percent have a club or other organization for military-related students.
“In focus groups and meetings, student veterans have expressed the need to connect with those who share similar experiences,” note the report’s authors, Bryan J. Cook, director of ACE’s Center for Policy Analysis, and Young Kim, a research associate at the center, in the executive summary. “Establishing student veteran clubs and providing informal gathering places for student veterans to connect with one another may contribute significantly to their acculturation on campus.”
In addition, the report finds that 74 percent of public four-year institutions and 66 percent of public two-year institutions have programs intended specifically for militaryrelated students, compared with 36 percent of private not-forprofit colleges and universities.
The full report may be downloaded at www.aascu.org or the Websites of the other participating organizations.
Letter to the Editor
I received the latest issue of MAE, containing the interview of me. It is amazing how much greater the interest is in your magazine. Suddenly it is now highly sought after and every work center wants one. One work center is proudly displaying your magazine with the caption “USCG Makes the Ed News!” With this new interest in MAE I would appreciate if you would send me 40 more copies. Thanks again and thank you for helping promote the Coast Guard’s education program.
Paul Camardo
Education Services Specialist
USCG Sector Corpus Christi
Corpus Christi, Texas
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