FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE!
SUPPORTING COLLEGE STUDENTS
Last month, the Department took several actions to support higher education students and families.
First, the agency released final regulations (http://links.govdelivery.com/track…) to improve oversight and protect 5.5 million distance education students at degree-granting institutions, including three million exclusively online students. To ensure institutions offering distance education are legally authorized and monitored by states, as required under the Higher Education Act (HEA), the regulations clarify state authorization requirements for institutions to participate in federal student aid programs. The regulations also address state and federal oversight of American colleges operating in foreign locations (press release).
Next, the agency posted a series of updates to its Federal Student Aid (FSA) Data Center, a collection of key performance data about the federal student aid portfolio. These updates, which continue the Department’s commitment to greater transparency, include three new reports by loan status, repayment plan, and delinquency status, as well as a report about the Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program. Among the findings: enrollment in income-driven repayment plans is increasing (up 33% from 2015 and 101% from 2014); new defaults and delinquency rates continue to decrease; and tracking shows borrowers are moving toward public service loan forgiveness. Furthermore, the agency issued a preliminary report on the FSA feedback system, an online portal to submit complaints, provide positive feedback, and report suspicious activity. This report will be used to refine the Department’s analysis of system data, ahead of issuing a final report.
Then, the agency released an analysis revealing that many for-profit schools would likely exceed the 90%/10% federal funding limits if revenue from the Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense programs were included in the calculation the same way that HEA, Title IV funds are included. According to the latest 90%/10% report, 17 for-profit colleagues are currently out of compliance with existing federal funding limits. If Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits are counted, the number of schools receiving at least 90% of their revenue from federal education programs would jump to nearly 200. To protect servicemembers and veterans from targeting by predatory institutions, President Obama has proposed including all federal education programs in the calculation and reverting back to the original 85% threshold. If the threshold was lowered, the number of non-compliant schools would increase to 563 (press release).
Meanwhile, at the request of members of Congress, the Department commissioned an independent audit (http://links.govdelivery.com/track…) to evaluate federal loan servicer Navient’s compliance in awarding benefits to eligible servicemembers, which found that Navient complied in all material respects with applicable Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) requirements and isolated incidents of improper denial of benefits had since been retroactively remediated.
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Posted By: agnes levine
Saturday, January 7th 2017 at 7:39PM
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