Campus Partners Update Newsletter
August 1, 2009
Monday, September 7 - Labor Day, |
|
|
|
|
|
Inside Campus Partners Roland Oliver
|
|
Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act Approved by House Committee
The House Education and Labor Committee passed the “Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act” introduced by Committee Chairman George Miller (D-CA) by a vote of 30-17 on July 21. The Act must go to the House and Senate for approval, but House leaders have promised to work with “lightening speed” to pass this legislation. According to the Committee, the legislation will generate $87 billion in savings over
the next ten years. The generated savings will be used to boost Pell Grant scholarships, keep interest rates on federal loans affordable, create a more reliable and effective financial aid system for families, and enact President Obama’s key education priorities.
As proposed, the Act provides a much needed expansion of the availability of funds for the Perkins loan program. This is great news for students and their families.
The Act calls for the Federal Perkins Loan program to be replaced by the Federal Direct Perkins Loan program on July 1, 2010. Perkins loans granted before that date will retain current loan benefits for the life of the loan. To participate in the Federal Direct Perkins Loan program, schools will be required to provide institutional funds to pay for loan benefits.
Under terms of the Act, the Department of Education may, “if practical,” issue a bid for loan servicing and set standards for customer service, default management, and other important attributes. Preferences for not-for-profit servicers in each state are provided in the Act.
We recommend that you read the following information and contact your elected officials in Washington to voice your opinion. Campus Partners is continuing to work with COHEAO on this important matter, which is certain to be a main topic of discussion at COHEAO’s mid-year meeting taking place in Philadelphia on August 1-4. We will provide a complete report on the COHEAO discussion in next month’s Update.
- Summary of Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act
http://www.coheao.org/resource/SAFRAsummary7-15-09PERKINS.doc
- House Committee Passes “Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act
http://www.coheao.org/resource/frontnews/709c.asp
(also contains a link to the original legislation)
The NAASFA Web site also provides a summary of the legislation at this link:
House Passes FY 2010 Appropriations Bill
The House recently passed its FY 2010 Labor, HHS, and Education appropriations spending bill (H.R. 3293) by a vote of 264 to 153. The bill would provide level funding for most Title IV discretionary programs. The Pell Grant base level remains at $4,860 for now, but a scheduled mandatory increase from the College Cost Reduction and Access Act (CCRAA) would add an additional $690 to the appropriated amount, bringing the total Federal Pell Grant to $5,550 for the 2010-11 award year.
Final Form and Instructions for FISAP Published by ED
The Fiscal Operations Report for 2008-09 and the Application to Participate for 2010-11 (FISAP) has now been approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The FISAP will be available on the eCampus-Based (eCB) Web site, https://cbfisap.ed.gov/ecb/CBSWebApp, in late July 2009.
The following link includes questions and answers that will assist schools in completing the FISAP. Remember, the deadline for submitting this year’s FISAP is Thursday, October 1, 2009. You may access the final form and instructions at
http://ifap.ed.gov/eannouncements/063009FISAPForm1011.html.
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for Federal Perkins, FFEL, and Direct Programs
On July 23, the Department of Education (ED) announced a notice of proposed
rulemaking for the Perkins, FFEL, and Direct programs. These proposed regulations are
needed to implement provisions of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA), as amended
by the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 (HEOA). Comments are due to ED on
or before August 24, 2009. To read more about the proposed regulations, go to
http://ifap.ed.gov/fregisters/FR07232009.html.
Federal Perkins Assignment Form – Comment Request
ED is in the process of finalizing a new version of the Federal Perkins Assignment Form. The current Assignment form has an expiration date of June 30, 2009; however, ED will continue to accept assignments made using the current form until the new one is published.
IRS/ED Partnership for FAFSA Data
ED revealed operational details about its project to simplify the FAFSA on the Web (FOTW) completion process. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Data Share is a long awaited development that will allow students the option to seamlessly retrieve verified tax return data and use it to automatically complete some FAFSA questions.
The IRS Data Share is part of a series of major improvements to the FAFSA announced last month that comply with HEOA simplification requirements. These improvements could radically change the application process for students and relieve students and schools of the verification process.
As published in the May Update, Campus Partners plans to implement its enhanced Exit Interview Package the first week of August. The enhancements were made to make the Loan Disclosure Statement more user friendly for your borrowers. We will provide the Disclosure Statement as two individual documents on standard 8.5 by 11 inch paper. Each Disclosure Statement will continue to have a label with the borrower’s name and address affixed to it, which can be used to mail the exit interview to the borrower. While many borrowers attend group or individual exit interview sessions, most schools send the interview packages to borrowers who do not attend in-person interviews. Borrowers will be instructed to sign and return one copy of the Disclosure Statement to their school and keep the other for their records.
The Loan Interview form, which provides sections for borrowers to update their personal contact information and provide references, will be supplied as a separate document. The form will be printed on carbonless paper with a glue strip on the top. If the form is mailed as part of the Exit Interview Package, borrowers will be instructed to tear off the top sheet of the form and return it to their school, along with their signed Disclosure Statement. Fact sheets and the mycampusloan.com insert will still be provided for distribution to the borrower.
If you have any questions regarding these enhancements, please contact your Customer Service Representative.
As part of your school’s audit, you may need to send an audit confirmation letter to your borrowers. An easy way to comply with your auditor’s request is to send a QuikLetter to all or a sub-set of your borrowers, providing them with a current statement of their account. The letters will request that the borrowers return the confirmation letter to their school or to your auditors if they dispute the account details in the letter.
A wide variety of QuikLetters are available for your use. Sending QuikLetters continues to be a good way to inform your borrowers that you and the government are monitoring their loans. A QuikLetter can be customized to provide your borrowers with a specific message or you may prefer to use a letter with standard text such as the Cohort Series QuikLetters (#50434-Current Loans, #50436-Past Due Loans, #50437-Seriously Past Due Loans).
To order QuikLetters or for more information, please contact your Customer Service
Representative.
The Product Services team continues to be very busy as they respond to system changes required by regulations while managing system enhancements to facilitate the customer and borrower experience. To catch up with recent enhancements, please review the following attachment.
Attachment: Recent System Enhancements
Our third-party audit for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009 is nearing completion. We have expanded the scope of our audit to include all loan programs serviced by Campus Partners. As a result, our auditor, Porter Keadle Moore, LLP, estimates the final report will be available for distribution by September 15. Please email Debra Pitts at dpitts@campuspartners.com if you need preliminary results prior to our targeted distribution date. We will send an email to all customers when the report is available and will begin fulfilling requests for CDs and paper copies of the audit report at that time. An Audit Report Request Form is available on our Web site.
Attachment: Audit Request Form
|
“I am writing this email with much appreciation and gratitude for the Customer Representatives at Campus Partners. I have had the pleasure of working with all of your Representatives and I must say that Methodist University is very grateful for all of them and their exceptional skills and knowledge. It has been a pleasure working with them!! When I call or email them with my challenges of the day, they are all professional individuals that are willing to help with anything and go the extra mile without hesitating!! All of them have a high level of commitment to customer service that you don’t find at a lot of organizations and I hope that Campus Partners recognizes the assets that they have in each of them. Please pass this along to all of them so they will know how much we at Methodist University are thankful and appreciative of them. Thank you from Methodist University for your dedication to professionalism and customer service and we look forward to many more years with Campus Partners!” Vonda A. Howell |
Campus Partners has concluded its Student Loans 101 and 202 workshop series for the year, but Web Conferences are scheduled on a monthly basis for the remainder of 2009 to meet your training needs. Please join us for our next Web conference--“Cohort: What is it and How Do I Manage it?”--scheduled for Thursday, August 13 at 2:00 pm Eastern. Please note that we have added a new topic for our October 8th Web conference. More details will follow.
To register for one or more training events, please contact Debra Pitts at dpitts@campuspartners.com.
2009 Web Conference Schedule
| Topic | Date |
|---|---|
Cohort: What is it and How Do I Manage it? |
Thursday, August 13 2:00 to 3:30 Eastern |
Where do I start? A Month to Month Guide |
Thursday, September 10 2:00 to 3:30 Eastern |
Management of the Exit Interview Process-New! |
Thursday, October 8 2:00 to 3:30 Eastern |
Regulations Update |
Thursday, November 12 2:00 to 3:30 Eastern |
Tips for Managing Delinquencies |
Thursday, December 10 2:00 to 3:30 Eastern |
Campus Partners staff will attend the following conferences..
COHEAO will hold their mid-year conference in Philadelphia, PA on August 1-4. We will provide more information as it becomes available. COHEAO’s Web address is http://www.coheao.org.
Williams & Fudge will hold its Student Loans and Receivables Collection Conference on September 20-23 at the Hilton Myrtle Beach Resort. For more information, go to http://www.wfcorp.com/news/upcoming.html.
The Texas Bursars for Universities and Colleges will host the Texas BUC$ Conference at the Omni Bay Front Hotel on Oct. 11-14 at Corpus Christi, TX. More details are available at http://texasbucs.com.
The Minnesota Collection Network will present its Mega Conference XVII on Oct 19-21 at the Sheraton Bloomington in Bloomington, MN. More information is available at http://www.mnnetwork.org/.
Cutoff dates for July, August, September, and October are presented below:
Transaction
|
July 2009 |
Aug. 2009 |
Sept. 2009 |
Oct. 2009 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Last day to receive collection payments |
7/28 |
8/25 |
9/25 |
10/27 |
Last day to receive regular payments |
7/29 |
8/26 |
9/28 |
10/28 |
Last day for online payments |
7/31 |
8/28 |
10/2 |
10/30 |
Date final post begins |
7/31 |
8/28 |
10/2 |
10/30 |
Report date used for final post |
7/31 |
8/31 |
9/30 |
10/31 |
Last day deposits created for deposit to bank account |
7/31 |
8/28 |
9/30 |
10/30 |
2009 Cutoff Dates
Month |
Last day to receive collection payments |
Last day to receive regular payments |
Last day for on-line payments |
Date final post begins |
Report date used for final post |
Last day deposits created for deposit to bank account |
December 2008 |
12/26/2008 |
12/29/2008 |
1/2/2009 |
1/2/2009 |
12/31/2008 |
12/31/2008 |
January 2009 |
01/27/2009 |
01/28/2009 |
01/30/2009 |
01/30/2009 |
01/31/2009 |
01/30/2009 |
February 2009 |
02/24/2009 |
02/25/2009 |
02/27/2009 |
02/27/2009 |
02/28/2009 |
02/27/2009 |
March 2009 |
03/24/2009 |
03/25/2009 |
03/27/2009 |
03/27/2009 |
03/31/2009 |
03/27/2009 |
April 2009 |
04/27/2009 |
04/28/2009 |
05/01/2009 |
05/01/2009 |
04/30/2009 |
04/30/2009 |
May 2009 |
05/26/2009 |
05/27/2009 |
05/29/2009 |
05/29/2009 |
05/31/2009 |
05/29/2009 |
June 2009 |
06/23/2009 |
06/24/2009 |
06/26/2009 |
06/26/2009 |
06/30/2009 |
06/26/2009 |
July 2009 |
07/28/2009 |
07/29/2009 |
07/31/2009 |
07/31/2009 |
07/31/2009 |
07/31/2009 |
August 2009 |
08/25/2009 |
08/26/2009 |
08/28/2009 |
08/28/2009 |
08/31/2009 |
08/28/2009 |
September 2009 |
09/25/2009 |
09/28/2009 |
10/2/2009 |
10/2/2009 |
09/30/2009 |
09/30/2009 |
October 2009 |
10/27/2009 |
10/28/2009 |
10/30/2009 |
10/30/2009 |
10/31/2009 |
10/30/2009 |
November 2009 |
11/20/2009 |
11/23/2009 |
11/25/2009 |
11/27/2009 |
11/30/2009 |
11/25/2009 |
December 2009 |
12/28/2009 |
12/29/2009 |
12/31/2009 |
12/31/2009 |
12/31/2009 |
12/31/2009 |
January 2010 |
01/26/2010 |
01/27/2010 |
01/29/2009 |
01/29/2009 |
01/31/2009 |
01/29/2009 |
