A recently released synopsis highlights the discussion and recommendations of 54 higher education administrators who participated in a two-day symposium. Participants explored common issues that affect their institutions' systems for delivering student financial aid and their students' ability to effectively manage education-related expenses and debt.

Although the symposium was not intended to generate a consensus on specific program recommendations, the participants strongly recommended the following policy initiatives:

• Fully fund Pell grants at the authorized level.
• Make the Pell grant a true federal entitlement.
• Explore the establishment of a "portable" state grant program to expand options available to students.
• Create a simplified Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for students with zero Expected Family Contribution (EFC).
• Establish an incentive program to reward institutions that re-enroll students who have previously defaulted on their student loans.
• Create a financial aid database that couples grant and scholarship information specifically for students attending Minority-Serving Institutions.
• Establish a Title IV "line-of-credit account" for students attending Minority-Serving Institutions. The account would allow financial aid administrators to adjust the categories of aid based on a student's individual circumstances instead of having annual fixed grant and loan limits. The limits would be the overall maximum aid that a student is eligible to receive.
• Uncouple institutional Pell grant eligibility from the default rate sanctions.

Organized with the support of USA Funds®, the symposium brought together presidents, chief academic officers, chief student affairs officers, chief financial affairs officers and financial aid directors of 28 Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Hispanic-Serving Institutions from across the United States and Puerto Rico. The symposium also was designed to generate discussion about some of the causes of higher-than-average default rates for students attending Minority-Serving Institutions and to explore whether financial-aid-related recommendations should be developed and made publicly available for consideration during the upcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

USA Funds shared the synopsis with the symposium participants, higher education associations and federal policy makers to promote further dialogue on these issues. The synopsis is available in Portable Document Format at www.usafunds.org/news/dpdm125.pdf.

Reminder...
The word from NASFAA is, "Even though the provisions weren't included in either the House technical amendment bill or the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee mark-up, we still need to keep the issue in front of legislators." Please continue to contact and request your legislators to extend these provisions! Email may be sent to your legislator by accessing the following web address: http://thomas.loc.gov. (Left side of page, click Congress & Legislative Agencies, then click House of Representatives or Senate for link to each representator's site.) Also, you may contact any Co-Chair of the WASFAA Federal Relations Committee for additional information:

      Laurie.Franklin@orst.edu
      jannine@hcc.hawaii.edu
      Gen.watson@pcmail.maricopa.edu