Tip of the Week Embrace your fears An audit finding. A missed deadline. A misplaced decimal point. Now those are some frights that will really chill you to the bone. These nightmares haunt the bravest of financial aid professionals. If you work in financial aid, you know there’s enough real-world scares to last you a
Tip of the Week – October 28, 2026 Read More »
By Marlene Seeklander Schools wanting to reduce student loan delinquency and default have several training opportunities to enhance their default prevention programs. As part of their ongoing efforts to provide default prevention resources to schools, the Department of Education recently hosted two webinars, covering the following topics: The recordings, transcripts, and handouts for these webinars
Tip of the Week Happy Financial Aid Day 2026 Happenstance. It’s how many of us ended up working in financial aid. As high school students, most of us did not list working in financial aid as a future career goal. It may have been a work study position in college that became a full-time opportunity
Tip of the Week – October 21, 2026 Read More »
Tip of the Week Just give it time As years go by, a lot changes with time. And, yet there are great works of art, literature, or entertainment that have endured and are relevant to us today. Take, for example, the 70’s sitcom, Barney Miller. Okay, I know – some critics probably don’t include it
Tip of the Week – October 14, 2026 Read More »
By Marlene Seeklander The national student loan default rate rose slightly from 0% to .4% – after remaining at 0% for the past three years. The Department of Education (the Department) released their FY 2023 national default briefing and, as expected, the FY 2023 cohort default rates were affected by the pause on federal
FY 2023 national default rate briefing released Read More »
By Marlene Seeklander Financial aid offices received their latest student loan default rates in late September. The Department of Education announced the distribution of the FY 2023 official cohort default rate (CDR) notification packages to schools enrolled in the Electronic Cohort Default Rate (eCDR) process via the Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG) mailbox. The package included
Release of FY 2023 official cohort default rates Read More »
Tip of the Week Dealing with student loan nonrepayment It’s not just a financial aid office issue. While higher education institutions are dealing with recruitment, enrollment and retention on the front end, student loan default is sneaking up on the back end. The FY 2023 default rates were just released last week and remain low
Tip of the Week – October 7, 2026 Read More »
By Marlene Seeklander Borrowers with defaulted federal student loans could now get on the path to repayment with a new website aimed at helping them understand their options. In a September 30 press release, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced the launch of the Defaulted Loans Support Center. The
Tip of the Week Student loan borrowers have additional time to enroll in auto pay Student loan borrowers have an additional three months to enroll in auto pay and receive a one percent interest rate reduction benefit. Auto pay allows the student loan servicer to automatically deduct the monthly student loan payment directly from the
Tip of the Week – September 30, 2026 Read More »
Tip of the Week Mapping Your Future offers FAFSA video presentation in preparation for the 2027-28 FAFSA Although the FAFSA application is much simpler to complete, financial aid remains a complex topic for students and parents. With the release of the 2027-28 FAFSA just around the corner, Mapping Your Future recorded a financial aid presentation
Tip of the Week – September 23, 2026 Read More »
