Financial Aid News 156: Perkins loans, swine flu, wool scholarship

From Inside Higher Ed:

Most of the attention surrounding the Obama administration’s plan to restructure the federal financial aid programs focuses on the fate of the guaranteed student loan program, but equally interesting — and perhaps more significant in the long term — is the Education Department’s vision of an altered Perkins Loan Program, about which administration officials offered a few more details during sessions at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators here Monday. The Perkins proposal is noteworthy because department officials say they would use the billions of dollars they plan to allocate to colleges in “loan authority” to encourage them to pursue policies the administration favors, like graduating low-income students, limiting tuition increases, and providing need-based aid to students. Dan Madzelan, who is acting as assistant secretary of postsecondary education, said that the department was still developing the exact measures it would use to achieve those goals. But he said that after making whole the colleges that now receive about $1.5 billion in Perkins loan funds, the department could distribute the remaining $4.5 billion in lending authority to institutions based on the extent to which they (1) graduate Pell Grant recipients, (2) keep their published tuition below the average or median for their sector (public two-year, private four-year, etc.), and (3) award non-federal need-based aid to their students. “When we’re thinking about the kinds of incentives we can provide, money’s a pretty good one,” Madzelan said.

Commentary

An interesting set of perspectives from the Department of Education. They’re clearly going to be paying for performance based on the measures they want to see, and the measures they’ve outlined seem to be good ones. Let’s hope their incentive-based plans encourage colleges to focus on the metrics that the Department wants to improve.

News You Can Use

There’s another interesting piece in Inside Higher Ed, not about financial aid, about the potential impact of H1N1 (“Swine flu”) on college campuses this fall. It’s especially instructive to read what precautions institutions are considering.

The thing I think is so important about the current H1N1 virus (which is itself a variant of the 1918 flu, as are all strains of the H1 and H3 family) is that it’s already showing signs of resistance to antiviral drugs. It’s changing, mutating, adapting to what modern medicine to offer. Make sure you stay in touch with your campus health center as we roll into the fall season so that if something happens on your campus, you receive early warning about it.

Scholarship Update

The Make It With Wool Scholarship. * To promote the beauty and versatility of wool fabrics and yarns. * To encourage personal creativity in sewing, knitting and crocheting with wool fabrics and yarns. * To recognize creative skills. * To develop life skills, including: being responsible for one’s self, being a good sport, accepting judge’s decisions, and learning about and appreciating diversity.

Details at our free college scholarship search site.

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