NASFAA recently received guidance from the Department of Education regarding the treatment of the new American Opportunity Tax Credit in need analysis. Since the new tax credit is in the same section of the Internal Revenue Code as the Hope and Lifetime Learning Tax Credits, it is treated the same way in need analysis — as excludable income.

A number of schools have asked whether decreases in their campus-based allocations might be in error. The Department of Education has not found any glitches in the allocation process, but encourages schools to check that the data submitted by the school on its FISAP was correct. This article explains a number of factors that can lower campus-based program allocations.

The Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults is committed to helping young adults continue their education after being affected by cancer through their own diagnosis or the diagnosis of a loved one.

When it comes to financing graduate school a lot of students wonder if it is better to choose a lesser-know inexpensive school or a more well-known expensive school.

“Some researchers say the expansion of the grants and other federal aid has a counterproductive effect — that colleges and universities simply soak up the gains by increasing their tuition and other costs,” New York Times reports. “Is there a connection between federal education aid and the inflation rate in higher education? More broadly, what can Washington do, if anything, to improve the effectiveness of its programs and reduce the costs of college?” Five policy experts give their take on this question as part of the Room for Debate series.

“Students and faculty throughout California are grappling with the effects of draconian state cuts to postsecondary education that have topped more than $1 billion in the last year,” Diverse reports.

“Gov. M. Jodi Rell Wednesday outlined a proposal to provide loan relief for higher education students who study certain fields and work in Connecticut after graduation,” New Haven Register reports. “The amount of the student loan that is forgiven would directly correlate with the number of years graduates remain state residents.”

“A federal Office of Indian Education program that awards money to colleges and universities to train American Indians to become teachers and school administrators has failed to maintain accurate records, creating ‘an environment susceptible to fraud, waste, and abuse,’ according to an audit by the U.S. Education Department’s inspector general,” Chronicle of Higher Education reports. “In a report issued on Tuesday, the inspector general said that the inadequate record-keeping meant the department could not adequately track students who received the grants to make sure they were paying back the funds or serving Indian communities.”

“As I moderated comments Tuesday on a post about President Obama’s proposal to increase Pell Grant awards, one dispatch stopped my cursor cold,” The New York Times reports. “It read: ‘This is absolutely the right direction and in keeping with my grandfather’s original vision for the program.’ It was signed, ‘Clay Pell’. I reached out to [the late Sen. Claiborne Pell's] grandson, 27, a lieutenant and judge advocate in the United States Coast Guard, to ask a bit more about what his grandfather might have thought of the president’s proposal in his first State of the Union address.”

“The Veterans Affairs Department is seeking to recoup $3,000 emergency payments sent last year to about 80,000 people whose Post-9/11 GI Bill education benefits were delayed — including some active-duty members who were not supposed to get the checks,” Military Times reports. “Active-duty service members, who are eligible for Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits, were not meant to be eligible for advance payments, but some received them anyway.”