General Resources

Electronic Financial Aid Library (EFAL) (alternate link)

EFAL is a commercial product consisting of a series of information databases that contain Student Financial Assistance documents disseminated by the US Department of Education (DoEd) and the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to colleges, universities, guarantors and lenders. These infobases include compilations of current law, regulations, regulation interpretations, accounting and recordkeeping procedures and Act amendments which affect federal student financial aid programs. They also contain all Dear Colleague Letters and relevant Federal Registers and Policy Memorandums. EFAL also includes the 1994-95 Student Financial Aid Handbook. The link above gets you to the root of the Software Creations WWW site. You will then need to navigate down to the EFAL page. For more information contact efal-info@mhs.scbbs.com. (Alternate addresses include finaid@mhs.scbbs.com and sysop@mhs.scbbs.com.)

Resources for Financial Aid Administrators

Two resources for financial aid administrators are The Center for Higher Education Support Services (CHESS) and The Evans Consulting Group, Inc. These groups offer management consulting services to assist colleges and universities with financial aid. Services include: institutional recertification, operations review, check-up service, policy review and development, program review resolution, federal fund reconciliation and recovery, financial aid process reengineering, quality control, training and staff development. Their web pages provide information of general interest to financial aid administrators, such as news, links, sample consulting reports, and other information. CHESS offers Endgame, a free newsletter for financial aid administrators focusing on financial aid management and legal issues. For more information about CHESS, send email to info@chessconsulting.org. For more information about The Evans Consulting Group, send email to info@evansconsulting.org or call 1-888-454-3101.

NASFAA's Postsecondary Education Network (PEN)

The Postsecondary Education Network (PEN) is owned and maintained by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) and provides material of interest only to financial aid administrators. It includes technical, regulatory and legislative reports prepared by NASFAA staff, Federal Register documents available the day of publication, text of other Department of Education regulatory documents, the NASFAA Hotline and College Board Washington Report, newsletters from other financial aid organizations and associations, job classifieds, NASFAA documents and a daily summary of financial aid news delivered by e-mail.

A password is required to access this service. Only individuals at NASFAA member institutions may use this service. PEN became a benefit of NASFAA membership as of July 1, 1996 and there is no additional charge to access PEN.

To obtain instructions about how to register as a new user, please visit the NASFAA Information Page, call 1-202-785-0453, fax 1-202-785-1487, or send e-mail to pen@smtp.nasfaa.org. Once you are a subscriber, you can access PEN through the NASFAA Information Page. In addition, PEN can be accessed via modem using free software available from NASFAA and via telnet.

NASFAA's LearnStudentAid.org

NASFAA's LearnStudentAid.org is a web-based training program for student financial aid administrators. It is especially useful for training new staff.

Project on Student Debt

The Project on Student Debt offers the latest news and research on student debt and financial aid policy; commentary and analysis by leading economists, researchers, and experts on college access and financial aid; and forums where you can share your own views about student debt. The nonprofit and nonpartisan Project welcomes FAA’s input and ideas about the role of student loans, and policies that can help increase access.

National Council of Higher Education Loan Programs, Inc. (NCHELP)

NCHELP publishes The Word From Washington, a weekly newsletter on public policy, legislative and regulatory news and information relating to the FFEL program. NCHELP hosts several annual conferences and conventions for its members. They also maintain working committees on default management, program operations, program regulations, program regulations, membership services and training, public information and school/lender relations.

NCHELP is perhaps most well-known in the industry for CommonLine, an industry-wide effort to standardize loan processing procedures, data formats and software. CommonLine simplifies the application, guarantee and disbursement process by facilitating electronic communication among schools and service providers.

NCHELP's web site will soon include an extensive basic library of reference materials.

For more information, please call 1-202-547-1571, fax 1-202-546-8745, write to National Council of Higher Education Loan Programs, Inc., 801 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, Suite 375, Washington, DC 20003, or send email to info@nchelp.org.

Project EASI

Project EASI (Easy Access for Students and Institutions) is a collaborative effort among government, business and higher education leaders to reengineer student finacial aid delivery. Although the project has a web site that is immediately useful for planning, applying and paying for education beyond high school, its vision is more long term. Project EASI welcomes feedback from all members of the student aid community.

For more information call 1-202-708-8391, fax 1-202-708-7157, write to Project EASI, US Department of Education, 600 Independence Avenue ROB-3, Room 5102, Washington, DC 20202-5130, or send email to Dr. Keith Jepsen at Project_EASI@ed.gov.

Other government departments that are relevant to student aid include the Selective Service System, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Center for Education Statistics (including IPEDS), the Bureau of Health Professions, and StudentJobs.gov.