Campus Partners

Update Newsletter
April 2004

New Name


We are pleased to announce that we will change our name to Campus Partners on June 1, 2004. Our new name describes our relationship with our customers. We are in partnership, ready to share the responsibility for servicing student loans with you.

We are working hard to insure that our name change is not disruptive to your daily work. We will keep you informed of our changes as much in advance as we can. Decision-makers received a letter from Michael Carey, President of Campus Partners earlier in the week. Along with the letter describing the plans, we attached a Question and Answer Guide and a new W-9 . This letter and its attachments are included in this PDF copy, and are available on our Web site.

Attachment: Customer Letter, Question and Answer Guide, & W-9

Other Transition Information

As described in our Question and Answer Guide, our Web addresses will also be changing to the addresses listed on the next page. After June 1, you will be redirected to our new Web addresses if you type in any of our old addresses.

Customer Web site
Changing from www.amsservicing.com to www.campuspartners.com

Borrower Web site
Changing from www.myamsloan.com to www.mycampusloan.com

WebConnect
Changing from datalink.amsservicing.net to datalink.campuspartners.net

DocumentDirect
Changing from https://dataprint.amsservicing.net/ to https://dataprint.campuspartners.net/

DataDirect FTP
Changing from ftp://ftpservice.amsservicing.net to ftp://ftpservice.campuspartners.net

Our e-mail address is also changing. We will keep the first intial, last name convention followed by @campuspartners.com. Again e-mail will be redirected for several months.

We will notify your campus purchasing departments in a letter which will be mailed the first week of May. We will begin notifying borrowers of the name changes in inserts stuffed in their billing statements in May and continuing through July.

With all this activity, please be assured that our product development plans are on schedule for delivery this summer.

Clarification from ED on Changes to the 2005-2006 FISAP


As announced in our March Campus Partners Update, the Department of Education (ED) has published Dear Colleague Letter CB-04-03 announcing plans to make changes to the Fiscal Operations Report for 2003-2004 and Application to Participate for 2005-2006 (FISAP). We will have these changes in place before generating your 6/30/04 FISAP.

Below is a summary of the proposed changes:

References to Serial Number have been removed.
Only the OPEID Number will be used.

Part I – Identifying Information, Certifications and Warning-No changes.

Part II – Application to Participate
There are no changes to Part II. However, the FISAP instructions for Part II, Section F, fields 25-40 will include expanded information on accessing Eligible Dependentand Eligible Independent Student Reports for FISAP purposes.

Part III – Federal Perkins Loan Program Report
Four new fields have been added to Section B, Fund Activity (annual) during the
2003-2004 Award Year (July 1, 2003 – June 30, 2004).

Field 8(a) and field 8(b) will collect information on Perkins Loans that have
been in default for more than 2 years, up to 5 years.

Field 9(a) and field 9(b) will collect information on Perkins Loans that have been in default for more than 5 years.

These additional data elements require schools to report the number of borrowers
whomade payments towards principal and the amount of principal repaid in the 2003-2004 award year on these defaulted loans. These new fields will enable ED to obtain more precise information on the number of inactive accounts that may no longer be collectable by the school.

During a conversation with ED, Campus Partners received clarification that ED is monitoring these amounts with the possibility of making defaulted assignments to the Department mandatory.

Information has been added to the FISAP instructions for Part III, Section A, fields 1.1, 5, 15, 23, and 35 on reporting payments returned to Perkins Loan borrowers after a final discharge for total and permanent disability.

In Part III, Section C, Cumulative Repayment Information, as of June 30,
2004, a note was added to state that field 2 equals the sum of field 2.1 plus 2.2.
A note was also added to the FISAP instructions for Part III, Section C, field
2.2 to clarify information about the acceptance of assignments for total and
permanent disability.

Part IV – Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant Program
No changes.

Part V – Federal Work-Study Program
No changes.

Part VI – Program Summary
No changes.

Notification of 2004-2005 Campus-Based Funding


This announcement provides a notification schedule for awards to institutions that have been approved for the FWS, FSEOG, and Perkins Loan programs for the Award Year 2004-2005 (July 1, 2004 through June 30, 2005). It includes the amount of the awards for the Perkins Loan federal share, the FSEOG and FWS federal share; the estimated number of student borrowers in the Perkins Loan Program, the estimated number of student awards for the FSEOG Program, and the estimated number of students to be employed under the FWS Program for this award period; and the authorized Perkins Loan level of expenditure. For additional information, see http://www.ifap.ed.gov/cbpmaterials/0405CBCongreportApril8CoverLtr.html.

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2004-05 Final Funding Authorization Letters

ED recently published Dear Colleague Letter CB-04-04 that informs schools of the availability of 2004-2005 final funding authorizations for the campus-based programs. The 2004-2005 authorization letters and final funding worksheet(s) were posted March 23 on the eCampus-Based (eCB) Web site. You can view this letter at http://www.ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/CB0404.html.

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2002-2003 Campus-Based Awards Close-Out Completed

ED has just completed the close-out of the 2002-2003 awards for the FWS, Perkins Loan, and/or FSEOG programs. The notice is provided in Dear Colleague Letter CB-04-06 and includes frequently asked questions and answers about the close-out. For more information, visit http://www.ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/CB0406.html.

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Federal Perkins Loan Program Status of Default as of June 30, 2003


ED has posted the Federal Perkins Loan Program Status of Default as of June 30, 2003, which is otherwise known as the Orange Book. It contains data that was extracted from information submitted by institutions on the 2002-2003 FISAP. This report provides a listing of institutions participating in the Perkins program during the 2002-2003 award year, and includes a “cohort default” rate for each institution. You may view the Orange Book at http://www.ifap.ed.gov/cbpmaterials/2003OrangeBKCovPg.html.

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Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act: Electronic Signatures
(Final Rule)

ED’s interpretation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) has been amended to provide general guidelines for accepting “signed and dated written consent” in electronic format under FERPA. These regulations are effective May 21, 2004.

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Institutional Eligibility under the Higher Education Act of 1965, as Amended (Final Regulations)


ED has amended sections of the Institutional Eligibility regulations to conform to newly enacted Public Law 108-98. That legislation corrected technical errors in the Higher Education Amendments of 1998 by removing inadvertent barriers to institutional eligibility that applied to public and non-profit foreign veterinary schools, as well as to Canadian medical schools. Consistent with the legislation, these conforming changes are effective retroactively to October 1, 1998. In addition, technical revisions are being made to the Institutional Eligibility, Harris Fellowship, General Provisions, Perkins Loan, FWS, FSEOG, FFEL, Direct Loan, Pell Grant, and NEISP program regulations to correct cross-references, delete references to programs that are no longer funded, and make a number of nomenclature changes. These conforming amendments took effect April 15, 2004. You may view this Federal Register at http://www.ifap.ed.gov/fregisters/FR03162004.html.

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2004 Spring Conference Presentations

Presentations from ED’s 2004 Spring Conference are now posted on the IFAP Web site and are available in pdf and PowerPoint. Here are some presentations to check out.

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Call Center Enhancing Name and Date of Birth Change Policies

Protecting the integrity of data on System III is important to you and your borrowers. To insure we make every effort to protect data, we have revisited our policies for changing a borrowers last name or date of birth. As of April 1st, we have fine-tuned our name or date of birth change policies to require legal documentation. Of course, obvious misspellings of the borrowers name will be corrected without requiring a legal document.

The enhanced policy requires the borrower to provide one of the following legal documents to change their last name:

· Marriage License
· Divorce/Separation Decree
· Court Order
· Naturalization Card
· Social Security Card
· State or Government ID Card

The borrower must provide one of the following legal documents to change their date of birth:

· Drivers License
· State or Government ID Card

The legal document received by our office will be filmed and returned to your office for safekeeping or stored in the borrower’s file if we house your collateral files.

The above policies have been adopted as a precautionary measure. Our goal is to insure borrower name or date of birth changes on System III are supported by legal documentation.

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Get Ready for Year-End Processing

June 30 is just around the corner. Use this checklist to close the fiscal year successfully:

1. Reconcile loan and accounting information.

• Reconcile all disbursements for the year.
• Correct and return all unpostable new loans and advances.
• Check and update separation dates.
• Reconcile your general ledger.

2. Determine special needs and communicate them to us.

• Contact your auditors to determine their needs for reports.
• Provide instructions for special mailing requirements for

  year-end reports.
• Submit change/adjustment requests for processing.

3. Work the Cohort Default Rate Report.

• Provide your Customer Service Representative with requests for    coding changes.

With the end of the fiscal year approaching, our goal is to process all requests for changes in a timely manner. All requests arriving by regular mail, overnight mail, fax, DataLink Dispatch, or e-mail are processed in the order that we receive them.

Deadlines for receipt in our office are:

June 10 Requests for duplicate reports
June 11 Requests for special mailing of year-end reports
June 25 Requests for Change/Adjustment memos
July 2    Year-end post begins

Remember you can use DocumentDirect to access your fiscal year-end reports
immediately following year-end processing. This Internet tool provides you with the fastest method of receiving your year-end information.

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Long Term Customer Anniversaries


Our sincerest thanks are extended to customers reaching long-term anniversaries with us during January, February, and March. Special recognition goes to our customers of 35 years: Averett University, Covenant College, and the University of Virginia. We also want to thank Hood College for allowing us to service their loans for the past 30 years.

Names of all customers attaining 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, and 35-year anniversaries with us during this quarter are attached. Customers reaching anniversaries with us during the third quarter of 2004 will be listed in the July Update.

Attachment: Long-term Customer Anniversaries

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Customer Closeup

In this quarter’s “Customer Closeup,” we are profiling Mary Rogers, Student Loans Analyst at the University of Virginia (UVA). The school, which recently tied for first place as the best public university in the nation in a survey conducted by US News and World Reports, is celebrating their 35th anniversary with us this quarter. UVA was established in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and has a rich history of scholarship and research. It offers 48 bachelor’s degrees in 46 fields, and 94 masters in 64 fields, 55 doctoral degrees in 54 fields, and first professional degrees in medicine and law. The school currently enrolls over 18,000 students.

Attachment: Customer Closeup

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Student Loans 202 Offered in May - Don’t Miss this Opportunity!

Students Loans 202, our workshop for more experienced student loan administrators will be offered on May 13-14 at our office in Winston-Salem. If you are interested in registering for the workshop, please contact Debra Pitts at 1-800-458-4492, ext. 2272 or via e-mail at dpitts@campuspartners.com. The workshop will be offered again on October 7-8, 2004.

Attachment: Workshop Flyer and Registration Form

Students Loans 101, our workshop for less experienced student loan administrators or those new to Campus Partners, will be offered for the final time this year on July 8-9, 2004 in Winston-Salem. If you are interested in registering for the workshop, please contact Debra Pitts at 1-800-458-4492, ext. 2272 or via e-mail at dpitts@campuspartners.com.

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Teleconference Schedule

Thinking about participating in one of our teleconferences, but don’t know how to sign up? Just e-mail Debra Pitts at dpitts@campuspartners.com at least three days before the scheduled teleconference to register. She will notify you of the telephone number that you need to call in a return e-mail. It’s free and is well worth your time to learn moreabout different aspects of servicing student loans.

Offering this training gives us the opportunity to reach student loan administrators who cannot attend a Student Loans 101 or 202 session in Winston-Salem. Each teleconference is geared towards understanding a particular topic and is an opportunity to gain new insights, ask questions of Campus Partners staff, and hear helpful suggestions from other schools.

We look forward to continuing this service for all our customers.

2004 Teleconference Training Schedule

Regional Meetings

Join us at one of our Regional Meetings this year held at campuses across the country. You’ll have a chance to find out the latest information from your School Relations Coordinator and share insights with other student loan administrators in your area. If you are interested in hosting a meeting on your campus, please contact your School Relations Coordinator.

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Conference Schedule

Representatives from Campus Partners will attend the conference listed below.

The Colorado Association of Administrators of Student Loan Accounts Receiveable (CAASLAR) Conference will be held on April 22-23 at the Antlers Adam’s Mark Colorado Springs. Please visit www.caaslar.org for more information.

Second Alliance Collections is presenting the Cruisin’ to Collections Conference on July 9-12 . More information is available at http://www.secondalliance.com/index.htm.

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Cutoff Dates

Cutoff dates for May and June 2004 are presented below:

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