Perkins and HHS Funding Update

COHEAO recently updated its membership with the following news about Perkins and HHS funding. In an e-mail received on December 13, 2005, Andrew Stringer writes, “The House and Senate have come to an agreement on a new conference report to the FY 2006 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education (Labor-HHS-Education) appropriations bill. The bill provides $66.1 million for Perkins Loan Cancellations and no funding for the Federal Capital Contribution. This is the same amount of funding proposed in both the House and Senate bills. It is important to note that this bill does not contain proposed rescissions to Health Professions loans at the Department of Health and Human Services.

The previous Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill was defeated in the House on November 17. The new conference report makes small changes to rural and other health care programs. No changes were made to programs at the Department of Education. ”

COHEAO issued the following update on December 19, 2005, noting that the House of Representatives had passed the conference report on S. 1932, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (also known as the budget reconciliation bill) that morning. The bill reauthorized and made changes to the FFEL and Direct Loan programs and made some significant changes to the needs analysis formulas. Because it is a budget reconciliation bill subject to special rules in the Senate, it only includes a small portion of the overall Higher Education Act reauthorization bills, H.R. 609 and S. 1614. It doesn’t include changes to Perkins Loans or the other campus-based financial aid programs, except to allow deferments of Perkins Loans for military personnel during time of war or national emergency. A summary of the education provisions of the bill is attached. The Senate is expected to act on this Wednesday or Thursday, but could act sooner.

The House on Saturday, December 17 passed a bill, H.R. 4525, extending the entire Higher Education Act through March 31, 2006. That bill changes the ending date for the previous extension of the HEA, which goes through December 31, 2005. Senate action is expected this week, and the bill is expected to be signed routinely by the President.

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Supreme Court Ruling in Student Loan Case

Here’s a story you may want to share with your student borrowers! On December 7, 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that the Department of Education may withhold a person’s Social Security benefits to pay old student loans. Under current law, up to 15% of disability and/or retirement may be withheld in order to repay existing debts. The case involved a disabled man, James Lockhart, a 67-year old Seattle resident who had over $77,000 in outstanding student loan debt. Retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Conner wrote the decision against Lockhart who had sued claiming he needed his $874 monthly check for food and medication. The official case is Lockhart v. U.S. 04-881.

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Hurricane Katrina Announcement #10 and Rita Announcement # 7

Katrina Announcement #10 and Rita Announcement #7 address two issues related to the continued eligibility of students impacted by these two hurricanes to receive federal student aid for the remainder of the 2005-2006 academic year. The first issue relates to the eligibility of a student who, because of the hurricanes, transferred to another institution, but was not admitted as a regular student. The second addresses the issue of annual and aggregate federal grant and loan limits for those students who were displaced by the hurricanes. You can read these announcements on the Department’s IFAP website at www.ifap.ed.gov. Look for the flashing red link to “Hurricane Information.”

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Tax Line Reference Guide

The Department of Education has announced the Tax Line Reference Guide, which contains complete 2005 IRS tax return line numbers for use in conjunction with the 2006-2007 FAFSA on the Web Worksheet. To read more about this announcement, go to: http://www.ifap.ed.gov/eannouncements/1122TaxLineRef.html.

 

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Interest Reporting in January 2006

During the first week of January, we will begin providing borrowers with information about interest paid during 2005:

	Interest paid in 2005 will be available to borrowers via our borrower Web site, mycampusloan.com, and toll-free via our Interactive Voice Response system.
	Interest paid in 2005 will be reported to borrowers on billing statements generated during January, February, March, and April.
	In early January 2006, borrowers who use AutoDraft or Coupon Book billing will receive an Annual Statement indicating interest paid in 2005.
	Borrowers who paid more than $600 in interest during 2005 to a single institution will receive Federal Tax Form 1098-E. These forms will be mailed before January month-end. Per IRS requirements, borrowers who paid interest of more than $600 will be reported to the IRS by February month-end.

You also can obtain interest paid information for your borrowers using either System 3i, WebConnect, or your monthly Masterfile.

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Product Development Update

Here is the latest news about recent product development efforts and enhancements to expect over the next few months. Please refer to the September issue of the Campus Partners Update for our overall product development schedule, which lists future enhancements for the next 12 months.

 

Stay tuned to the Update for Product Development information each month.

 

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E-Exit Enhanced to Include HPSL, NSL, and Institutional Loans

If the upcoming exit interview season has you looking for new opportunities to improve the process, look no further than Campus Partners’ recently enhanced

E-Exit product. E-Exit now provides an online solution for completing exit interviews for campus-based loan types, which includes Perkins and NSL, PCL, HPSL, and Institutional Loans. This enhanced product allows borrowers to download all applicable disclosures and forms and e-sign their interview for all of these loan programs.

The exit interview question and answer section is designed to help reinforce the message that students should take their student loan obligations seriously. Each section arms the student with facts about their loan or loans, loan entitlements, and related information to help them in making responsible choices during repayment.

As noted above, this enhanced product will be available by the beginning of January. For more information and an assessment of how this enhanced version of E-Exit can help you coordinate exit interviews for your departing students, please contact your Account Manager.

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myReports

Have you ever needed to combine your Past Due Loans report with borrower names and addresses, or various other reports into one easy-to-use data set? Are you tired of waiting until month end to receive data? Then myReports may be the answer you’re looking for … and it’s free and available today! myReports allows you to extract data as of the end of the previous day, which means no more waiting for the information you need to conduct the affairs of your office. With myReports you can tap into your borrowers’ data and extract the information that you want and sort the report the way that you want. In short, myReports is all about meeting your needs. You can access myReports in the same way you can access eXpressReports. After requesting that your access to the report becomes available (see below for details), log into System 3i (https://system3i.campuspartners.com) with a valid user ID and password and go to the “Reports” drop down menu. Select the myReports link, and you’re on your way to the most flexible, timely, and relevant reporting tool available in the industry.

Once you have entered myReports, you will see there are three options to choose from: the Public Library, Ad-Hoc, and My Personal Library. The Public Library contains a suite of five reports designed to satisfy several of your most important data analysis needs. By entering date ranges and selecting among several field content options, you can quickly run reports that show you when borrowers’ grace periods are expiring and/or separation dates are nearing as well creating reports to help you monitor specific facets of your past due portfolio. If your report requirements cannot be met with any of these reports, you can design your own reports by utilizing customization options available through the Ad-Hoc tab.

The Ad-Hoc section, utilizing the easy-to-use Crystal Reports software, allows you to choose the filters that will limit the information selected for your report, specify the data fields that your report should contain, and determine the manner in which the loan records should be sorted on your report. You can also perform other more advanced report options such as grouping your report data based on a certain criteria (such as loan status), calculating summary totals (such as combining all outstanding fees in a “Total Fees” column), and creating a chart based on your report results. If you haven’t tried this we encourage you to kick the tires. Your Personal Library is the place where you can store the reports you create indefinitely, run them as often as you like or schedule them to be run at the beginning of each week or month, edit them, and access the data from all previously run reports.

Like eXpressReports, myReports allows you to search the reports for key words and/or numbers and download your reports into a variety of different format types including Word, Excel, and Adobe Acrobat. However, myReports goes beyond the functionality of eXpressReports allowing you to sort, group, and filter your reports and format reports. How do you gain access to myReports? It is very simple. All you need to do is go to our Web site and download the myReports authorization form, fill it out, and return it to Campus Partners. We will process the form within 3 days, after which you will be able to create, customize, and sort reports the way you want! If you would like to walk through myReports for the first time with a Campus Partners staff member, you can contact your Customer Service Representative or Account Manager to arrange for a demonstration. We know you’ll like it.

Please see this month’s feature, “How to Use myReports” for more information.

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Regulatory Wisdom from Sharon Cameron

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Holiday Schedule for 2006

Campus Partners will observe the following holidays for 2006. Our on-line systems will be available during normally scheduled hours.

 

New Year’s Day (observed)	Monday, January 2
Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday	Monday, January 16
President’s Day	Monday, February 20
Memorial Day	Monday, May 29
Independence Day	Tuesday, July 4
Labor Day	Monday, September 4
Thanksgiving Day	Thursday, November 23
Day after Thanksgiving	Friday, November 24
Christmas Eve (observed)	Friday, December 22
Christmas Day	Monday, December 25

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Customer Insight The Early Intervention Program (EIP) has truly been a life saver. With a shrinking budget and staffing concerns, the EIP makes contact with borrowers earlier than our staff could, and, in some cases, actually eliminated the necessity for contact later. We have had no complaints from our borrowers about this program and I believe it is because the borrowers are talking to real people at Campus Partners who educate or reeducate them about their loan and the benefits afforded to them. Just at our campus, we have had over a 90% success rate since the program began! I highly recommend the Early Intervention Program. Jan McFarlan Humboldt State University

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