REGION II MEETING
SUNY GENESEO
Attendance:
AMS: Shane Rauh
Bank of
Citibank: Debi Mansour
Citizens Bank: Ambrose Price II, Jean Fura
College Loan Corporation: Vince Scalise, Sean
Rafferty
Edamerica: Holly Zaglaniczny
Fifth Third Bank: Marc Woolf
HSBC Bank: Sherrie
Sheppard
Key Bank: Kathleen O’Connell
M&T Bank: Andy Leardini
National Education: Eddie Viera
Nellie Mae: Katrina Delgrosso
Next Student: Theresa Gieseke
NSLP: Anne Barton
NYSHESC: Ed Gilbert,
John Austin
Rochester Business
Institute: Stephen Dodds
Rochester Institute of
Technology: Toby Dye, Verna Hazen,
Rachel Shuman
Sallie Mae: Ithrene Cameron,
Sharon Richardson
Student Loan Xpress: Brian Levy
SUNY Brockport:
Nora Bell, Heather Allen
SUNY Geneseo: Chris Jadlos, Susan
Romano, Archie Cureton
Wachovia: Karen Blankenburg
Treasurer’s Report:
§ Current balance = $1,080.93
§
Funds from today’s meeting will be deposited
shortly.
Secretary’s Report
(Katrina Delgrosso):
§ Minutes are on the NYSFAAA website under Regional News (click on Region 2 on the map, then click on “Notes/Report Index” towards the top of the page)
Membership Report
(Margaret Christian):
§ If you have a problem with membership or being on the listserv, let Margaret know.
§ Joan Warren is the VP of NYSFAAA Membership and is wonderful. She shares a lot of information. There is more statistical data than ever before.
§ Brochures for membership are available through Margaret. If you have staff that you would like to get more interested in NYSFAAA, Margaret can send the brochure out.
§
If you have not already done so, please pay your
NYSFAAA membership fee before
Executive Council
Report (Steve Dodds):
§ Highlights include:
o VISA and MasterCard are able to be used to pay for membership. This does not include vendors’ payment for sponsorship and also the scholarship. There is a charge per transaction that we have to pay to the VISA and MasterCard companies, so it is possible that our conference fee may go up slightly to absorb this cost. Susan Romano mentioned that given the amount of work this will save for registration, we shouldn’t put this cost onto our membership—NYSFAAA should absorb it. Plus, the conference tends to make some small profit, so NYSFAAA should just consider this the cost of doing business. Steve Dodds will take these comments back to Exec Council. Everyone in the room was asked to raise their hands if they were in favor of this and all hands went up. Steve will take this back to Exec Council for discussion.
o Professional Development meeting—about 100 people; breakfast and lunch catered in and paid for by NYSFAAA. We are looking for a date in the spring and looking for locations. If you are interested in hosting on your campus, please contact Steve Dodds (sdodds@cci.edu) or Mark Schwartz (mschwartz@monroecc.edu).
o NYSFAAA evaluations—they were not very good. Looking at whether the “Vendor Night In” at this year’s conference would be continued. There is a survey out there to the vendors this year to choose whether to do the same idea for 2006 or go back to having a vendor night “out”. The evaluations will eventually be on the NYSFAAA website. Overall, the conference evaluations were not good. Too much emphasis on entertainment versus the sessions. Program was supposed to be approved by Exec Council before the conference, but it wasn’t. Signage at the conference was poor and people couldn’t find the rooms for the sessions. Vendor space was poor and was also too close to the session rooms. Therefore, there was too much noise heard in the session rooms. The 2006 committee will take into consideration all of the feedback on the evaluations. Final 2005 budget will be available at the Exec Council meeting in February. Comment today about the length of the conference—the membership was surveyed at some point in the not-too-distant-past and it will remain at the length it is now.
o During the April meeting of Exec Council, they will be discussing all operations of NYSFAAA. If you have ideas on what we should be doing differently, please email Steve with your comments or concerns.
o NYS Higher Education Day at the State Fair will be
o February 1st will be the Legislative Training Day. Exec Council members will be attending this.
o Next
meeting in
HESC Update (Ed
Gilbert):
§ Training grants renewed for 2006. Send an email to traingrant@hesc.com to request that the forms are sent to you to apply. Unspent funds for 2005 can be used for 2006—your 2005 leftover funds will be subtracted from what your 2006 amount would be. You can pre-pay 2006 travel expenses right now until the end of December if you want to use 2005 funds for 2006 expenses. You do not need to send money back.
§ Overture is a new payment planning software. HESC purchased a license for every school in NY. It will not cost schools anything. Little IT involvement, but does require some.
Lender/Vendor
Updates:
§
Key Bank is offering zero fees as of
§ NSLP is going to be offering some professional development training in approximately May, 2006. It will be a Webcast that you can do at your desk. It will be regarding counseling for loan consolidation and also establishing budgets for students.
§
Nellie Mae is offering zero origination fees on
§
AMS is offering zero
origination fees on
Committee Updates:
§
CAAN Update, Joe
Bailey:
Job Openings:
§
Vice President for Student Services and Enrollment
Management at
Upcoming Regional
Meetings:
§ February 15
§ March 29
§ If you are able to host at your school, please let Jerome St. Croix know at jstcroix@monroecc.edu .
§ If you have any training topics, please let Susan Romano know (romano@geneseo.edu). Susan will be on maternity leave VERY soon, so you may want to also copy Jerome St. Croix (jstcroix@monroecc.edu).
Training: Satisfactory Academic Progress Issues for TAP
and Title IV Programs
(John Austin, HESC):
§ SAP appears in 3 different sections in the regs for Title IV programs (administrative capability, student eligibility, consumer information). For TAP, there are audit disallowances.
§ Policy differences between TAP and Title IV: Title IV SAP is developed by multiple authors as an institutional policy. TAP SAP has specific requirements as set by the NY Comptroller’s Office. Schools have institutional SAP policies and TAP has state policies that must be adhered to.
§ TAP audits will include first looking at the school’s handbook to review school’s policies.
§ Your FAMS system needs to be capable of making sure you are in compliance for TAP SAP.
§ Program review is a small sample of students. In an audit from the NY Comptroller regarding TAP SAP, it will be more comprehensive with a broader pool of students.
§ TAP waiver versus professional judgment: PJ is case-by-case/unique circumstances/affected only by this student/beyond your usual policy. For a TAP waiver, the institution certifies/maintains documentation/in the best interest of the student/circumstances are exceptional or unusual/do you “pre-qualify” (you’re not going to be eligible, so don’t bother applying for the TAP waiver). Unusual circumstances can turn into “usual” sometimes that affects many students.
§ Appeal process: In writing? Are there additional requirements? How often can a student appeal? Is there a need for a face to face meeting? Is there an appeals committee or will one person make the determination? For PJ on SAP, on a case-by-case basis, it is rarely a program review issue as long as it is documented. This is the opinion of the FAA to determine whether or not a PJ can be done.
§ Disclosure: Criteria for eligibility, standards for maintaining SAP, how to re-establish eligibility, is it published, an institution must have a written policy about the granting of a waiver. An institution can have a policy that they will not allow a TAP SAP waiver. So there are some schools who have chosen not to have a TAP waiver offered to their students. The majority of schools DO allow a waiver, but a school can decide whether or not to allow this (as part of their written policy).
§ What if HESC allowed PJ for TAP—would schools want that? What if HESC performed the PJ versus the school for TAP—is that something a school would want? Today, that is not offered, but the idea was tossed around during the meeting today.
§ Approved programs: program must be registered by SED, on Inventory of Registered Programs (IRP) as TAP eligible. Also, catalog, transcript and IRP must agree.
§ Full-time status: It is not just any 12 credits—they have to be going towards the degree. Does this count in their last semester? There was discussion as to whether or not the last semester will count against the student if their classes don’t all go towards their degree. Nancy VanZetta said that she was told that the last semester wouldn’t count. So John Austin will clarify this for the group.
§ Repeated courses: If an acceptable grade was achieved, can the course be repeated and go towards TAP? Anything you’re not required to repeat or if it is just an extra course, then it would not go towards TAP. So if you have to repeat a course in order to achieve the degree with a certain GPA (e.g. need a B in a nursing course in order to complete degree requirements), then this would count towards TAP credit hours/requirements.
§ Grade point average—TAP looks at the total GPA for related and non-related courses.
§
The best place on the campus to formulate
institutional policies is the financial aid office.