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Hello CASFAA!

by Barbara Bicket, CASFAA President

Now that all of us are trying to dig out from under the 2019 Fall term, we can now start to look forward to 2020-2021 FAFSA. Can you believe it? It is also hard to believe that my year as President is almost over. Recently you received two requests. One was the ballot for our annual elections. Please take a moment to vote for the future leaders of CASFAA. The other is our request for award nominations. Do you know someone who has served our profession or CASFAA well, taken the time to mentor others, advocates for student access, or just goes above and beyond? Please take the time to nominate that incredible colleague by October 18!

The year has gone by too quickly and CASFAA has so much more to do with looking at our membership structure, and developing sustainable polices so that CASFAA is available for our young leaders in the future.

Federal Update

by Mary Booker, VP Federal Issues

Greetings from the Federal Issues Committee! Lawmakers continue to work towards Higher Education Act Reauthorization. Over the last few weeks the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) has begun sharing draft bill text of specific sections and provisions with Republican members on the Committee. The House, on the other hand, is working towards a comprehensive HEA draft bill, likely to be released sometime after the conclusion of its HEA hearing series, though the timeline remains uncertain. Both chambers had until the end of September to pass the FY 2020 appropriations bills. They did not make the deadline and the House passed a continuing resolution to fund the government through November 21 to prevent a government shutdown.

State Legislation Tracker Tool

Too much state legislation and not enough time to sift through what’s important to financial aid? Ed Source simmers down the highlights and statuses of state bills important to our industry this legislative cycle.

Proprietary Segment Update

by Wendy Wang, CASFAA Proprietary Segment Rep

Have you ever thought of taking credit classes for “Financial aid”? How can you become a Certified Financial Aid Administrator (CFAA)? Yes, you can get credits and become a credentialed professional.

Come join us for the Proprietary Pre-conference workshop on November 2nd & 3rd, where we are pleased to have the CASFAA Training Committee offer the NASFAA U credential topic “Student Eligibility” provided by an experienced and credentialed NASFAA U trainer. This valuable NASFAA U training will come with an official NASFAA Study Guide and a voucher that will allow you to take the test to get your NASFAA credentials. You must be in attendance to receive the study guide and voucher code. This course (when combined with online training, study guide, and test) would cost over $600 when purchased directly through NASFAA.

You will receive this in-person training, study guide and test voucher code at no additional cost if you register for this 2-day workshop for only $110! Opportunities like this (with huge savings) don’t come around too often. See you in a few weeks in sunny Riverside.

Independent Segment Update

by Emily Valk, CASFAA Independent Seg Rep

Is it just me or does it feel like every year the gap between academic years grows smaller and smaller? After weeks of frantic phone calls from students and parents claiming they had no idea they were missing anything, we finally made it through clearance. Right about now is when I would like to kick back and read through the 412 unread NASFAA emails I have in my inbox. But instead, we're already gearing up for 20-21. For those of you who were unable to attend the College Board Fall Update Workshop, we got some exciting news about improvements to the CSS Profile, PowerFAIDS and IDOC. One thing I am particularly grateful for is the Crosswalk between 2017 and 2018 Tax Returns for CSS Profile Collected Data, which you can find on the Financial Aid Services Information Center. It might not fit on a postcard, but it's a heck of a lot easier to follow than the 2018 taxes themselves!

In just a few short weeks we will be convening for the 2019 CASFAA Conference. I hope you can join us at the Independent Segment Breakfast, where we will hear updates from CSAC and AICCU, as well as be joined by the Century Foundation for a lively discussion regarding Cal Grant system reform and its potential impacts on our sector.

Wishing you all a peaceful transition between academic years - here's hoping you get a chance to catch up on emails, projects and maybe even some sleep!

Training Update

by Thalassa Naylor, CASFAA Training Chair

This has been a year of working to re-define and further develop what CASFAA does to help provide valuable and cost-effective training to financial aid administrators in California. CASFAA looks for ways to provide education and skills that can supplement our annual conference, tax workshops, and monthly distribution of free webcast trainings offered by our industry partners. This year we took on two new initiatives:

Provide state legislative compliance training on recently passed legislation
Provide high quality financial aid training utilizing NASFAA U credential resources

State Legislative Compliance

Federal updates are easy to secure in a variety of sources, but how do you find out what regulations have been passed in California that could impact your institution? CASFAA produced two webinars in June for the membership to review financial aid legislation that passed in the most recent legislative cycle. The presentation was composed and delivered by our VP of State Issues, Bronwyn Garrison from UC Davis. We covered such topics as AB 1858 (Shopping Sheet), AB 1178 (Annual Loan Notification) and AB 2248 (Cal Grant Notification). The webinars were well attended with nearly 200 participants. We will be offering this session again at the upcoming CASFAA conference and will continue utilizing the webcast format to bring you future state legislation updates.

NASFAA U Credential Courses

NASFAA’s nationally-recognized, consistent, and rigorous NASFAA U credential program is now being provided by CASFAA to our members at a significantly reduced price! This year, CASFAA offered members this content, including in-person training by NASFAA certified trainers (highlighted below), study guide, and the credential test. We offered “Consumer Information”, “Packaging & Award Notification,” and a professional development focus on presentation skills. Catch our next training at the Proprietary Pre-Conference. We look forward to further developing our ability to provide these high quality trainings and increasing their frequency.

The CASFAA Training Committee
The committee delivered summer training in a whirlwind timeframe, with volunteers using their strengths to provide quality instruction. With weekly calls and behind the scenes preparation, including updating presentations, studying for and securing appropriate credentials, and coordinating travel and scheduling, I’d like to thank the following awesome group of people who made our spring and summer trainings possible:

Bronwyn Garrison UC Davis
Dewayne Barnes, California College of the Arts
Ricardo Buenrostro, UC Davis
Carmen Diaz Misa, Sonoma State University
Carl Gottbrecht, Stanford University
Shawn Domingo, Cogswell Polytechnic Institute
David Levy, Consultant
Lori Prince, University of San Francisco
Anafe Robinson, LA Pierce College
Brad Williams, College Options

Do you have the heart of a trainer or teacher?

The Training Committee is seeking interested professionals from our community to help deliver training in 2020. If you have a passion for financial aid education and think you’d like to be a trainer, or you are interested in helping with some of the logistical support (e.g. finding locations, on-site support, or follow up communications), please consider joining the Training Committee. If this is not your interest but you have feedback/ideas on what training you think would be most valuable, please connect with me.

CASFAA also continues to share free industry related webcasts from our partners on a monthly basis. Look for the monthly email on free web training or go to our website where we also post the information in the training section. If you are an associate member and your organization offers interesting or valuable information via webcasts, whether every month or just occasionally, please reach out to my contact information below and let’s see if we can add it to our monthly distribution.

Forward

Copyright © 2019 California Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, All rights reserved.

CASFAA mailing address for payments is:
Mendocino College
c/o Yuliana Sandoval
1000 Hensley Creek Rd
Ukiah, CA 95482

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