Strengthening the Federal Student Loan Program

On Thursday, March 27th, the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) had a hearing on "Strengthening the Federal Student Loan Program for Borrowers. There were several panelists testifying, including Jim Runcie, Chief Operating Officer of Federal Student Aid with the U.S. Department of Education; Dr. Michelle Cooper, President of the Institute for Higher Education Policy; Deanne Loonin from the National Consumer Law Center; Roberta Johnson, Director of Student Financial Aid at Iowa State University; and Marian Dill, Director of Student Financial Aid at Lee University.

You can see a summary of folks who were live-tweeting the hearing below, using the #LoanHELP hashtag. A video of the hearing, as well as written testimony from each panelist, is available on the Senate HELP website.

If you are a member of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), you should see an article summaring the hearing in NASFAA Today's News tomorrow morning!

In other news, Program Integrity Negotiated Rulemaking is also occurring right now. You can see a good summary of yesterday's negotiations from Rachel Fishman with the New America Foundation. You can follow those tweets by using the #NegReg hashtag. There were more negotiations today and a final session is planned for May to discuss PLUS Loans.