California College Access and AB 540

California law provides qualifying students access to college at the in-state tuition rate at all public educational institutions. We review the law and its background, provide details about eligibility and benefits, and examine AB 540 forms in use at various institutions.

Cohort Calculations

What is a cohort default rate (CDR) and how does it affect my school? The EdFund Institute's "Cohort Calculations" webcast will teach you how to measure your school's performance in managing its student loan program. We'll also look at how the CDR is calculated, how it affects your school and how it impacts your borrowers.

Conflicting Tax Information

Ever wonder if the W-2 resolved the information reported on the FAFSA, or if the 1040 tax schedule helped you find that unreported income or hidden asset? Did the 1040X leave you with more questions than answers? You will leave this presentation armed with tips and pointers for resolving tax data that may be leaving you with conflicting information.

Developing Policies and Procedures

Rampant changes in the world of financial aid make it critical that your policies and procedures manual be current as well as visually appealing and effectively written. Join us as we explore the intricacies of crafting a manual for your office. We examine core concepts, guide you through the development of a well-written manual, and provide tips for creating a manual with visual appeal and logical flow.

Deferments and Forbearance

This session’s goal is to give you a better understanding of the postponement options available for your students to help them avoid delinquency and default. We’ll go over some of the basic criteria the borrower needs to meet in order to qualify for a Deferment or Forbearance as well as some best practices for applying these forms to the borrower’s account.

Extraordinary Loan Counseling

Are you presenting a loan counseling session soon? Do you know what all the requirements are? Want to make it fun and interesting? Do you want your students to understand and remember what you told them? Schools need to be ready to conduct effective and compliant loan counseling sessions for their students.

EdFund is offering additional training to help schools organize their sessions. This one-hour webinar will review loan counseling requirements as well as give you some ideas to make your loan counseling sessions something to remember. Watch and listen on your own or invite your co-workers to join you as you learn how to make your loan counseling sessions memorable.

FAAs and Required Tax Knowledge

This webinar addresses Part I of IRS Publication 17: the income tax return. We will review:

• Filing Information
• Filing Status
• Personal Exemptions
• Dependents

You will learn who must file, which form should be used, who can be claimed and due dates. We will provide you handouts and case studies, and guidance on student verification. You will also get the opportunity to apply the law in various scenarios.

FAFSA Changes and Overview

Helping students and parents complete the FAFSA quickly and correctly is one of the most critical contributions of any Financial Aid Office. Making mistakes or filing late can mean thousands of dollars in lost aid, never mind potential delays. The 2009/2010 FAFSA is significantly changed; in this session, we'll take a close look at the modifications.

FERPA

Do the delicate intricacies of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act leave you perplexed? You can ensure your institution's compliance with FERPA, and we can help! Here's what we'll cover:

• FERPA History
• Compliance-related issues (violations and penalties)
• FERPA terminology such as identifiable information, privacy, directory information, etc
• What information can be given with or without consent? And to whom?
• Counseling requirements
• What is the FPCO, and how can they help?
• Technology implications

Needs Analysis and the EFC Calculation

We all rely on the Central Processing System to calculate an EFC for us. When a student's and/or parent's information changes, most of us enter the new information into our computer systems and just push a function key on our keyboards to instantly calculate a revised EFC. Manual calculations would seem to be condemned to the dust bin of history — except for one thing.

What happens when the computer system goes down?

Do you understand the affects to the EFC of adding a family member to the household? Where does state residency come into play? Why do we ask how old a parent is?

This session will demystify the intricacies of the process, and leave you well prepared for the next time your computer crashes.

Professional Judgment

Judgment is defined as the act of assessing a person's situation based on the available information. As financial aid professionals, you are asked on a regular basis to do just this for students through professional judgment (PJ).

Join us as we explore case studies of "unusual circumstances" designed to help you better understand professional judgment. We will go in-depth on:

• The appropriate versus inappropriate use of PJ
• Recognizing and resolving conflicting information
• Evaluating your institutional policies and procedures to ensure your office is compliant, and audit ready
• Federal regulatory update

Repayment Plans

This session’s goal is to help you understand the different repayment options available to your students to help them avoid delinquency and default. We’ll go over the different repayment options and eligibility requirements. We will compare monthly payments and total pay off to help your students make the right choice in selecting the repayment plan that best meets their current financial situation. Your students can choose to change repayment plans once a year to meet their financial needs and stay current on their payments.

SAR Comment Codes

Have you ever found yourself overwhelmed or mystified by the comments, codes and edits listed on the Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR)? Has resolving a rejected ISIR or assumption occasionally stumped you? Do database mismatches ever disrupt your daily processing of aid? Mastering C-codes can be a challenge. This session provides the tools and techniques that can make the process easier and more manageable.

Verification

Do you have more questions about verification than you have answers? Do you find yourself in a maze of paperwork wondering if you have all the right documentation? Does reading the Application and Verification Guide make you consider taking tax preparation courses?

This webcast will review its history and philosophy; identify FAFSA-related requirements; define acceptable documentation; resolve both common and complex situations; and review basic tax law using IRS Publication 17.

The Webinar Experience

In light of recent legislative requirements that increased the responsibility of institutions of higher education to provide consumer information to the educational community, many institutions are evaluating the use of webcasts and webinars. We will discuss the basics: where to begin, the strengths and weaknesses of webcasts and webinars, and the importance of understanding learning styles. Then, we'll walk through the 10 steps to an exceptional webcast or webinar presentation.

For more information, e-mail workshops@edfund.org.