Negotiating on the Title IV Loans Negotiated Rulemaking Committee

I am very honored to write that I have been selected to be the primary non-federal negotiator representing financial aid administrators for the Title IV Loans Negotiated Rulemaking Committee. California and WASFAA are well represented on the committee. The first meeting starts next week in Washington DC.

I will be sharing what I can through Twitter and the CASFAA newsletter. Hopefully, my first tweet will not be next to a pile of snow.

Now for the ask.

I really want to hear from people in the financial aid profession. What do you want to see negotiated in the loan programs? Send me an email scott (a) scottcline.org or a tweet with your thoughts and ideas.

Federal Financial Aid Conference - Orlando, FL.

I am en route to the Federal Financial Aid (FSA) in Orlando, FL today and will be there through Friday before I fly back.[1] I am managing to spend two weeks in Florida in the course of two months. It should be an interesting conference with a few less surprises this year then last year in Las Vegas. It probably just means that changes in federal financial aid policy will just happen later this year or early 2013.

If you will be there and want to meet for coffee or drinks, send me a message on twitter @scottcline or if you are more bleeding edge App.net @scottcline. You can also drop me an email.

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1. Literatlly at 37,000 feet and going at 633 miles per hour. Currently, over Mississippi about to leave land and cross over the Golf of Mexico.  ↩

College Board National Forum - October 24-26 - Miami, FL

As part of the College Board’s Enrollment Leadership Academy I am headed to Miami, FL in two weeks for the College Board’s National Forum.[1] The sessions and presentations are looking really good and I am looking forward to meeting/speaking with a bunch of people in higher education and K–12 from around the country.

If you will be there and want to meet for coffee or drinks, send me a message on twitter @scottcline or if you are more bleeding edge App.net @scottcline.

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1. Call me strange, but one of my favorite parts of traveling from coast-to-coast for conferences is the five hour flight of uninurrpted time to get work done without phone calls (even though more and more I still have internet access). It is great for getting large sections of writing done. It might have been cheaper and more efficent to book more cross-country flights while writing my dissertation then paying for coffee at a coffee shop.  ↩

No more asking for social network passwords (under the law, instead of just common sense)

The lines are starting to be drawn around online privacy, not only in employement, but in higher education. From Timothy Lee at ArsTechnica:

[Governor] Brown also signed related legislation that prohibits universities from requiring their students to disclose social media passwords. The governor’s office cited a growing problem with universities snooping on the accounts of student athletes.

This does not appear to protect students (or employees) from acts that they do online from being held against them if it is open to the general internet/public. It might sound vain or egotistical to google yourself, but you can bet other people might. Would you rather have you know what they might find before they do?[1]

If you have a common name, that other John Smith, might get you wrongly slandered and you might want to know about it before a particular employer or admissions office does.

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1. Make sure to log out of your google account before you google your own name. Otherwise your results will be biased much more to you then a general google search might other be so. Also, google search results can be personalized based on your cookie history. Instructions to turn off both on google’s support site  ↩

Could not have said it better myself →

Shawn Blanc:

Here’s a metric that can help you determine if you’re on track for reaching your goals: are you spending your time, money, and attention differently than most people?

Are you leading or following in research or higher education? If you find yourself too often thinking about following others in the race, it is time to start thinking about where you want to be in 5, 10, or 20 years.