Financial Aid Announcements from the White House

The White House has announced changes to the FAFSA form/process, changes to other financial aid programs, as well as new government based financial aid sources. Here's a highlight, followed by a link to the announcement from Ed.gov:
  1. FAFSA Form: A shorter, easier to fill out FAFSA form, especially online, where interactive "skip" technology will be used to help students navigate the form, making sure they see only the questions to which they need to respond. This new version should be available this summer.
  2. Expanding Pell Grants and College Tax Credits: The Recovery Act increased Pell Grants by $500 to $5,350 for 2009-2010 and created the American Opportunity Tax Credit, a new $2,500 tax credit for four years of college tuition.
In addition to those enacted changes, others have been proposed in the budget:
  1. Expanding the Perkins Loan Program: There is a budget proposal to allocate 5 billion to make Perkins loans available to over 2,600 additional schools and an estimated 2.7 million additional students each year.
  2. Creating a New College Access and Completion Fund: The budget proposal proposes a five-year, $2.5 billion fund to build federal-state-local partnerships aimed at improving college access and completion, particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
To read more about these new programs and proposals, go to:

http://www.ed.gov/finaid/info/apply/simplification.html and

http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2009/06/06242009.html

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