News You Need to Know: Daily Roundup, Mon., Oct. 9th

U.S. Education Department Withholds Three Month $10 million Subsidy Payment to Nelnet

After an Education Department Inspector General audit found systematic overbilling of taxpayers by the Nelnet student loan corporation, the Department decided last week to withhold $10 million in Nelnet-requested subsidy payments. Future requests from Nelnet for special allowance payments will be calculated using "the generally applicable special allowance formulas, and not the [Nelnet requested] 9.5 percent special allowance rate for these loans," until the Department definitively straightens out Nelnets purported overbilling problems.

The voluntary National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) has voted to prohibit member colleges from admitting students before September 15 of their senior year of high school and from setting early deadlines before October 15 of said year. In addition, the association voted to bar member colleges from using standardized test scores (i.e. SAT and ACT scores) as the only factor in determining financial aid. While most colleges have abandoned standardized test score cut-offs for admissions, there are still scholarships that consider only test scores during the selection process. NACAC cannot require colleges to follow these guidelines, but admissions deans and staff from a majority of institutions of higher education are NACAC members, and its policies are generally accepted as admissions standards.