NASFAA's Off the Cuff Podcast

This week on "Off the Cuff," Hugh is joined by David, Jackie, Tonya, Norma, and David Downing for a deep dive into the operations of our NASFAA U team. Throughout the conversation, the team highlights some important financial aid topics for upcoming courses, breaks down the differences between NASFAA U and webinars, explains how courses are developed, and much more. Hugh also provides a brief reca...

This week on "Off The Cuff," Melanie is joined by Nalia to preview the 2026 midterm elections and what that could mean for student aid policy just a few days before Election Day. First, the team details how the makeup of Congress could change with the midterm elections, including House and Senate education leadership. From there, the team debriefs potential priorities of the new Congress, and what...

This week on "Off the Cuff," Hugh is joined by David to discuss some of the basics around Title IV credit balances, or instances when the amount of Title IV funds credited to a student's ledger account for a payment period exceeds the total amount of allowable charges for that payment period. David provides an overview of the regulatory language concerning credit balances and goes on to provide se...

This week on "Off the Cuff," Natalie is joined by Brandi Blanton, director of financial aid at Schreiber School of Veterinary Medicine of Rowan University, to discuss her journey as a first-generation college student who explored several different paths before finding her way in the financial aid profession. Throughout the conversation, Brandi talks about her passion for professional development,...

This week on "Off The Cuff," Maria is joined by Jill and Sarah to discuss the new cohort default rate (CDR) released by the Department of Education (ED) last week. Jill explains what this CDR means in context to borrowers returning to repayment after the Covid-19 payment pause. From there, Jill provides an overview of NASFAA's new Cohort Default Rate Web Center, and Sarah explains the identity ver...

This week on "Off The Cuff," Hugh is joined by Jill and Sarah to discuss the launch of the 2027-28 FAFSA and highlight some important developments and deadlines impacting financial aid offices. After Sarah catches listeners up on helpful FAFSA resources, Jill details the latest implementation developments concerning the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) and NASFAA's new Q&A on Expected Time to Cr...

This week on "Off the Cuff," Natalie is joined by Kerline Eglaus Ed. D, MBA, FAAC ® , assistant vice provost of financial initiatives & chief financial aid administrator, and Daniel Matamoros, Ph. D, MEd, MFT, CEPF ® , FAAC ® , director of financial aid scholarships, both of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to discuss how they have worked to bring financial aid into broader institutional co...

This week on "Off The Cuff," Melanie and Karen catch listeners up on several financial aid developments from the summer. Karen kicks things off with the latest congressional activity impacting funding for the Department of Education (ED), Title IV eligibility, and student loan repayments. The team then details new reporting data from the department on financial value transparency (FVT) and gainful...

This week on "Off the Cuff," David and Maria are joined by Kochie for a special episode to test your financial aid knowledge. First, David and Kochie explain the origin of the NASFAA Quiz Show – which just concluded its sixth season – and detail how the quiz show works. From there, the team reviews some of the game show questions related to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), as well as answer...

This week on "Off The Cuff," Melanie is joined by Karen and Nalia to discuss the two active lawsuits against the Department of Education's (ED) final rule on loan programs. Karen explains what the lawsuits entail, where states, nursing and physician assistant organizations argue against ED's definition of "professional" degree programs, which will be subject to higher loan limits compared to gradu...

This week on "Off the Cuff," Jill, Sarah, and Maria discuss questions regarding 2026-27 reprocessed ISIRs, and best practices for institutions to prevent student aid fraud. Jill starts by noting that reprocessed ISIRs recently started arriving in financial aid offices with comment code 352 and a corresponding C-Flag and explains what that means. Jill goes on to detail what NASFAA knows so far abou...

This week on "Off the Cuff," Allie is joined by Rachel and Sheila Meiman, NASFAA's prison education specialist, to discuss the landscape of prison education programs (PEP). Sheila, who is retiring this month, details how PEP has changed in recent years and how her professional journey led her to NASFAA. Allie and Rachel discuss how a grant from Ascendium has allowed NASFAA to build capacity and br...

This week on "Off the Cuff," Hugh is joined by David Tolman, David Futrell, and Norma to discuss more details concerning the implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). During the conversation, NASFAA's Training and Regulatory Assistance team focuses on issues related to Schedule of Reductions (SOR) and outstanding questions that remain unanswered, even though final regulations were...

This week on "Off the Cuff," Hugh is joined by Jill and Sarah to provide some updates on where things stand with final rules from the negotiated rulemaking committees focusing on implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), and some updates to the NSLDS post-screening process. Jill kicks things off with a recap of the final rules – issued May 1 – from the Reimagining and Improving Stu...

This week on "Off the Cuff," Melanie is joined by David Page, Blue Icon's senior business development specialist, Renee Armentrout, a Blue Icon consultant, and Rachel Andersen, Cuyamaca College's director of financial aid & scholarships, to discuss how schools are sorting through the latest guidance and condensed implementation timeline for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). Melanie kicks thi...

This week on "Off the Cuff," David Tolman and Maria are joined by Tonya and David Downing for a discussion on the new Return of Title IV funds (R2T4) regulations, which will become effective this July. The team walks listeners through the five areas that will be impacted by new R2T4 regulations and details what these new regulations entail. From there, the team walks through different student scen...

This week on "Off the Cuff," Jill, Sarah, and Maria discuss the breaking news this week that, in a reversal of guidance, the Department of Education (ED) is now including Graduate PLUS loans in the new $257,500 lifetime borrowing limit established through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). Jill explains what this means for students and walks listeners through different student scenarios. From...

  This week on "Off The Cuff," Melanie and Karen are joined by Aaron Lemon-Strauss, the Department of Education's (ED) FAFSA program executive director, to discuss new FAFSA fraud prevention measures announced by the department this week. Aaron kicks off the discussion by explaining the technical details of how these new fraud prevention measures will work in the online FAFSA workflow. He further...

This week on "Off the Cuff," David and Maria are joined by Norma and Tonya for a discussion on retroactive and late disbursements. First, the team defines what retroactive and late disbursements are, along with the different conditions and deadlines for each type of disbursement. From there, the team walks through some situations of retroactive and late disbursements that an institution might have...

This week on "Off the Cuff," Hugh and Sarah highlight some updates concerning borrower defense and preview comments for the 2027-28 FAFSA. Sarah kicks things off with a background on borrower defense and a recent trend in which some schools have seen an increase in claims. Sarah then provides details on NASFAA's preview comments for the upcoming FAFSA and explains how members can use that informat...

This week on "Off the Cuff," Hugh and David kick off a broader discussion on what is and what isn't a professional judgment. Last week, David was at the Nebraska State Association conference, where he did a session on professional judgment and, based on some questions that came up, decided to share some important takeaways with the podcast community. During the conversation, David provides definit...

This week on "Off The Cuff," Melanie and Karen discuss three new House bills focused on preventing fraud in the student aid programs, all of which were advanced by the House Education and Workforce Committee this week. Karen explains what each of the three bills would do and how they would impact institutions. From there, Melanie discusses what's happening with the Department of Education's (ED) A...

This week on "Off the Cuff," Hugh, Jill, and Sarah share some takeaways from last week's Federal Student Aid (FSA) training conference, where officials from the Department of Education (ED) provided policy updates geared towards financial aid professionals. Jill provides updates on FAFSA, Pell Grant and Workforce Pell developments, the common manual for the Federal Direct Loan Program, and more. S...

This week on "Off The Cuff," Melanie is joined by Karen to discuss what attendees can expect with the upcoming in-person Federal Student Aid (FSA) conference next week. From there, the team debriefs the Congressional Budget Office's new projections of a funding shortfall in the Pell Grant program. Karen then debriefs listeners on the draft 2027-28 FAFSA, which is now open for public comment, and e...

This week on "Off the Cuff," Tim is joined by David and Norma to do a deep dive on what financial aid professionals should do if a student's marital status changes. The team first discusses how and why a student's marital status would change from when they first filed their FAFSA. David then tells a "dramatic" story, a scenario that he created, to illustrate the rules for updating a student's mari...