Education Dept. to Test New Ways of Awarding Student Aid

The Education Department is inviting colleges to test alternative ways of administering federal student aid. In a notice published in today’s Federal Register, the department describes eight experiments it will conduct under its revived “experimental sites” effort. One test would let participating institutions limit how much their students borrow in unsubsidized federal loans, a change long sought by for-profit and community colleges. Other experiments would allow some institutions to award aid to students enrolled in some short-term training programs; provide early, single disbursements of aid to students abroad; award PLUS loans to parents of students with intellectual disabilities; and offer aid to students with intellectual disabilities who are enrolled in both high school and college. The application deadline is December 12. Colleges with high default rates and for-profits with more than 85 percent of their revenue coming from the federal government are ineligible.