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Home » Student Affairs » Financial Aid » Committee on Student Financial Aid » Minutes

Meeting Minutes: Regents Advisory Committee on Student Financial Aid (RACSFA)

Fall Meeting
November 13-14, 2003

Attendees:

Agenda Items

Welcome/Call to Order

Pat Simmons welcomed the group. The minutes of the previous meeting were approved. She gave a report of the treasury.

Joint Meetings

• RACRA does not wish to continue to meet with us in a joint meeting in the Spring. For the past few meetings, we have not had issues of common interest.
• We may have a possible joint meeting with Business /Student Accounts Officers. This group is not formalized yet, but they will try to have one meeting before a joint meeting. If possible, the joint meeting with this group will occur in March. It was discussed that we should have specific topics/agenda items for the joint meeting.
• A RACSFA one day meeting was discussed.

Sub-Committees

• The Consortium Sub-committee was dissolved. The MIF project should solve consortium issues.
• The HOPE Residency Committee was also dissolved. The issues that caused creation of the committee have mostly been resolved. GSFC is working on 3 rd draft of new HOPE Residency Policy for all institutions. The committee was formed to address issues that are now being addressed by GSFC committee. Bill Flook agreed to provide a copy of the draft HOPE Residency Policy to any who requested it.
• HOPE Transient Committee was also dissolved. The electronic transient form available via SURFER has made this committee obsolete.

MIF

• Rich Loftus discussed the University System's Multi-Institutional Functionality (MIF) project. He presented a PowerPoint presentation as overview of the project. The presentation will be available to download from the USG web site.

Banner SAP

• Pat Barton of Clayton State presented a demonstration of SAP processing in Banner. She demonstrated Banner baseline vs. Ga. Mods. Her PowerPoint presentation will be available to download from the USG web site.

COD

• Full participation in COD has been delayed until the 2005-06 processing year.
• Rich Loftus will check with SCT regarding their COD implementation timeline.

HOPE Residency Issues

• It may be possible for a student to have two different residency codes. Residency for tuition purposes and residency for HOPE purposes.
• GSFC plans to establish one residency policy regardless of institution type - Board of Regents, DTAE, or private

Georgia Summit Highlights

• Comments were made that there were not many financial aid sessions.
• Rich Loftus stated that Banner is now a "track" at Ga. Summit. Previously, the Summit was primarily dedicated to Banner, but now the Summit has tracks dedicated to the different software products utilized at USG institutions.

FARS

• Rich Loftus presented a PowerPoint presentation as an overview of FARS. The presentation will be available to download from the USG web site.
• FARS will open on Monday, November 17, 2003. The due date is December 17, 2003.

Document Retention

• It was recommended that we all review the AACRAO guide - Retention of Records: Guide for Retention and Disposal of Student Records. The guide can be obtained from AACRAO's web site at www.aacrao.org

HOPE Update

• Shelley Nickel gave an update on the work of the HOPE Study Commission. She stated that the HOPE Study Commission has taken a pro-active stance to prevent the state of Georgia from promising students something that we cannot deliver. The Study Commission is dedicated to preserving the merit-based focus of the scholarship. The Commission met several times during the summer and fall. On November 13, members agreed on recommendations that will be included in their report to the legislature. Briefly, the recommendations are:

  1. Eliminate HOPE funding for books and fees - effective July 1, 2004.

  2. Place limits on the number of instructional hours for which HOPE will pay - effective July 1, 2004.

     Specifically - Limit to 95 quarter hours (63 semester hours) the number of instructional hours an individual can receive the HOPE Grant. ALSO, limit to 127 semester hours the total number of hours an individual can receive the HOPE Scholarship and Grant.

  3. Award HOPE Grants only to individuals without a bachelor s degree - effective July 1, 2004.

  4. Adopt a 3.0 Grade Point Average (on a 4.0 scale) as the standard used to determine a B average for high school students for HOPE purposes.

  5. Adopt a uniform residency requirement.

  6. Check more frequently the academic progress of every student receiving HOPE, to ensure that recipients are meeting HOPE-eligibility requirements.

  7. Establish a permanent legislative oversight committee to monitor lottery revenues and HOPE and Pre-Kindergarten costs.

  8. In the future, do not use lottery revenues to fund capitol outlay projects.

  The Commission will review a draft of the report on December 18, and a final report will be presented to the legislature in late December or early January.

The meeting was adjourned. The next meeting date will be communicated to the group via email.

Respectfully submitted,
Jenelle L. Handcox, Secretary