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>> Good morning and welcome to our Direct Loan Overview webinar.  This will be repeated on July 11th at 10:00 a.m. Central Time.
We want to let you know there is additional training available coming up in addition to this training this morning.
As I mentioned, this will be repeated on July 11th at 10:00 a.m. 
There will be sessions devoted to Direct Loan training at the upcoming NASFAA Conference in Orlando Florida.
So I encourage participants interested to check their website and agenda.
Also our own the FSA conferences this fall in Dallas, Texas and Las Vegas, Nevada.
We will cover specific Direct Loans.
At our training site which is accessible from IFAP going into the links for the [ indiscernible ] and clicking on the train link we will take you to the financial editors pays.
It will be available there shortly.
We are doing this thing this morning in the Microsoft Live Meeting.
If you are not familiar with the features your default view right now would be the console view which contains various controls.  If you want to go to a full screen view in Microsoft Live Meeting you can toggle by using the F5 key on your keyboard.
That will put the slides that we will be showing it shortly in the full screen view.
If you can toggle back by hitting F5 again.
If you want to download this presentation later you can do so by using the icon on the tool bar
It is the one for handouts designated by an icon that looks like three pieces of paper.
When you click on that it brings up the dialogue box for the handout.
Just checkmark that and hit the download button.
It will bring up a dialogue box asking you where you wish to save.
We will keep the Microsoft Live Meeting open for a period of time after the conclusion of the presentation both for downloading and also for asking questions.
We are in lecture mode today due to the large size of our audience.
We would not be able to take verbal questions, but we do allow questions using the Q&A feature which you'll also see in the console view.
Just click on the Q&A item on the menu bar to bring up the question capability.
Simply type your question in that box and hit the ask word at the side of the right hand side.
It will send that question to one of our other presenters.
We have several people available to monitor incoming questions using that feature.
They will provide an answer if they can immediately back to you.
If an answer requires more research they may ask for an e-mail address so that they can get an answer to you later.
As I said, we will keep the presentation open after the actual presentation so that you will be able to ask more questions after the presentation itself is over.
We are going to get into our presentation right now.
The Direct Loan program overview is intended as an introduction to direct lending.
For those who are unacquainted as well as former participants that may have been in the program at the inception but for whatever reason left and are now considering returning.
Also new members that have not started processing would find this overview useful as well.  Our agenda will be guided by these questions.
We hope by answering this series of questions in this order we should be able to address most of the questions and concerns that people unfamiliar with direct lending have.
What is the Direct Loan program?
What are the roles of the major participants in the program?
How does the direct loan process work, step by step?
What benefits are available for borrowers in the Direct Loan program?
And what resources are available for schools in terms of training and assistance at various stages in processing?
When we talk about the Direct Loan program the most important feature is that the Department of Education is the lender, as opposed to the FFEL program.
The funds are drawn down through the G5 system, formerly GAPS, just like other Title 4 funds.
The Direct Loan program also provides consolidation loans, and non Direct Loans can be consolidated into a Direct Consolidation Loan with certain limitations and conditions.
In order to learn each of those conditions and limitations which include FFEL, PLUS, Perkins, and HEAL loans you can go to the loan consolidation web site which is located loanconsolidation.ed.gov.
Again, that is loanconsolidation.ed.gov. And at the home page there is a link for FAQ and specifically questions number 3-7 and question number nine list all of the terms and conditions related to loans that may be consolidated into the Direct Loan consolidation loan program.
Borrower services includes electronic MPN processing, online entrance and exit counseling, and repayment options.
Users of the online borrowing services can carry out online payments, can view online account history, carry out automated debit payments.
Electronic billing and correspondence instead of paper is available to save on postage.
We will be going over our services including some screen captures a little later in our presentation.
In the Direct Loan program there are various repayment options including standard, graduated, and extended repayment plans.
As well as the income contingent repayment plan which is somewhat similar to the FFEL income sensitive repayment plan.
Standard repayment plan is a 10-year repayment plan.
The extended repayment plan would go out to 25 years and requires a balance of more than $30,000 in loan debt to qualify.
The graduated repayment plan is simply a plan that allows payments to start out at a very low level and increase every two years with the repayment period lasting up to ten years and monthly payments  never increasing to more than one and a half times what would be paid under the standard plan.  The income contingent plan is exactly what it means.
It is simply a repayment plan based on adjusted gross income and spouse's income for married borrowers based on family size.
The total amount of the Direct Loan, it was based on a percentage of the amount you payed for the loan in 12 years multiplied by an income percentage factor that varies with income or your monthly discretionary income multiplied by 20 percent.
If you have attended our recent training this year, the regulatory andlegislative update training, we have also mentioned a new repayment plan that will be available July 1, 2009 known as the income based repayment plan.
Do note that ICR and IBR are not available to Direct PLUS loan borrowers.
We will look at the roles of the major participants in the Direct Loan program starting with the student loan.
Like all other students they must complete a FAFSA and maintain eligibility.
They must maintain at least half-time enrollment.
With the Grad PLUS loan borrowing, we have said that parents borrowing a loan on behalf of students do not have to complete a FAFSA.
A GraD PLUS borrower will have to complete a FAFSA.
A student is also responsible for notifying their school timely of relevant changes, changes of address, changes of enrollment status.
Of course school's track enrollment status and respond to national student loan data system rosters to update us so that we know when they enter a grace period or repayment.
Most importantly we want to reinforce the borrower's role in repaying the loan.
The school's role, of course, is documenting the student's eligibility.  In the Direct Loan program we use the term origination.  
In the FFEL program participants are more familiar with the term to certify a loan, but basically the same thing is being accomplished; documenting the amount for that particular borrower.
Schools have support from us in maintaining awareness.
We provide entrance and exit counseling materials both in the form of on-line counseling as well as printed materials for students. As well as the printed material for entrance and exit counselors at your institution.
Of course we also have printed materials that give general information about the Direct Loan program to students and parents that can be obtained from FSAPubs service, FSA publications.
The school's role covers a variety of activities.
One of those is the MPN process or master promissory note process.
The MPN process can be carried out electronically ,and we have an eMPN site for that.
Even if your standard procedure is to use the eMPN for most borrowers,
there are situations where a borrower may request to use a paper MPN.
There are several options to follow when processing in the paper print mode, and we will cover those and more detail later.
Schools get funds through the G5 system, formerly the GAPS system, the same way they obtain funds for other Title 4 programs.
There is a "pushed cash" option available that we will talk about also.
That allows all schools to have funds sent directly to their account based upon accepted actual disbursement information rather than requesting funds in advance via G5.
Schools are responsible for disbursing funds directly to students based upon credits to account or credit balance.
Of course schools are responsible for updating NSLDS with enrollment status information so that we can track whether the student has dropped below full time, half time, or ceased enrollment.
Also the school is responsible for transmitting relevant data to COD.
Schools already processing Pell Grant information are already familiar with the process of transmitting originations and disbursement and adjustment data to COD.  The same process is followed for transmitting this similar data in the Direct Loan program to COD.
We have the added step of the master promissory note, but the basic process of sending data to COD and receiving acknowledgments and correcting errors and making adjustments is exactly the same as it is with the others.
Schools are responsible for reconciling their Direct Loan data on a regular basis with COD.  We highly recommend reconciling on a monthly basis to make sure that any errors are caught, any unbooked loans are unearthed and promissory notes are signed and processed.
In addition to monthly closeout there is an annual closeout each year to account for all funds drawn down to make sure they are accounted for in actual disbursements or returns of cash.
Close out for Direct Loan processing takes place well after the end of the loan year.
For example for 2007-2008 final closeout won't take place until the summer of 2009. This allows borrower based academic years that extend late into 2008, early 2009 to have time to be concluded, and errors or omissions  will have surfaced and been corrected well before the closeout is expected with the Department of ED.
Schools also take into account current staffing roles and responsibilities and staff available.
Just like any other Title four program we consider Direct Loan processing to be a school wide responsibility and not a financial aid office function.
The business office will need to be enlisted in the process of setting up participation in the program.
Good communication should be maintained throughout all steps of the Direct Loan processing, particularly when it comes to reconciling on a monthly basis and also the annual close out at year-end.
Schools should consider the use of a third-party servicer.
You may have a pre-existing third-party servicer information already carrying out functions of some of your Title 4 activities.
That may be something to consider when you add Direct Loan processing to your current Title 4 programs.
The other thing, as I mentioned earlier, the master promissory note process, whether using electronic or paper prom note processing there are several alternatives to consider and certain setups you need to take care of, even in the electronic process.  And we will show that eMPN site to show where you log on to make your individual selections.
Also, if you are making decisions on software not using a third-party service are we do have EDExpress software available that includes the Direct Loan process module.  You may have third-party software vendor software available for Direct Loan processing or maybe writing software yourself according to our ED specifications.  Those specifications are available at the FSA download site with the COD technical reference for '08-'09 to make sure whether you are using third-party software or your own software that it meets those specifications.
The Department of Education also has its role to play, first of all, tracking school eligibility.  The school must have program participation agreement that includes Direct Loan eligibility.
Our own Postsecondary Education Participation System will reflect that eligibility once established and make sure that COD's database is populated so that any award, disbursement, and  funding processing is available to schools in the COD system.
You want to make sure with your school participation team for any guidance if your PPA does need to be updated to include Direct Loan eligibility if it is not already included.
And like all other participation matters you will take care of that at our E-APPS site.  That is eligcert.ed.gov. 
The phone numbers for each of the respective teams for each region are located on the opening page for any questions you might have.
Even more importantly the Department of Education provides the funding for Direct Loans through the G5 system, formerly GAPS, just like any other Title 4 program.
COD does the processing of all award information and disbursement information, any adjustments or corrections.
COD also provides all information the school would need to track funding levels and be sure they have substantiated any of their draw downs and Direct Loans with actual disbursements and what percentage of those draw downs have already been substantiated.
Also there is is a wealth of reports available through COD and tools, software and tools such as a Direct Loan Tools software package that allows schools to reconcile and carry out year end close out in a more efficient basis.
Also, customer service at COD provides a great deal of help the schools at reconciliation and year end closeout.
There is also training and customer service for schools.
The COD customer service numbers and training is available throughout the year, not just the training we are providing today, but also the FSA conference training.
We occasionally do specific Direct Loan training like this training.
We recently had Direct Loan processing and training this Spring delivered through webinars.
If you watch the training for financial aid professionals web training you will be able to register for any new sessions we add.
Borrowers have a full array of loan servicing options.
We will cover that in detail.
There is information to track borrowing and the outstanding principal balance throughout the year.
The loans offered are the same loans in the FFEL program.
Stafford subsidized, Stafford unsubsidized, the PLUS program that includes the new Grad PLUS loans, and consolidation loans for which the terms and limitations are available on the loan consolidation website.
We are looking at the loan limits that are in effect within a few weeks
Effective July 1, 2008 based upon the recent signing of HR5715 by President Bush on May seventh of 2008.
The main thing to keep in mind is that these provide some additional  unsubsidized loan amounts for dependent undergraduates that were not available before.  And provides an increased unsubsidized amount for independent undergraduates as well as the dependent undergraduate whose parents do not have access to PLUS.
The amount is shown as the chart reflects for first, second, third year and beyond borrowers.
This should emphasize that the loans are first disbursed on or after July 1, 2008.
Earlier loan limits are still in effect for those loans disbursed before July 1, 2008.
HR5715 did not change the loan limit for graduate professional students.
That is $20,500, $8,500 of which is the maximum subsidized available for those graduate and professional students.
We will go over the interest rates and first we will look at the direct subsidized loans for undergraduate borrowers.
As this chart shows there is a decrease descending amount of interest based upon the time frame  reflected in the chart.
Loans made after July 1st, 2008, but before July 1st, 2009 have a 6% interest-rate on the unpaid balance.
You will see it drops correspondingly each year 5.6, 4.5, and 3.4%.
Again, this is for subsidized loans for undergraduate borrowers.
Look at the interest rates for the other loans.
For direct subsidized loans for Grad students it is a fixed interest rate currently at 6.8%.  For direct unsubsidized Stafford loans 6.8% fixed interest rate.  Direct PLUS and Grad PLUS it's 7.9% fixed interest rate.
There are fees charged to borrowers.
The origination fee for subsidized and unsubsidized first disbursed on or after July 1, 2007, but before July 1, 2008 is currently at 2.5%.
For those sub and unsub loans first disbursed on or after July 1, 2008, but before July 1, 2007 will have an origination fee of 2.0%.
That is taken from the gross amount of the loan up front.
As the note says there is also a 1.5% up-front interest rebate also deducted from the gross amount of the loan.
We will cover that under borrower benefits.
Basically the borrower gets to retain that rebate as long as they make the first scheduled 12 monthly payments on time and in full to maintain that 1.5 percent benefit.
For Direct plus loans the origination fee is 4.0%.
So we'll take a few minutes to look at the various steps in the Direct Loan process.
Our first slide will show a cycle that will repeat as we go through each of these steps.  This isn't hard and fast.  We are showing origination followed by a promissory note, processing, disbursing the loan, reconciling which takes place on a monthly basis ,and finally program year closeout.
Some schools may choose to allow students to sign a promissory note electronically or on paper before they originate the loans or they can set it up the eMPN site not to allow a signature of an eMPN until the loan has actually been originated.
You could reverse these first two items.
For the sake of today's presentation we will take origination first and then promissory note and then disbursement.
Basically the student completes the FAFSA.  The school determines eligibility including the loan award amount for their Direct Loan.
The school originates the loan.
The student or application borrower signs the master promissory note whether they sign it paper or electronic.
 
The school draws down Direct Loan funds through G5.
On a monthly basis they disburse funds to the student.  The school reconciles records with ED.
At the end of each processing year they reconcile and account for funds drawn down.
Eventually the borrower leaves schools and enters repayment.
We will look at each of these steps in a little more detail particularly promissory note processing.
As we mentioned originating the loan, the school is confirming eligibility and determining the loan award and creating a student record in their software with third-party services.
The school originates and sends the Direct Loan award and disbursement data to the system.
disbursement data can be anticipated.
Schools can create origination records in one of two ways.
They can use the batch record process which simply means you use your software to create a large number of records and then transmit them to COD by the student aid at Gateway.
The school can also use the website to create records in real time.
Typically using the COD website would be used on a contingency basis for individual students that the school needs to process quickly.
Schools with a small number of Direct Loan borrowers may find it convenient to use the COD website routinely as opposed to using the batch process which is convenient for large numbers of records.
COD receives the award or origination information from the individual schools and processes and edits and returns the response.  Assuming the record passes all edits the school will receive a response.
If there are any errors the school must correct any errors in order to have it is accepted.
The school can also make adjustments as needed if  there is a need to adjust the amount downward or upward due to changes in eligibility.
They must make those and send them to COD just like they did with the original record.
The PLUS loan origination includes a credit check.
As we said before, the Grad PLUS borrower must complete a FAFSA, which is a requirement we don't hold the parent PLUS borrower to.
The PLUS MPN service as both a promissory note to repay the loan as well as an application and authorization for the credit check to be carried out by COD.
Schools can also use the COD website to carry out a credit check on line.
Of course the school must have a signed authorization if one has not already been provided by the completion of the MPN by the applicant previously.
When an applicant does not pass the credit check COD sends a letter notifying the applicant that he/she is not eligible for direct plus loan because of adverse credit history.
The letter tells the applicant which national credit bureau reported the adverse information and explains why the applicant was rejected and offers the applicant several options.
Those options would include that the applicant can stop the direct PLUS loan application process.
The school can consider the student for additional un-sub in that situation.
If an applicant believes the credit agency provided inaccurate information they may contact the credit agency to resolve the issue.  If the applicant believes the adverse credit history is correct but there are circumstances he may appeal and documents circumstances.
Or the applicant may obtain an endorser to submit a revised promissory notes.
The endorser -- and the endorser cannot be the applicant.
He must agree to repay the loan if the applicant does not.
The endorsement form is included in the letter that the applicant receives.
The schools wants to make sure they have policies in place for handling credit denials so that you can give time and consideration for additional unsubsidized borrowing for a dependent student after the denial or determine whether the parent will take action to appeal the adverse credit history or take additional time to seek an endorser who does have worthy credit to make a PLUS loan.
A school might want to consider making sure they can obtain information to bypass a credit check and document the reason for parents inability to borrow even without a credit check.
For instance, if a parent can show they are unable to meet a credit check due to being a recipient of supplemental security income they can document a tax lien or other adverse credit circumstances that would prevent passing a credit check.
The next process step that we will look at is the master promissory note process.
As we mentioned there are a number of options for schools to consider.
First of all use of a paper master promissory note as opposed to the electronic promissory note.
We should remind schools that a borrower cannot be required to use an eMPN if they desire to have a paper promissory note for their loan.
If you have chosen to make it your standard operating procedure to use the eMPN for almost all of your borrowing you will have to resort to paper MPN in the instances where a borrower who requests that.
Some schools may decide to use an eMPN for one set of borrowers, but stick to MPN for another class of borrowers.
That is certainly an option you could use.
Another important consideration is using multi year versus single year options.
Again, you can decide to use multi year features for some or all of your students.  Just like an eMPN, a borrower may decline the multi-year feature if they want to have a new promissory note each year for their loans.
Using the electronic MPN the Direct Loan program has an eMPN site.
The school sets up their profile at the eMPN site.
One of those profile considerations would be do want to allow a student to sign an eMPN prior to originate in a loan, or do you want to block them from that so that an eMPN is not available to sign until the school has originated the loan.  Another capability is whether to have a school-specific message presented to the borrower prior to the process.
It does not go on the MPN itself but provides information you feel is important to add specific to your school that will assist in the borrowing process.
If a student has signed a MPN for another school and you are using the multi-year feature you can use an eMPN signed for another school by a borrower at school.
This is simply a screen shot showing a Direct Loan MPN site, Electronic MPN site, where a school sets up its profile.
The link in the lower left where it says "log in to eMPM online, for schools only" is where the school logs in to set up their profile, including the school-specific message, or whether they want to block signature of eMPNs by students until a loan is originated, or going ahead and allowing a signature prior to origination.
You should note here that there are two links for students for signing MPNs.
One is "complete your MPN for student loans" and "complete new MPN for Parent PLUS loans."
When a Grad PLUS borrower comes to the site they should use the link that says "complete new MPN for student loans" as opposed to the parent link.
So into the master promissory note process, there are several options a school has when it comes to printing MPNs versus perhaps having some or all of that function taken over by COD.
COD can print MPNs and send them to schools, or send them directly to the borrowers to sign and return.
If they send them to the school you can take care of the responsibility of distributing to the students for signature.
The FSA Pubs has two versions of the blank MPN, one with data labels and one without.
A school has several options if they choose to print MPNs for their borrowers.
They can send a blank MPN form to the borrower.
In that case he fills out all sections of the MPN.
The school would order MPN with the data labels from FSAPubs.org.
A school can send an MPN with preprinted borrower data to the borrower.
The school's software prints many of the section headings and related borrower data, such as name, address, on the form.  Typically EDExpress schools fall into this category.
When ordering from FSAPubs.org they would order MPNs without data labels.
Schools can also choose to print an entire MPN with preprinted borrower data and send it to the borrower. So instead of ordering a blank MPNs from FSAPubs, they would be completely printing the entire master promissory notes; but it must follow the specifications in our COD Technical reference, and it must also pass an inspection and get an okay from our MPN processor in Montgomery, Alabama for review.  The directions for getting approval of a completely printed MPN from your school are contained in the technical reference available at FSA download.
If a school does choose the option to print Master promissory notes, whether to use the preprinted ones available from FSAPubs with or without the data labels, or they choose to print entire master promissory notes that contain all the legal language and rights and responsibilities, when they get those notes back that are signed, they must follow the review and acceptance guidelines that are used by our own MPN processor to make sure that they are acceptable.
Make sure they have a proper signature and any changes are annotated, initialed, etc. 
You're responsible for shipping those MPNs to the MPN processor.
Any rejected notes are returned to the school for correction.
That is why is especially important that you follow our review guidelines for master promissory notes if you are taking over that portion of the processing yourself.
Look at the disbursement as the next step in the cycle.
As we mentioned before schools will be using it the G5 system, formerly the GAPS system, to draw down funds.
The G5 system is the database of record for all funding, whether we are talking about Pell, ACG, SMART, Campus-Based, or Direct Loans.
You would draw down funds just as you would for any other Title 4 program as an Advance Pay school.
You would also use the G5 system for returning cash, which we highly recommend as opposed to using paper or individual checks.
There is also a Pushed Cash function available in the Direct Loan program.
There are relatively more Pushed Cash schools in this program than we see in the Pell Grant program.
Basically the advanced funded schools simply request the funds directly from the G5 website. The amount of drawdown is determined by the school, but based upon your estimate of immediate cash needs for disbursements and the upcoming time frames...immediate need based on three business days.
The Pushed Cash schools do not request funds directly.
The COD system pushes the funds automatically through electronic payments to your bank account.
It is based upon excepted actual disbursement data.
The date and amount of those accepted disbursements determines the date and amount of the pushed cash to your bank account by COD.
The school can change its funding method from advanced funding to a Pushed Cash and vice versa.
You need to contact COD and provide your school's OPE ID to request a change from one version of funding to the other.
The transmission of funds can take place in one of two ways.
ACH, or automated clearing house, and FED WIRE.
If using the ACH option, payment request made before 3:00 p.m. ET are deposited the next business day.
Requests made after 3:00 p.m. ET are deposited within two business days.
FED WIRE requests made before 2:00 p.m. 
ET are deposited the same day.
Requests made after 2:00 p.m. ET are deposited the next business day.
Direct Loan fund status can be tracked on the COD website, not just the G5 website.
All of your cash transactions, the amount of drawdowns, date and amount, and how much of that has been accounted for is all available through the various screens of the COD website.
It may be practical that your business office tends to use the G5 website for most of its processing, and for viewing reports.
The financial aid office may find it useful to use the COD website to view all of the same information from G5.
Schools that use the Pushed Cash option receive a funded disbursement list that outlines the total draw down amount and the loan disbursements paid to date.
That list also shows the returns and previously reported downward adjustments that have been netted against the total.
Advanced funded schools like other Title 4 programs have an initial current funding level.
The initial CFL is an amount calculated by ED to determine the amount of funds that a school is authorized to draw down.
The initial CFL is calculated at the beginning of the award year based upon the percentage of the actual disbursements reported for prior year.
It will be increased based upon schools reporting of actual disbursements to the COD system.
Schools cannot submit actual disbursement records to COD more than seven days before the disbursement date.
If a school is sending actual disbursement records after the date of disbursement they should be submitted no later than 30 days after the event.
The actual records -- actual disbursement records are accepted--substantiate the drawn down.
You will hear that term used a lot.  If a school fails to keep up in substantiating previously drawn down funds it may run into a situation where a subsequent drawdown cannot be made until more of the previous drawdown has been accounted for.  The CFL does increase as accepted disbursement show the need for additional funds.
Under advanced funding, the school takes into account funds already on hand, any adjustments made, as well as disbursements.
Then Direct Loan disbursements would be based on the net amount, not the gross amount, when considering the amount to draw down.
Like the funded disbursement list available for Pushed Cash schools, advanced funding schools have the option to receive what we call a pending disbursement list.
You would receive that via the Student Aid Internet Gateway from COD in your electronic mailbox.
The default setting for the pending disbursement list is a weekly basis.
If you choose not to receive it via SAIG, you can still view it on the COD website under the "reports access" function of COD.
Basically that pending disbursement list shows all disbursements that are scheduled to take place within the next 45 days or any that have occurred any time in the past.
This gives schools a reminder, and a chance to make changes to the disbursement date or the amount of those anticipated disbursements.
Pushed Cash schools do not request funds through G5.
The funds are  automatically transmitted to the school based on the actual disbursements accepted at COD from the school.
Those are sent via FED WIRE or ACH.
Make sure you keep track of timing as we mentioned earlier.
Submit information no earlier than seven days prior to the disbursement date.  The funded disbursement list is issued on a daily basis to keep track so that you know what has been accepted in terms of disbursement dates and amounts at COD.
When sending in actual disbursement records keep in mind that you must allow sufficient time for COD to process the records and initiate the funds transfer through the department's G5 payment system.  Depending on your schools banking institution and timing of the deposit, it may take 24 to 72 hours for your school to receive the funds.
The funded disbursement list that they receive on a daily basis for Pushed Cash will show all funded or actual disbursements accepted for the reported date and award year.  By actual disbursements we would mean in terms of software, the disbursement release indicator, or DRI, is set to true, meaning this is an actual,as opposed to anticipated, disbursement.
Any previously reported downward adjustments that are not yet netted against calculated funding, and information on refunds of cash received, that may impact funding calculations and total payment that you expect to receive for the reported date shown.
A recent change we want to make sure schools keep in mind became effective March 15th of 2008, is that there must be an accepted master promissory note in place before disbursement.
The COD will reject any disbursements without an accepted MPN.
This is both schools using advanced funding or pushed cash, and affects all award years, not just the current.
This should not impact your product too much as an advanced funded school.
You can still disburse and drawdown funds as long as you have a signed a promissory note. But you will receive Reject Edit #81, "no promissory note on file," if you did not have an accepted and "linked"--as we call it--promissory note linked to that student award.
In the Direct Loan program we use the term "booked loan" to reflect a loan where COD has received an accepted origination record, an accepted signed promissory note, and an accepted actual disbursement.
So when we say it is a "booked loan" that means it is now a binding obligation between the borrower and the Department of ED, so the school is not at risk for liability in the situation, once all three of those elements are in place and the loan is booked.
Again, for origination record, promissory note, and first actual disbursement, all accepted, will make it a booked loan.
One of the tools that direct lending has available is the 30 day warning report.
One thing it does is ID all those unbooked loans for a particular school.
If the COD has accepted the award information from the school, but has remained unbooked for at least 30 days, the award for the student will appear on the 30 day warning report, and the warning report will identify what is missing.
Is it the master promissory note, or disbursement, or both that is needed in order to book that loan?
The school should be able to identify quickly any unbooked award record with a still outstanding piece needed to book the loan.
They can identify any MPNs that have not been linked to an origination record that is still available to be linked for that loan.
You can compare against awards, disbursements, and promissory note data in your internal files to see where the discrepancy is to get that loan booked.
That could be a rejected promissory note or rejected disbursement you weren't aware of that is keeping it from booking.
If you make the corrections that loan will book.
The same disbursement requirements that are in place for all other Title 4 aid, whether we are talking about crediting a student's account or paying credit balances to the student after crediting the account, are in effect the same timeframes.
If you may pay a student by cash, check, or electronic funds transfer.
Stored value and debit cards are coming into use  are also considered a form of electronic funds transfer.
The requirements that apply to these and all FSA funds are described in more detail in Volume 4 the FSA handbook as well as Chapter 13 of the Blue Book.
When returning Direct Loan funds we highly recommend that such funds are returned through the G5 payment system.
You may be returning Direct Loan funds as a result of excess cash you were unable to disburse within three business days.
You may be trying to adjust overpayment of Direct Loan funds or a borrower wishes to cancel some or all of the disbursement.
As I said, we strongly encourage schools to use the G5 system for returns.
If there is a refund of cash of $100,000 or more that must be returned electronically via G5.
And remember, if you are returning cash to the G5 system, remember to make any adjustments to the COD record for that student to reflect any change on the disbursement amount.
And as a reminder, as with our other Title 4 programs and COD, it is the accepted actual disbursement that results and the increase in the current funding level for advanced funded schools.
Pushed disbursements to Pushed Cash schools drive funding.
I want to emphasize the time the reporting of actual disbursements needed for advancement of schools to avoid a free cash situation.
You should be fully aware of your funding situation simply by looking at the screens at COD that are available 365 days a year, 24 hours a day for you to view, to see how much you have drawn down and how much of that money drawn down has been accounted for. Not just from the Direct Loan program, but your other Title 4 programs, by award year.
There should be no mystery if you are approaching a situation that puts you in arrears in substantiating your cash.
We are going to talk about the reconcile step now.
I will turn it over to my colleague, Angela Smith.
I'll turn the slides over to you, Angela.
Take it away.
>> Thank you Devin.
Devin talked to you about the first three steps of the Direct Loan process, originating the loan, getting the master promissory note signed, whether it's paper or electronically, and disbursing the funds to students.
But I'm going to talk to you about are the last steps, reconciling your Direct Loan program funds, and participating in program year closeout.
This is more of the back end of the process.
Okay.
I'm sorry, I'm having a little bit of slowness on my end with my computer.
The slide is taking its time.
There it goes.
Reconciliation is a process required by any and all schools that participate in the Direct Loan program.
What it is is a required monthly process in which a school verifies their Direct Loan records--origination, disbursement, and master promissory note--against the school account statement that is issued to schools from COD via the Student Aid Internet Gateway.
It's kind of like managing your checkbook at home.
You want to make sure that all checks you have written have been cashed against your account and those that have not been cashed, you want to figure out where they are.
It's pretty much the exact same  process.
And the way the Department of Education looks at reconciliation is a "three way communication" between your school's two offices, the financial aid and business office, and with the COD system.
The COD system will provide you with assistance with the reconciliation process by sending you a school account statement.
This will provide you with various information about your Direct Loan processing.
Now, the goal of reconciliation is not at all to get to a zero balance at the end of every month.
That would be practically impossible, due to things like timing of disbursements and returns of funds, drawdowns, cash that you have received but not yet disbursed, things of that nature.
There will be cash at the end of every month that is unaccounted for, and that's okay.
The purpose of reconciliation is to help you find the reasons for those discrepancies and figure out whether or not there is a corrective action that needs to be taken on your part: whether or not there are disbursements that need to be made, returns of funds that need to be sent back through the G5 system, or rejected records that need to be corrected and submitted -- resubmitted to the COD system.
Another tool that is made available to schools to assist with the reconciliation process is called Direct Loans Tools software.
This is available from the FSA  download website and any school--regardless of what software system you use--can use the Direct Loan Tools software to assist them with the monthly reconciliation process.
It does a couple of things.
It allows you to compare the Direct Loan school account statement to loan and actual disbursement data reported in the ED Express software if you use ED Express.
If not you can download the file from your database into the ED -- into the Direct Loan tool software and do a comparison that way.
So it will compare your loan detail data and the data that is on the Direct Loan school account statement submitted to you from the COD system.
The Direct Loan Tools software also allows you to print out the school account statement in a readable format.
When it's sent out it is usually done in a flat file format.
If you want to print it out so it's something you can read and write on, the software will do that.
The software will also allow you to track cash receipts, meaning all the drawdowns you get from the G5 system, and it will also allow you to track refunds of cash, whether it be from downward disbursements that never happened or excess cash.
You can track those using the Direct Loan Tools software for the Direct Loan program.
Also if your school is an ED Express school, the Direct Loan tool software will allow you to rebuild your Direct Loan origination and disbursement records. In the instance of a computer crash where you have lost your data you can have data sent to you from the COD system and the DL Tools software can help you rebuild your database.
All schools can use the Direct Loan tool software for comparing their cash and using cash management functionality.
The rebuild person is just for those that use ED Express, but it is a very good tool.
Another option at the COD system are the COD reconciliation specialists.
These folks are there to assist you with the reconciliation process if you aren't understanding why your balances are the way they are, or if you're having issues or questions about rejected records and are not exactly sure why it rejected or how to resolve it.
This reconciliation center will be able to assist you.
This is screen shot of the COD school menu.
We'll look at a couple of screens that you'll use to assist you with your monthly reconciliation.
This screen you are looking at here is the school's summary information, but more specifically the cash area that we want to talk about.
The school summary menu is a great snapshot of your school's current cash by program and award year.
You want to pay special attention to anything populated on the first line which is cash > accepted and posted disbursements that are older than 30 days.
If you see a positive value there that means you are out of compliance with the 30 day reporting requirements.
Remember, Direct Loans follows the exact same cash management regulations as all other Title 4 programs.
You are required to have disbursement records submitted to the COD system for any actual disbursments within 30 days of the disbursement date.
The other cash > accepted and posted disbursement line shows you funds drawn down from the G5 system within the past 30 days for which there are no disbursements that had been accepted at the COD system to substantiate those funds.
Substantiation is a term we use at the Department of Education which lets us know that -- it lets us know that federal student aid has been actually spent.
It is like our receipt.
It is how we determine that the money you requested is actually spent by making disbursements to student information.
Also on this screen, I am not sure how well you can see it, but in the area not outlined in red there is an area that has Direct Loan financial aid officer and it has an area for a name and a phone number.
You want to make sure that area is updated and kept current because that is how the Direct Loan customer service reps will contact you if they have questions or concerns about the data you have submitted to the system.
So they will want to speak to the person whose name is listed in that area.
The next screen on the COD system you will want to look at in your reconciliation process is the cash activity screen.
This is a really good screen when you are in the process of conducting your monthly reconciliation.
You can view your program and award year data by changing the selection in either of the drop down boxes.
The drop down boxes are outlined in the top red box.
At the far right side of the screen, the last two columns on the far right side show you -- they are scroll bars.
And these scroll bars, if you go across horizontally you can see all of your draw downs that you have gotten from the G5 system, and whether or not those have been substantiated.
Or you can choose a printer friendly version if you want to print that out.
The box right above that is outlined in red.
All of your cash draw downs will be displayed vertically and you can print a similar report from GAPS and compare them side by side if you need to resolve any cash discrepancies.
You will want to use this to check to see if draw downs have been substantiated by actual disbursement records sent from the financial aid office.
A good bit of information to note here is that the substantiation of funds is done in a "first in, first out" accounting method.
If you draw down funds on July 19th of $165,000, but you have not submitted the disbursement records to substantiate those funds, and then you do another draw down on a previous date, the disbursement that you sent in after that July 18th draw down, we'll go ahead and substantiate that first draw down, not necessarily the second.
All of those disbursements will be applied to the current draw down until it is completely substantiated.
The next thing in the process that we would like to talk about after you complete your reconciliation, the next thing is a program year closeout which is pretty much exactly the same as the reconciliation process you do on a month-to-month basis.
However, program year closeout is the process of reconciling all school information at the COD system and then comparing that to your institutional data, but your origination and disbursement data and draw downs of funds in your business office and bring that to a zero balance at the end of the year.
Closeout usually takes place at the end of the calendar year after the award year is covered.
So for example, with the '06-'07 closeout it will be completed by this July 1.
So it is a pretty good amount of time after which gives ample time for completion of any late ending '06-'07 borrower based academic years that may be extended into 2008.  And it also provides time for schools to correct discrepancies and conduct closeout processes.
If there are rejected records that have not been resolved or funds that need to be returned you have time to do that.
The year end reconciliation closeout -- program year closeout is complete when the school and the COD system each show a cash balance of zero indicating that the school has accounted for all Direct Loan funds received from the Department of Education, and all COD transaction records match up to all Direct Loan school system transactions and, business system transactions and all actual disbursement records are booked at the COD system.
Devin talked to you about booking.
That is when we have an accepted origination record, an accepted master promissory note, and an accepted disbursement record.
When all records are booked at the COD system, the Direct Loans school account statement will reflect a zero unbooked balance.
Just as a side note there should not be any unbooked dollars after March 15th of 2008.
Devin mentioned to you earlier that it is a requirement there be a master promissory note on file with the COD system that is accepted prior to submitting any disbursement records.
Now the COD system provides you with tools and screens to aid you with the year end closeout process.
These are similar to those that we used with the above reconciliation process.
We looked earlier at the cash activity screen when we talked about reconciliation.
Let's take a look at a sample school account statement.
What you see on the screen here is an example of the school cash summary section of this school account statement.
This is what you can use to match your data to the data that COD has.
What you want to note is does the ending account balance, the items outlined in red, do those totals match?
If not this section of the school account statement that provides the details of all cash receipts and returns and their exact date can be compared to school records so that you can see where the discrepancy exists.
The next part of the school account statement is the disbursement detail.
The disbursement detail can be compared with the school record at the student level, so if you needed to get down to that micro level you can use that to make sure that all disbursement amounts match.
Now, you can check to see, was there a record that got rejected, be it a disbursement or origination record at the COD system that was never corrected or sent?
Maybe that is something that someone in your financial aid office will have to find that record, determine if it needs to be resolved and be re-sent.
Was there a correction of a disbursement, either upward or downward, that was reported in the business office but never communicated to the folks in the financial aid office, or vice versa?
Maybe there was at the completion of verification the folks from the financial aid office made an adjustment to the loan, and adjusted that loan amount in their system, but never communicated that information to the business office.  And therefore there is a discrepancy in the amount that you see on the school side that would be indicated on the disbursement detail on your school account statement.
If you are looking on the -- I'm sorry.
If you are looking at the COD system, the COD school balance confirmation screen we are looking at is used to confirm closeout for the year.
So once you have gotten your Direct Loan account balance to zero you can confirm that on the screen.
The school balance confirmation is your school's way of confirming your net drawdowns and your disbursements for the Direct Loan program in a particular award year, and for confirmating closeout for the year.
What you are doing on this screen is you're certifying that your school's internal cash balance--between the financial aid office and the business office--is zero for the year.
Closing out for the year means two things.
It means that you will no longer receive Direct Loan reports including school account statement for that award year, and you will no longer be able to submit disbursement records for the award year.
So what you are doing when you come to the certification screen is, in essence, telling the Department of Education that you are done with your Direct Loan processing for this award year.
You may be wondering what will happen as the result of an audit or some other internal school review that you notice that you need to submit records to the COD system and therefore need to open the year up so that you can report disbursements to the COD system.
What you'll need to do is contact the customer service representative or the Direct Loan operations team to reopen the year briefly so that you can submit those records.
What you are looking at here is the whole Direct Loan process in a snapshot.
I'll just walk you through it very quickly.
Of course, it all began with the student.
They completed a FAFSA and it goes through the CPS system and it comes to you in the form of an ISIR.
You determine their eligibility for a Direct Loan.
At that point you either create and submit an origination record and send that to the COD system, or if you're a school that wants to have the master promissory note done first you have this to fill out the master promissory note either electronically or on paper.
All that information is submitted to the COD system, and then at the appropriate time you are submitting disbursement records to the COD system.
COD in turn will accept or reject those records.
If they are accepted at some point you will have a booked record.
If they are rejected then your institution will be required to go ahead and correct those records and resubmit them to the COD system.
The COD system will also be communicating with the G5 system to see if the disbursement records that you submitted substantiate the funds that you have drawn down from G5 to actually pay those disbursements to a student.
Lastly, as those loans are booked in the system COD system will be sending the information to the Direct Loan servicing center to let the servicing center know that they do now have a loan that they will need to collect on in the future, for a student.
Direct Loan servicing center will also report this information to the NSLDS, where it will be kept track of the student's enrollment status and whether or not they are in repayment.
That is the entire Direct Loan process.
What we want to talk about at this point are what are some of the benefits that the Direct Loan program offers to its borrowers.
We'll go through some of that in some detail here.
Some of this was mentioned earlier, but I'll go through it again.
One thing that we do offer in the Direct Loan program is the 1.5% upfront interest rebate.
This is offered to Direct ubsidized Loan, Direct unsubsidized Loan, and Direct Loan PLUS borrowers as a repayment incentive.
What we do is in order to keep that 1.5% up-front interest rebate, the borrower must make their first 12 required monthly payments on time, and on time means within six days of the due date.
So if they make those first 12 payments and are on time they will be -- they will be able to retain that 1.5% upfront interest rebate.
It is important to note that the Direct Loan program does not count any deferment or forebearance periods during this period for review.
For example, if a borrower makes their first repayment and then after that they go into a deferment period and they are deferred for a 12 month period due to unemployment, the Direct Loan system will ignore the deferment period and will wait for the borrower to make their next nine payments for evaluating whether or not the borrower has achieved those 12 on-time payments.
If the borrower does not make those first required 12 payments on time then the Department of Education will add that interest rebate back on to the principle balance for that borrower.
Another incentive and one way to assist the students in making sure that they make those first 12 payments timely is to use the electronic debit account incentive.
Borrowers who use this will receive a quarter point reduction in the interest rates when they sign up for using the electronic debit account option.
While using EDA borrowers have the ability to pay -- they also have the ability to pay additional amounts if they want to go on line or submit payments through the mail either by check or money order.
One thing to note with the electronic debit account incentive, if a student has two non-sufficient funds in a 12-month period, the Direct Loan servicing center will remove that borrower from the EDA program.
However it does not completely knock the borrower out.  They can reapply at any time.
One thing to note is that we currently have over 1 million borrowers using the EDA incentive to make their Direct Loan payments.
We are proud of that.
The borrower services website, at dl.ed.gov, is available to your students to assist them with their loan servicing 24 hours a day, seven days a week and allows the borrower to carry out all loan related functions very quickly, very easily on-line.
Services include but are not limited to all the items you see highlighted here in the screen.
They can get detailed account information with all of their Direct Loans.
They can have questions answered.
There are some frequently asked questions immediately available on line, or they can speak with a customer service representative.
One great tool for our Spanish-speaking population, they can have the entire website translated and available in Spanish by clicking the link at the top of the page.
There are forms that they can download.  If they need a forebearance or deferment form they can download those.  Download it and have it printed out and have it sent to the direct servicing center.
There are some that can be filled out on line therefore eliminating the need to print out anything.
If they need information about consolidation or considering consolidation there is a link directly to the consolidation loan website.
They can also set up their online billing and payment here if they would like to do that.  This website also provides information about their payment history.
They can update their contact information.
They can go directly online and do that.
If they want to change their repayment options and get information about what their payments look like they can do that.
They can also review requirements for maintaining eligibility for their borrower benefits.
If you decide to have your student use the exit counseling feature one thing that they could do here on the account information section is if they use the exit feature not only will they get specific information about their Direct Loans, they will also be provided with a direct link to the NSLDS system to view their FFEL and Perkins loan information on the NSLDS system.
In addition to selecting a repayment plan, they can select one of four different due dates to make their payments.
The due dates are listed here.
They can make their payments on the seventh, 14th, 21st, or the 28th.
You notice right here on the slide we don't have income based repayment because that is not listed currently and is not available until July 1, 2009.
I'm certain when it is available it will also be on the website as a selection option.
If your borrowers wish to make their payments on line they can have their bills sent electronically instead of sent through the mail.
They can have all of their transactions completed online.
Therefore they can receive their bills and make payments directly using the Direct Loan servicing on-line website.
It's all done for free.
There is no charge for any of the services that -- any transactions that they make here on the Direct Loan website.
There is little chance for lost payments if they want to do it this way, or late payment.
For those students who want to use the electronic debit account option they would go in on line and enter the information requested, their routing number, and their checking account number.
At that point they will begin receiving the quarter percent interest rate reduction incentive for signing up.
Another option that is available on the borrower services website is the ability to download forms.
You can see that on the right-hand side borrowers can complete and submit unemployment deferment and general forbearance applications online.
So some of them can be completed right on the website.
They don't have to print out anything.
It will go directly to loan servicing.
All of the deferment and forbearance available to FFEL borrowers are also available to Direct Loan borrowers, and they can receive forms on the website.  Things like military deferments, economic hardship deferments, public health deferments, teacher shortage area deferments, the list goes on.
What you are looking at here is the entrance counseling website that is available to students.
This is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
It takes the student through all the required information for the entrance counseling that is required by the Department of Education.
Once they complete their entrance counseling you can, at your institution, pull up a report to determine which students have completed the entrance counseling. 
Again, just like there is entrance counseling you can have the student do exit counseling on line.
This is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and you can also get reports of which students have completed their exit counseling.
If your students would like to speak with an actual person instead of using the Direct Loan servicing website they can call and get general information about the Title 4 programs at the number you see listed.
Or they can go to our studentaid.ed.gov website.
There is also a phone number to the Direct Loan servicing center for borrower services.  One for the consolidation center if they have questions or concerns about their consolidation loans or getting a consolidation loan.
Also, there is a phone number and website for the federal student aid ombudsman's office.
The ombudsman is available for students who are having issues with their repayment.
This is where they have gone through the process of trying to work with their lender, but things are not getting resolved.
This is not just for Direct Loan borrowers, this is also for FFEL or Perkins borrowers who are having issues with their federal student loans.
They can get assistance through the ombudsman's office.
And also if they want just general information about the Direct Loan program the link is there at the bottom of the page.
Now, the next thing we want to talk to you about are resources that are available to you, the schools,  for assistance with your Direct Loan processing and training about the Direct Loan program.
Of course you can get information from the COD school relations center.
You will be assigned a customer service representative at COD that you will work with directly.
Their job is to assist you with any data issues and answer any questions you have about your Direct Loan processing.
There is also Direct Loan servicing.
I'll go over a couple of slides in a few minutes about what they can help you with at the Direct Loan servicing center.  It's not just for borrowers.
And also the Direct Loan consolidation center if you have questions about consolidation for your students or if you are working with students to get their loans consolidated for the public service  forbearance, or some other reason.
We talked about borrowers' services at the Direct Loan service center.
This is the school services.
You can get this information online at dl.ed.gov/schools.
They also have your school access.
You get this through the COD system.
If you have a user ID and password for the COD system, you would click the log-in box, and it would take you to COD.
You enter your COD user ID and password and then another window will open up for the Direct Loan school services area.
At the Direct Loans school services area you can look up a student's account data.
If you want to view that it including any balances and the status of those if you want to see if a student was delinquent or in default.
You can also get reports of entrance and exit counseling.
I said that a little bit earlier.
And also delinquency reports which is very helpful in the management of your cohort default rate.
You're wanting to keep that low.
You want to know when students are in danger of going into default.
You can get delinquency reports directly from the school services on-line website.
If you can also add in your school's cohort default rate management plan if you have one and that information will be included on to the website.
You can also get e-mail subscriptions.
If there are new reports added to the school services on-line website, you can get that information sent directly to you via email so that you are aware of it.
And just like for the students, this website can be translated completely into Spanish by clicking the link at the top of the page.
This is a screen shot of the reports screen.  If you wanted to access the entrance and exit counseling or the delinquency report options this is the screen shot of what you would see if you were going to pull up those reports from school services on-line website.
The student account look up section of the school services website provides you with a view of the students account with key dates and the outstanding principle balance on that student loans, their repayment plan estimate, and any other information that would be useful to you as an institution.
This next screenshot shows you the delinquency reports that you can view online.
It allows your school to ID each loan and put them in various "buckets" or time ranges of delinquency.
If you want to see only the students who are newly delinquent, say less than 90 days, or those students that are in danger of being in default, so  they are at the 300 mark or later.
Also we can provide you with contact information and follow up the cohort default rate management efforts if you want to reach out to the student.
That would be the late stage in delinquency report.
For training information on the Direct Loan program one very helpful tool, especially if you are not familiar with using the COD website or at least the Direct Loan portion of the COD website, there is a COD computer based training that is available on the IFAP website.
It is designed to simulate the COD system and functionality that is available to a school administrator.
It is available and has been updated to include enhancements that have been made to the COD system from March 2004 through April of last year, April 14th of last year.
Additionally there are the new Direct Loan reports computer-based training and a new grant report computer-based training and new simulations of the Direct Loan master promissory note.
If you are familiar with the website they have also been developed and added to the COD computer-based training.
The COD CBT offers eight lessons in open formats to guide the user through each area of the COD website simulation so the user can explore basic navigation and function of the website and practice locating and creating information in a safe environment so there is no danger of messing up actual student data.
Also the Direct Loan report computer-based training has three lessons that explains the COD reports a school can use to assist them with their reconciliation process if they are wondering how all those reports look and how you can work with them you can use that CBT.
The on-line simulations serves as a guide for understanding the eMPN website.
There are three separate simulations that guide you through electronic master promissory note process on our website.
An additional electronic master promissory note simulation is available for the financial professional for assistance with the Direct Loan eMPN website functionality specific to the school user.  You may want to take that.
This program requires that you have at least Windows '98 or better on your system with ODBC driver for Microsoft Access 2000.
Your screen resolution should be set at 1024x768 or higher because it will take up a lot of the screen.
The next option if your school uses ED Express, there is an ED Express web based training with a specific Direct Loan module, so you don't have to go through all of the other modules that are included in the training unless you want to.
You can go to the tab that is specific to Direct Loans, and it is self-paced.
You can use it at your leisure and at your own pace.
It teaches you the basic skills required to use the ED Express software to process your loans.
Both of these are available at IFAP.
I know the web based training for ED Express is year specific.
You will also make sure you're clicking on the year software that you're wanting to learn about.
There is also interactive online training, like this webinar.
All of the webinars will be available on various topics.
This will be repeated on July 11th.
If you are wanting to participate in this again and get more information or if you are looking for a webinar on various other areas make sure you're watching that on the IFAP website for dear colleague letters that start ANN, which stands for training announcements.
You will find out about those as they are posted, and then you can go when they show up and register at IFAP and go through the school portal features to get to the TFAP section.
Select training.
It will show you all of the webinars that will be available and also provide you with classroom and material information for downloading to your computer as need be.
Last but but least is classroom training.
The most recent training we're going to have about the Direct Loan program that will be stand up will be offered at our federal student aid conferences that are coming up this October and December.
These dates were mentioned earlier.
You can get to register for those conferences at our IFAP website. 
Click on the conferences link, and it will provide you with the most updated information about the Direct Loan program.
I hope to see you there.
Also there is our fundamentals of Title 4 administration training which is very comprehensive, but it is designed to teach you about the entire federal student aid process and programs, not just Direct Loan.
It will have information about Direct Loans, but it will talk to you about things like laws and regulations, administrative and financial systems, application processing, verification, things of that nature.
It's designed primarily for those schools that are new to Title 4 or are having their participation recertified.
The new training is our financial aid basics training, which is intended for the new financial aid administrator at an established institution.
It also takes you through all the information on the Title 4 programs, policies, procedures, and talks to you about important resources available to you to assist you with your processing at your institution.
There are written materials available to you.
The Direct Loan school guide has been updated.
It provides a description of what a school must do in order to process Direct Loans at their institution.
Topics include things like how to determine student  eligibility, how to counsel students about the Direct Loan program, how to originate loans, disburse loans, and report borrower and loan information to the Department of Education via the COD system.
That will be available on the IFAP website.
Last but not least is the COD technical reference.
The technical reference is a very good guide for understanding how Direct Loans are processed at the COD system.
Especially if you're wondering what an error code or reject code that you received on the record means, it will tell you what that the reject code means and how to resolve it.
Very useful guide.
The implementation section of the COD technical reference is written in very plain English.
It's not a very techy guide.
Anyone can use it, and it covers everything you need to know in order to successfully do the processing end of your Direct Loans with the COD system.
You can go to the fsadownload site and click on software and manuals to get to the COD technical reference.
In order to get started in the Direct Loan program if you have not already done it you will have to make sure that your ECAR, eligibility and certification approval report includes the Direct Loan program, and you will need to update your e-app using the eligcert.ed.gov website.
If you think you have already gotten the Direct Loan program added to your PPA and you ECAR and are wanting to be sure you can go to the same website and pull up the phone number for your local school participation team and talk to someone there.
They can let you know whether or not you have been approved or if not where you are in the process.  Or if you've not even started the process what you need to do to get started if you're interested.
You can also contact the school Relations Center at CODsupport@acs-inc.com to get information about participating as far as submitting your data to the COD system.
You will be required to provide them with certain information.
You can go the COD website get this information.
There is a link at the bottom of the page that says click here if you're looking for more information.
It will tell you what you need to provide in order to work with the folks at COD school relations.
This is where you would see, if you had not seen the COD website before, the link is located at the bottom of the page.
What you're looking at is the highlighted box.
It is there all the time with updated information about what is going on with COD.
Down at the very bottom if you click on that link if you can read that it says steps for participating in the Direct Loan program.
These are instructions on how to get started.
You can print the file off its in a pdf format.
You can print that off and have it available to get you through the beginning phases of getting started with Direct Loans.
For additional information if you have additional questions that you think of after we have completed this session you can always submit them to the e-mail address you see on the screen.
There are several people available to answer your questions.
They will do their very best to provide you a timely and accurate response.
You can submit as many questions as you need in order to feel comfortable with the program if you are beginning.
That concludes our webinar for today.
I don't know how much time we have left.
>> We still have some time, Angela.
Thank you for taking questions.
If you do have additional questions if you logged in late we do have the process for you to submit your questions in writing.
You would do so by clicking on the menu button that says Q&A.
When you click on that it should bring up a box.
Simply type in your question.
Click on the word ask.
We have several people available for answering those questions back to you in writing.
You might want to include your e-mail address.
There may be a question we can't answer right away.
People get back to you by e-mail to do so.
Also, if you logged in late and would like a copy of this presentation is available on-line here from the Live Meeting site.
If you are not in the full screen view, but in the console view up on your menu bar to the right hand side you will see a button that looks like three pieces of paper.
When you click on that icon it brings up the dialogue box.
Simply click the check box next to the Direct Loan webinar handout.
Click on the button that says download.
It will ask you where you want to save it and you can complete that to save it.
We will keep the Live Meeting open for an period of time to allow you to submit a few more questions.
Thank you for attending our overview.
It will be repeated on July 11th, and a recording will be available shortly on the IFAP website.
Thank you for attending today.
>> [Relay Event Concluded]