| Passageways concludes year of innovation, acquisitions
Passageways, a company in Purdue Research Park, is preparing to close the books on a very productive year. The 4-year-old West Lafayette-based firm provides solutions
that enhance internal communications for the financial services industry. This fall it added 66 new clients through the acquisition of the Instant Intranet Builder product from Engineered Business Solutions in Houston. Since then, the company has launched new products and been selected to streamline internal communications and data management for additional financial institutions. Passageways introduced its Knowledge Management and Learning Management applications in
mid-November at the BAI Retail Delivery Conference and Expo in Las Vegas. "The launch of these two customizable products adds further information management capabilities to the Passageways portal," said co-founder and Vice President Christopher Beltran.
A Shaky Season for Student Loans
Shortly after New Year's Day, Pat Watkins, financial aid director at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla., placed a worried call to National Education, a student loan company she has been working with for nearly two decades. She had heard rumors that the company was no longer funding federal Stafford and PLUS (Parent Loans for Undergraduate Students) education loans, but had received no official word from the company. She found out that the phone of National Education's local rep had been disconnected. Later she learned that Chicago-based National Education was not planning to accept applications for new loans for the spring semester after Jan. 15, though they planned to fund disbursements for students who received loans for the fall. Federal Loans Lose Funders That was the first surprise.
Parents often fumble on financial aid forms
High school seniors have been scrambling for months to complete their applications for college. Now it's their parents' turn to sweat.
The start of the year marks the launch of financial aid season, when parents fill out exhaustively detailed forms in an effort to get their share of the billions of dollars of assistance available. Unfortunately, aid forms can be every bit as unnerving as college applications. Missteps can cost thousands.
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Schools unhurt by admissions change
Four prominent universities that ditched their early admissions programs have answered questions about whether the move would hurt their popularity. That answer is no. All are reporting record applications this year. Harvard, Princeton and the University of Virginia attracted widespread attention with announcements in 2006 that they would stop holding a separate, early round of admissions in the fall. They argued the practice contributes to anxiety and disadvantages students who need financial aid. This year, they began considering all applicants in a single pool with a January deadline. The University of Florida later made a similar announcement and moved to a single deadline of Nov. 1. Most selective schools kept some form of early admissions. Now, the results are in.
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