Starting April 2, 2001, FAAs can call 1-800-330-5947 to get the Central Processing System (CPS) and Title IV Wide Area Network (TIV WAN) phone numbers. New Hours. The Customer Service Call Center will soon be open from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM Central Time, Monday - Friday. Free. FAAs will save their school about $100 a year as SFA puts this toll free number into place.

For More Information contact the Customer Service Call Center, 1-800-330-5947, or send email to CPSWAN@ncs.com.

The Department of Education is implementing a change to its email address standards to prepare for future system upgrades and to conform to accepted email address standards, both in industry and government.

Starting no later than April 2, email addresses will use a period in place of an underscore between the first and last names, so that the address will be FirstName.LastName@ed.gov <mailto:FirstName.LastName@ed.gov>. For example, instead of Joe_Aiello@ed.gov, the new address will be Joe.Aiello@ed.gov. After implementation, emails sent to the old address will continue to be delivered to the new address for one year.

For More Information contact Joe Aiello, Media Relations, (202) 205-7915, or send email to Joe_Aiello@ed.gov.

SFA has received its one millionth FAFSA on the Web application for the 2001-2002 award year. Last year, we didn't hit the one-millionth mark until early May, and the year before that it was in November.

Please continue to encourage the use of this excellent product that schools and states are pushing because it is faster, easier and more error free that the paper form.

For More Information contact Jeanne Saunders, Director for Application Processing, (202) 708-9874, or send email to Jeanne_Saunders@ed.gov.

Electronic debiting is quick, easy and saves borrower's money - a .25% interest rate discount.

We've reached over 50% of our goal as the percentage of electronic repayment users has increased dramatically in the last few months. Currently, there are over 330,000 users and SFA's goal is to expand the electronic repayment system to 400,000 borrowers by September 30, 2001.

For More Information contact Joe Aiello, Media Relations, (202) 205-7915, or send email to Joe_Aiello@ed.gov.

During its second week of operation, the SFA Schools Portal hosted 1,009 unique visitors and received 102,153 hits on its homepage.

The Schools Portal, launched March 7, is designed to deliver in one Web site the host of disparate electronic resources financial aid officers need to help students.

For More Information contact Colleen Kennedy, Project Manager, (202) 690-5241, or send email to Colleen_Kennedy@ed.gov.

SFA would like to thank the Texas Southern University's Choral Group for performing three uplifting songs for financial aid officers who attended the 2001 Direct Loan Conference in Houston March 7-9. The students' spirit and joyful songs embraced all audience members as clapping hands and stomping feet helped them groove to the beat.

Also, a hysterically funny improvisational group called Freudian Slip, from Texas A&M University, performed several skits for the +1,000 attendees. Laughter lifted the roof as they performed their unusually odd scene-splitting acts.

For More Information contact Susan Thares, Conference Director, (202) 260-6948, or send email to Susan_Thares@ed.gov.