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A new analysis showed that the share of college applicants and students filing for financial aid has increased dramatically in recent years, but many who most need assistance are submitting their paperwork too late to get the funds, the Wall Street Journal reported. CampusLogic, a company that helps nearly 500 community colleges and private and public four-year schools manage their financial aid processes, examined federal aid applications called the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or Fafsa. That application turns on the spigot for federal aid like Pell grants and Stafford loans, as well as for state scholarships and many institutional awards. The review of 2.4 million Fafsas submitted between Oct. 1, 2017, and Oct. 31, 2018, for aid that would cover the 2018-2019 academic year, found that 30 percent of students whose parents’ adjusted gross income was in the lowest quintile submitted their Fafsa after March 1, 2018. Meanwhile, two-thirds of those whose parents were in the highest income quintile, earning upward of $133,000, submitted it by Feb. 1.

The White House is weighing a measure that would require colleges and universities to take a financial stake in their students’ ability to repay government loans, an effort that could squeeze loan availability to students and reduce defaults, the Wall Street Journal reported. For several months, Trump administration officials have been discussing enacting such a mechanism or making a push for one in Congress as part of a broader effort to combat rising college costs. In the administration’s budget proposal released on Monday, officials made brief mention of a “request to create an educational finance system that requires postsecondary institutions that accept taxpayer funds to have skin in the game through a student loan risk-sharing program.” Such a proposal could be included in a coming executive order addressing higher education, several officials said. A draft of the order isn’t final and the specifics of exactly how a skin-in-the-game provision would work haven’t been laid out. It also isn’t clear whether the White House will back an administration proposal or urge Congress to take one up. The order the White House is preparing, expected in coming weeks and led by the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump, will likely touch on several hot-button issues in higher education, including a possible provision tying federal research dollars to rules about free speech on campuses, these people said. Leaders on the Senate and House education committees are also currently negotiating a possible reauthorization of the Higher Education Act this year, the sweeping 1965 law that governs higher education and student loans. Should a risk-sharing proposal come up in Congress, it would likely be included in a larger reauthorization package.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Kathleen L. Kraninger will testify today at a 10 a.m. EDT hearing before the Senate Banking Committee to provide the CFPB's semi-annual report. To view witness testimony and access a live webstream, please click here.

Federal lawmakers say injured veterans who file for bankruptcy shouldn’t be forced to use their disability payments to pay off credit-card companies and other lenders, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Injured and disabled veterans who receive checks from the Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense must classify those payments as disposable income if they file for bankruptcy protection. “Forcing our veterans and their families to dip into their disability-related benefits to pay off bankruptcy creditors dishonors their service and sacrifice,” said Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D., Wis.). “These benefits are earned, and we must do right by our veterans and protect their economic security, especially during challenging times.” Some legal experts say the rules for veterans’ disability payments are a mistake made when consumer bankruptcy laws were overhauled in 2005. “We have pretty sophisticated support for service members, but for veterans, the support that we’ve promised breaks down,” said Georgia State University law professor Jack F. Williams, who has pushed to make bankruptcy relief easier for veterans for more than a decade. Academic researchers who have studied military issues have found that veterans are more likely to struggle financially. A 2017 study from Stanford University found that veterans make up a larger portion of people who have filed for bankruptcy protection.

When the Education Department approved a proposal by Dream Center, a Christian nonprofit with no experience in higher education, to buy a troubled chain of for-profit colleges, skeptics warned that the charity was unlikely to pull off the turnaround it promised, the New York Times reported. Barely a year after the takeover, dozens of Dream Center campuses are nearly out of money and may close as soon as Friday. More than a dozen others have been sold in the hope they can survive. The affected schools — Argosy University, South University and the Art Institutes — have about 26,000 students in programs spanning associate degrees in dental hygiene and doctoral programs in law and psychology. Fourteen campuses, mostly Art Institute locations, have a new owner after a hastily arranged transfer involving private equity executives. More than 40 others are under the control of a court-appointed receiver who has accused school officials of trying to keep the doors open by taking millions of dollars earmarked for students. Now its students — many with credits that cannot be easily transferred — are stuck in a meltdown. On Wednesday, members of the faculty at Argosy’s Chicago and Northern Virginia campuses told students that they had been fired and instructed to remove their belongings. In Phoenix, an unpaid landlord locked students out of their classrooms. In California, a dean advised students two months away from graduation not to invite family to attend from out of town.