| Contractor loses La. scholarship account data dating back to 1998
BATON ROUGE, La. -- A Boston-based contractor hired to store and safeguard state scholarship and college savings account data lost most of those records _ including bank account numbers and student and parent Social Security numbers _ during a move, officials say. "We certainly don't want to create any panic. But people should be aware and take the necessary steps," said Melanie Amrhein, executive director of the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance. "This is backup data off of a mainframe that contains sensitive personal information." Special equipment and software and "sophisticated computer skills" would be needed to get the compressed records from the TOPS scholarship program, START Saving Program, and Free Application for Federal Student Aid, according to a notice posted on the Internet.
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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Senators' bill would delay WASL further
Currently, this year's high-school seniors have to pass both sections of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) to earn a diploma. This bill would postpone that requirement to 2012. The math section of the exam was delayed to 2013 during last year's legislative session. Some have speculated that holding the hearing on the holiday commemorating the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a nod to the civil-rights movement. Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, D-Bothell and chairwoman of the K-12 Education Committee, co-sponsored the bill with senators Craig Pridemore, D-Vancouver; Dan Swecker, R-Rochester; James Hargrove, D-Hoquiam; and Ken Jacobsen, D-Seattle. "Anything I can do to lessen the WASL's impact on kids, I will do," said Pridemore, who graduated from Fort Vancouver High in 1979.
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