Lunch & Learn, 4/7/26, 12pm

Are we ready to start? Yeah, do a wrap right now.

Okay.

Hello everybody, welcome. Thank you for coming to this Lunch and Learn with the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education. It's really great to see everybody, and I'm happy to host this event because I, along with Senator Tobin, get the great honor of serving on the Alaska Postsecondary Education Commission. So I'm really happy to host this today and turn it over to the incredibly wonderful, dedicated staff of ACPE. I can't say enough about how dedicated these folks are. And just on top of it, there's so much going on and great things happening for higher education in Alaska right now and for students in Alaska being able to affordably attend our university system and achieve their goals. And really thrilled to turn it over to our staff. And please feel free to keep coming in and getting lunch and have a great Lunch and Learn.

Thank you, Representative Carrick. Hi, I'm Carrie Thomas. I'm the Executive Director at the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education, and I want to thank you all for taking time out of your busy days to be here for this Lunch and Learn. I hope you can stay, and if you can't, that's understandable too. So, um, we'll go ahead and get started, and I'll let Kate introduce herself when we change over. So, um, about ACPE, We are the state's higher education agency, and we are a different government entity than a lot of the other departments, and we'll go through some of that in a minute. But we are funded by the Alaska Student Loan Corporation, so we don't receive general funds at our organization, and we operate in a statewide capacity to help Alaska's residents access and pursue their goals in higher education. That's both the standard collegiate track as well as career and technical education options. So the mission, vision, and strategic priorities of the commission are listed. Our mission is to provide sustainable solutions for college, career, and technical training. And our vision is that Alaskans are educated and skilled contributors to our vibrant communities and economy. And then our strategic priorities are listed here: to become the education lender of choice in Alaska and for Alaskans, And the reason that's so critical is because, as an education lender, we're a state nonprofit entity. We're not looking to make a profit off of students as they pursue their postsecondary goals. So we offer lower interest rates than for-profit lenders. And our biggest challenge is making sure that students and their families

about our loan programs at the time they're making borrowing decisions for their higher education. So you all can play a role in that by referring your friends, neighbors, family members to ACPE to talk about options for funding their higher education. And of course, we only recommend loans when there isn't sufficient grants, scholarships, or other free aid available. We also have the priority to increase access to and utilization of federal and state education funding sources, operate a sustainable organization that's responsive to students, customers, stakeholders, and our employees, and then lastly, position ACPE to bridge the education gap in Alaska's current and future workforce needs. On this next slide, there's a lot going on here, and you probably can't see it from the audience, so I'll just walk through it. This slide depicts the relationship between the Alaska Student Loan Corporation and the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education. So we're two entities kind of under one umbrella. The Student Loan Corporation is the funding side of that, and the Commission on Postsecondary Education is the policy side. and we administer the programs for the state under the umbrella or under the commission side of that. So the Student Loan Corporation exists to provide loan funding and issue asset-backed debt. So that could be issuing bonds, and then the proceeds of those bonds are used to fund education loans, to authorize and oversee investments trusts, and indentures. So we also manage the assets of the corporation, and then we set investment policies, loan terms, interest rates, and other program features of the student loans. So that all happens on the corporation side, and the corporation has a 5-member board set out in statute that meets and conducts these functions. Then on the other side, we have the Commission on Postsecondary Education. We serve as an advisory body to the governor, the legislature, and other institutions related to higher education activities in our state. We administer the financial aid programs of the state. That includes the Alaska Performance Scholarship, the Alaska Education Grant, our student loan programs, and then some other, um, specialty programs like WICHE and WAMI. Some of you may be familiar with those programs. We also provide consumer protection for our residents through our institutional authorization function. So, um, public institutions like the University of Alaska and Ilasagvik College are exempt from our oversight, but we authorize or provide an exemption from authorization to other post-secondary institutions in the state to ensure that Alaskans are receiving value for what they're paying for related to higher education. And then lastly, we serve as a state agency, state higher education agency in Alaska for different federal purposes and state purposes. And then I think with that, I'll turn it over to Kate. And then again, thank you all for being here.

Great, thank you, Executive Director Thomas. My name is Kate Hillenbrand, and I serve as the Director of Communications and Outreach for ACPE. The portion we'll be talking about, or starting with, is ACPE's education planning solutions. The overarching purpose with the, the solutions we'll be discussing are to provide Alaskans the information and resources necessary for them to make informed decisions about pursuing post-secondary education. Education and the financial responsibilities connected to those decisions. So kind of keeping that in mind as we go through these next few slides. Again, something you probably can't see from here, so I will walk you through this on a very high level, but these are the 5 kind of primary outreach programs that are offered through ACPE. Looking at your screen going from left to right, we have the Alaska We have the Alaska Career Information System, or AKCIS 360, which is likely how you're used to hearing it referred to. Then we have our Alaska College and Career Advising Consortium, ACAC for short, the Alaska FAFSA Completion Initiative, our Success Center, and then also, as Executive Director Thomas mentioned, institutional authorization. So primarily focusing on the outreach resource programs, our goal there again is to provide the information, financial literacy, and opportunities to prepare Alaskans, our students and their families, for post-secondary education. So when we look at kind of the, the components of how we do that, planning and preparing is, is the first component here, which is where AKCIS 360 comes into play. Which provides free for all Alaskans to use an online platform where students and families can explore and create their own personal learning and career plan. And this, this is a platform that is really for all ages— students that are in high school that may be looking to— adults may be looking to return to post-secondary, upskill. There's a tremendous— covers a tremendous swath of the population that would be interested and could benefit from creating their own personal learning and career plan through AKCIS. Next, we also have our Success Center, which really focuses around financial literacy and student support. The staff in the Success Center deliver one-on-one and kind of small group or classroom presentations about financial aid, scholarship applications, and then funding opportunities. Most critically the FAFSA, or the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. So making sure that the students and families that we help in the Success Center are also completing the FAFSA. So those two programs or resources, the Success Center and AKCIS, are really focused on supporting our students and our families. Next, we have, we take a more train-the-trainer approach with ACAC programming. So ACAC really looks at ways of how we can train and inform ACAC is a group that helps inform our education stakeholders that are located in communities throughout Alaska. So these are folks, education development specialists, these are counselors in high schools who work directly with students and families kind of in, again, throughout the state. So ACAC offers these stakeholders various kinds of trainings related to FAFSA completion, related to the variety of postsecondary opportunities that are available in Alaska so that they they can then inform and support students and families in their communities. And then lastly, we have our FAFSA Completion Initiative, or AFCI, which as many of you may know in the room and others that may be the first time hearing, but Alaska is historically last or next to last in FAFSA completion rates in the country, and FAFSA being the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Submitting the FAFSA is an absolutely critical step for students to receive a broader scope of financial aid to help pay for their post-secondary education or career training. So by our students having much lower rates than our national counterparts in completing the FAFSA, it absolutely puts them at a disadvantage for accessing the funding that's available to pursue post-secondary. So for a number of years, we have been working working in putting forward and strengthening Alaska, the Alaska FAFSA Completion Initiative to increase those rates of FAFSA completion for our students in our state. So here we're going to pivot to our education funding solutions. Again, the prior section was about our planning solutions to help families and students prepare for postsecondary, and now we'll pivot into the funding solutions to help them pay for that. ACPE administers multiple financial aid programs on behalf of the state of Alaska, including, as Executive Director Thomas mentioned, the Alaska Performance Scholarship, or APS, the Alaska Education Grant, which is the AEG, as well as Alaska Education Loans and some specialty loan programs, including WAMI Medical Education Program and Wynn-Brindle, both of which we'll discuss a little bit more later. So these are programs, again, as mentioned, that ACPE administers. Specifically related to funding for some of these programs, we look to the Alaska Higher Education Investment Fund, or the HEIF, which again is a separate fund established in statute for the purpose of making grant and scholarship payments. And then of the programs that are listed

listed above that ACPE administers, the HEAF funds APS, AEG, and WHAMI. We'll get into all of that a little bit more later, but first we'll go through some, some general information about the state's scholarship and grant program. So for the Alaska Performance Scholarship, or APS, a student, an eligible student, can earn up to $28,000 that can be used across 8 full-time semesters or the equivalent of 8 full-time semesters within 8 years of their high school graduation. This is a merit-based award, so there are some, some academic qualifications that a student needs to meet in high school, the first being that they must complete a rigorous high school curriculum. With the passage of HB 148 in 2024, the rigorous high school curriculum options have expanded. There are now 3 different options that a high a high school student can pursue to qualify, and the student must earn either a minimum qualifying GPA or a minimum test score on the ACT, SAT, or WorkKeys. It is also important to note that the FAFSA, again, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, is considered the application for a student to receive, an eligible student to receive their APS. So the application— or excuse me, the FAFSA must be submitted for students attending an Alaska Title IV institution. However, if a student is not attending an Alaska Title IV institution, there is an alternative APS application that they can submit. So just to keep that in mind as well in terms of how the process goes. So from here, we'll look at our Education Grant Program, the AEG, which as a grant, it is a need-based program. Program where we look at the FAFSA. Again, the FAFSA is required for this because through the FAFSA, that's how we identify a student's financial need when they are pursuing post-secondary. Additionally, the student in— to qualify must be an Alaska resident enrolled in a minimum of half-time at their college or qualified college or career training program. And then due to the funding structure through HEAF for AEG, we do need to prioritize the awarding process. So in looking at that prioritization schedule, eligible recipients are awarded by the highest amount of need that are— that's reflected through the FAFSA, the date of FAFSA completion. So in this case, the earlier the better in the academic year cycle for the student to complete the FAFSA. and then also we would look at if the student had received the award in a previous year as well as their enrollment level, full-time or half-time. And so funding is awarded according to this prioritization until all funds have been exhausted. And then in terms of the award amount, the AEG, an eligible student can receive anywhere from $500 to $4,000 per academic year. And again, that is based on the FAFSA need. Going a little bit deeper into the funding calculation for APS and AEG, as we mentioned a couple slides ago, both are funded through the HEIF, the Higher Education Investment Fund, and the funding allocation for these two awards is 7% of the HEIF balance as of June 30th each year. Of that 7%, two-thirds is available for APS funding and one-third is available for AEG funding. It is also important to note that in terms of the WHAMMY funding piece, that is directly appropriated from the HEAF, so it is not subject to a different calculation like APS and AEG. Excuse me. Continuing around APS and AEG funding, we do submit our annual budget request each year for the funding to support both of these programs. For FY '27, our budget request was equal to 100% of the funding available from the HEAF, so that's 7%. And it is also important to note when you're looking at the funding available, because it is established as two-thirds for APS, one-third for AEG, any changes to APS APS funding levels will directly impact the AEG funding amount available to keep that two-thirds, one-third. Again, another slide that may be a little hard to see, uh, are our APS funding projections. So with, again, going back to the passage of HB 148 in 2024, um, it is that we are absolutely seeing the tremendous benefits and improvements through that legislation, which the goals were to increase usage— excuse me, increase eligibility and usage of the Alaska Performance Scholarship. So we have seen very quick and immediate improvements in both of those areas. In connection to that, however, we are also seeing where our APS funding projections are through 2029, where we do have various Various spaces here where the funding will, or the projections will exceed the funding available. So another piece to look at, and again, that will run through FY 2029. So again, we're moving through the education funding solutions that are available. The first couple that we spoke about are the state's education grant and scholarship program. Now we're moving into ACPEs. Education loan programs. As Executive Director Thomas mentioned, our loan programs are funded through the Alaska Student Loan Corporation. So that, that would be the funding source for the 3 loans that I'm going to speak about, being the supplemental or student education loan, the family education loan, and then our refinance education loan. The goal of the supplemental as well as the family education loan is really to bridge that gap in remaining financial financial need. We know that our students and families, you know, they, they have various forms of financial aid that comes in, but there is still a financial gap there. There's still a need, and, you know, they've utilized all sorts of other, other ways to cover what their cost of education will be, but ACPE is here with our education loans to fill that, fill that gap, and so that the students and families are able to continue down their post-secondary education path. The The other thing that's also, we'll speak about in a subsequent slide, but through ACPE's education loans, we do also offer numerous safeguards as well as savings for our, to protect our students or our borrowers from over-borrowing. As the state's lender, we do not want to see our students burdened with substantial debt. Student loans after graduation or program completion. So we do have built-in safeguards to, to help protect and support them from over-borrowing. And then ultimately, as the state's lender, we do also see our students save substantially in interest by borrowing through ACPE, the range being anywhere from $12,000 to over $55,000 in interest over the life of their loans when they come through ACPE versus borrowing through another private for-profit lender. So really important information there to kind of take away and hold when you are speaking with constituents in your communities. The other last piece to know about our education loans is that currently, and for the last couple of years, our supplemental and family education loans have had lower interest rates than the Federal PLUS. Loans. So another, another piece, place of savings there. Very high level, if you're kind of interested in how students access these loans or their family members can access these loans, just some general qualifications. This slide here is for the supplemental and the family education loan where you need to be an Alaska resident or attending an Alaska institution. There is a minimum a FICO credit score that is required in an absence of adverse credit, and that would be for the student who's borrowing or their cosigner. So there is an opportunity for a cosigner to move the loan forward. And then also a minimum of half-time enrollment, which is certified by the borrower's— the student's institution. And that's one of those— the mechanisms that we have in place, again, to protect our students from over-borrowing, because we want to make sure that what they need to take out is to cover the cost of attendance and not over-borrowing. Next, there are some loan limits to also consider, a maximum of $24,000 a year with the lifetime limit of $96,000. We do also have, as I mentioned, very low

interest rates, which are at a fixed rate, so the students, the borrowers, will know what to get. They know what to expect with their payment each month, and there are no fees with ACPE loans. So those, again, as I mentioned, were the two— the in-school loans is another way we refer to them, as our supplemental or family education loan. Now we have our refinance education loan, which would be for borrowers who have completed their education, their post-secondary education program, or have discontinued, they're no longer enrolled, but are looking for an opportunity to consolidate potentially multiple education loans into one fixed lower interest rate, which is where our refi program comes in. The borrower can be an Alaska resident or previous borrower, cosigner, or the beneficiary of an ACPE education loan, as well as a graduate graduate of a high school or postsecondary institution physically located in Alaska. So the qualifiers have a much broader nexus with Alaska than they previously did just a few years ago. There are also minimums and maximums when it comes to qualifying or the amount that a student can— or excuse me, a borrower can take out for refi. At least $7,500 in qualifying education loans, but not to exceed $250,000. Looking at, again, protections from overborrowing, we do for borrowers who are interested in the refi for over $125,000 or their cosigner, they would need to have a debt-to-income ratio of less— of 45% or less. So another component to keep in mind there, again, with the goal of protecting and ensuring that our borrowers that they're being— that there's some responsibility there with the, the what they need in order to lower their payments each month. And then as we also talked about earlier, we do have some specialty loan programs that are specific to the subject matter. So first we have Wynn Brindle, which provides funding for education expenses for students who are enrolled full full-time in fisheries-related programming. There are also loan forgiveness benefits connected to a Wynn-Bryndle loan to, to consider. Then we have, as mentioned before, the WHAMI Medical Education Program, which funds up to 30 Alaska students each year who are participating, enrolled in the University of Washington School of Medicine program. And again, there is also a loan forgiveness benefit for this program as well. Lastly, in terms of our specialty loan programs, we have our WICHE Professional Student Exchange Program, or PSEP is how it's also referred. And so this is funding to assist our Alaska students who may be pursuing a degree in an approved health-related field outside of Alaska because the program is not available in-state. So we've gone through excuse me, the kind of the about ACPE. We've talked about the planning solutions that we have available to help students and families kind of navigate post-secondary. We've talked about our funding solutions, so how they can access it, access their education and pay for it. And now we want to spend a little bit of time talking about outcomes. So what what's happening, what's coming from these different resources, these funding mechanisms, what are we seeing happen as a, as a result of these resources. Excuse me, I forgot to grab something to drink. So first we want to talk about our education loan outcomes. One of the pieces to know for the last few years, ACPE has been working through a strategic plan where we identified, as Executive Director Thomas shared at the beginning, we have various strategic priorities. Thank you. We have various strategic priorities that we track and measure through our key performance indicator dashboard, which we update and review quarterly. And so it was important to us to show kind of where some of these, these different In the class of 2025, 53%, which then also tied itself to the class of 2025 seeing the greatest number of students using the award with a little over 1,100. This full report is available on the website listed there, acpe.alaska.gov/reports. I can't read what this slide says from this far, far away, but it also reflects the increases that we've seen in the number of total recipients each year. So this kind of gives the historical perspective of the number of students receiving APS each year, and then the amount of affiliated funding. So that's on the left side, and then sort of the, the trend line on the right. Lastly, to share out, we have our AEG, Alaska Education Grant outcomes. And again, this is the financial need merit-based grant award where we do need to follow looking at financial need as well as following the priority awarding criteria because funds are exhausted each year before we award out to all eligible AEG students. We did see an increase in recipients in '24-'25, which again was that proportional increase due to the increase in APS funding. And then we do see in the last bar there on the right. That information for AEG recipients was as of January. We do expect by the end of the fiscal year, by, by June 30th, we do expect that number of AEG recipients to also exceed the prior year's count as well. So before we open it up to questions, just wanted to again say thank you to Representative Carrick's office and for all of you for joining today. We appreciate the opportunity to share out and hopefully inform all of you about ACPE, and we encourage you to share ACPE's education and funding solutions with your constituents and in your communities. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Kate. I'd like to open it up for any questions about ACPE, our programs and services, or the information we covered today. Um, I think you touched on this briefly, but I was hoping if you could go into a little bit more detail. Um, would

Do any of the funding opportunities through ACPE fund graduate-level or doctoral-level studies, or is it mostly just aimed at undergraduate-level studies?

Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you. The question is, does ACPE funding go to graduate or doctoral programs? And the answer is yes, for the most part. ACPE loans are available to Alaskans attending in-state or out-of-state, or to any out-of-state residents coming to Alaska for school. And that would include professional degrees, so graduate and doctorate. And the Alaska Performance Scholarship can also be used for advanced-level degrees, assuming that the student didn't exhaust their funding in their bachelor's degrees. So under the current structure of the Alaska Performance Scholarship Program, a student could leave Alaska, get their bachelor's degree, and then return to Alaska and pursue a master's and utilize their APS for the master's degree, as long as it doesn't exceed 8 years from the time of their graduation. Yes, Representative Carrick.

Well, thank you, Director Thomas. Thank you both so much for being here. With the House Bill 148 passage and the expanded eligibility, are we seeing any increase in FAFSA completion? Is there any connection there? Like, are families potentially saying, well, we have— there's more options available now for the scholarship program, and so maybe that's incentivizing FAFSA completion, or does it seem to be unrelated?

I will defer to you as our FAFSA expert.

That's a great question related to if we're seeing the FAFSA— excuse me, the increase in APS eligibility connected to the FAFSA, or the FAFSA increases that we're seeing. We haven't made that exact connection, but the timing of the passage of HB 148 and seeing the steep increase in usage, which requires SAFSA completion, coincides directly or immediately with the over 5% increase we saw in FY25. So it would, it would make sense that the two are connected. And but to have more than one year of that, we'll see how, how this connects as well going into the next year. Great question.

I took out all my university loans years ago when there was a 50% forgiveness clause. If you came back to the state, you had 50% of your loan forgiven on a 10% a year basis, and that had a lot to do with me coming back to the state from studying at Cal State. Is there any mechanism currently like that in any of the student loans that rewards coming back to the state?

Thank you for that question. Somebody always asks that question. So yes, the question was about loan forgiveness. Historically, back in the '70s, '80s, the Alaska Student Loan Corporation's programs provided 50% forgiveness for people to return to the state and work here. That was discontinued because it wasn't sustainable from a funding perspective. A lot of students that took out those loans did not return to Alaska and receive the forgiveness benefit, and they did not repay their loans. And then we also had— yeah, so really it wasn't affordable to provide that forgiveness benefit. And under our current programs, other than the ones that Director Hillenbrand mentioned, the WHAMMY or the Wynn-Brindle Our loans do not offer forgiveness benefits.

Interested about your interest rates for your refinancing on your— on the education loans and what your interest rates are.

Okay, that's a great question. Interest rates on refinanced loans. I believe there's a handout in the folder that includes that, but we'll see. I can bring it up here.

So if you do have a— the folder, we might have a couple extra ones. So looking at refinance, it does start though— the rates change each May for the following year, but they do start as low as 4.85% currently, which again, as we mentioned, is— and it's a fixed rate. So for the life of the loan, you won't be seeing any changes with that and no fees as well. Yeah, you're welcome.

Will this year's awards be affected if the HEF balance isn't replenished?

The question was about if awards will be affected if the HEF balance isn't replenished. That's a complicated question. So the supplemental does include the funding to replenish the HEF, but based on the trajectory that was shown on that slide, we're very close to the point where our projections exceed what could be available from the HEAF under that 7% calculation. So, um, I wouldn't necessarily tie the replenishment of the HEAF to the fund's ability to fund full scholarships and grants. It's more that we're seeing such a rapid increase in those programs. Um, we need some time to respond to that. But if we didn't replenish the HEIF, it would be like a double whammy, essentially. That's a professional term.

Yes.

I was just wondering about that loan forgiveness topic. If you were having trouble with people taking— sound like taking advantage of it and leaving the state and not paying it back, could you have it set up differently so that Maybe, you know, their loan forgiveness kicks in once they've paid back the 50% or something like that, or change it to 75% or something to at least be able to still give people who are paying it back some advantage.

That's a great suggestion about different ways we could structure forgiveness programs in Alaska, and so I appreciate that, and we can look into that. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, well, thank you all again for your time and for being engaged and asking good questions. It was nice to see a full house today, and thank you, Katrina and Marie, for setting this all up for us, and Director Hillenbrand for your presentation today, and of course Representative Carrick, thank you for sponsoring this Lunch and Learn.

Thank you. Good to see you, Kat.

Yeah, you too.