FA Alphabet Soup

What is "FA Alphabet Soup" you ask? It's what some of us call all of the strange acronyms in the Financial Aid arena. Sometimes these are just simple things, such as FA standing for Financial Aid. Then there's DL for Direct Loans, FAFSA for Free Application for Federal Student Aid, and FSA for Federal Student Aid (if you didn't get that from FAFSA).

The Alphabet Soup is nearly a language by itself.

There are now defunct terms like GSL for Guaranteed Student Loan and FFELP for Federal Family Education Loan Program.

There are organizations and agencies such as ED which is the Dept of Education (don't call them DE, since they will quickly correct you and say "we're not the Dept of Energy"), the CFPB which is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and SAA which is Student Aid Administrators.

Sometimes there are two acronyms that apply for the same person, such as FAA and FAO (Financial Aid Administrator and Financial Aid Office or Officer).

Here are some of the other common acronyms:

AY - Award Year

COA - Cost of Attendance

CPS - Central Processing System

EFA - Estimated Financial Assistance

EFC - Expected Family Contribution

FSEOG - Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant

MPN - Master Promissory Note

NSLDS - National Student Loan Data System

SAP - Satisfactory Academic Progress

SAR - Student Aid Report

And then there's the Gainful Employment (which is denoted as GE) acronyms:

OOPB - Original Outstanding Principal Balance

LPF - Loans Paid in Full

PML - Payments-Made Loans

So if you really want a chuckle at the FA Alphabet Soup, check out the Repayment Rate calculation for GE:

OOPB of LPF plus OOPB of PML which is all over OOPB

Fun stuff!