On January 26, 2005, I had an opportunity to meet with Mary Jane Covington and Hubert Graves from the Mississippi Office of State Student Financial Aid. The items we discussed are listed below.

1. Moving the disbursement of MOSSFA funds from the paper check process to a wire transfer process, as this would decrease the wait time. Mary Jane has asked the Dept. of Finance and Administration for approval and setup with a provisional start-up date of July 1, 2005.
   
2. Recommending a standardized format for state grant disbursement rosters (such as Common Record) that could be used to automatically load rosters into various financial aid software systems. I will send the format to Hubert for his analysis of this project.
   
3. Dual enrollment. I provided more details regarding this issue. There are still many unknowns in regard to a statewide database and recordkeeping.
   
4. Use of new SAT scores in regard to MTAG/MESG awarding. Mary Jane will look into this and update us later this spring.
   
5. Spring State Aid update. Mary Jane has agreed to host a session on state programs this spring. The details will be provided via the MASFAA listserve.
   
6. The state office will establish deadlines for return of funds for the programs they administer, much like the deadlines that exist for the LEAP program.
   

Robert W. Givens, Chair
State Aid Committee
January 26, 2005