Office of Higher Education outlines loan reimbursement rollout, Roberta Willis timing and new AmeriCorps match request

The Office of Higher Education told the Appropriations Committee on March 5 that its student loan reimbursement application, opened Jan. 1, had attracted 1,474 submissions and that staff have moved 201 applications to a "pending eligible" status that would require roughly $5,568,203 to pay if awards were issued immediately. Mike Frascolov, associate fiscal administrative officer for student financial aid, said the average award among those pending eligible applicants is about $2,827 and that the application deadline currently is March 31, 2025, with a possible extension if funds remain.

Office of Higher Education officials said the application infrastructure was built internally and ingested documents through the CT Scholars database. Staff told legislators they are handling very high volumes of e-mails and questions — an SLRP mailbox averaged "two to three hundred emails per day" during the rollout — and that the office has two part-time staff assigned…