OCEAN CITY - The college financial aid administrators of Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia conclude their annual convention here today. Some 250 of them have been cooped up in a hotel since Monday, discussing such subjects as FERPA regulations, the management rules of Perkins loans and why EFC formulas and loan verifications go hand in hand.

I know almost nothing about the business, but as a "convention spouse" I've been attending the regional meeting of the Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators for several years. These folks are hard-working and generally underpaid. Sure, they play a little during their annual three days in Ocean City, but most of them are here to learn the arcane and ever-changing rules of financial aid and how they can better serve their students.

Next to the faculty, the financial aid people are the most important on any campus - far more important than presidents and provosts, more important than admissions officials or basketball coaches. Admissions and sports would go out of business without the financial aid office, which opens academic doors to millions of students and acts as the conduit between a multi-billion-dollar private student loan industry and the federal government that regulates it.

Some two-thirds of American college students graduate with some debt; the average is $16,551. That's an awesome responsibility, and it's going to get more awesome. Maryland college and university tuitions are about to increase, some experts say in the double-digit range. Nationally, a year at the most expensive private schools costs $30,000 (living expenses included). This means the lines outside financial aid offices will be getting longer.

The best of these financial aid folks are also accomplished counselors, both to parents and students. Only they know how to unravel the government red tape. Only they speak the language of the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Education, the loan guarantee agencies and the lenders themselves. (Most are banks, but it's helpful, I'm told, to have a friend at Sallie Mae, a recently privatized company that dominates the field with $77 billion in outstanding student loans.)

Since the financial aid folks deal with a family's most precious assets - its children and resources - they have a stressful job. That's why much of what they do is hand-holding. It's why the financial aid administrator gets to know her students and parents intimately. "It's a job where people come in and ask me how my grandson is doing before we get down to business," said Evelyn Minch, assistant director at the Maryland Institute College of Art. "And I ask how theirs is doing."

So although much of the convention business deals with procedure - an entire afternoon is set aside for a discussion of changes in federal regulations - planners also build in sessions such as "Laughing in the Face of Change."

Laughing at change is a skill the financial aid administrators tell me there's ever more reason to master.

@SUBHEDMany private colleges stop taking credit cards

You can no longer put it on the card at many of the nation's private colleges and universities.

Barnard College in New York City announced recently that it would no longer accept credit card payments after the spring semester next year. Other schools to drop the cards in recent years include Tufts University near Boston and McDaniel College in Westminster.

A Barnard spokeswoman said the school dropped Visa and MasterCard after the annual fees approached $400,000 a year. As tuition soared, so did the cost of allowing credit.

But there's another, unstated reason plastic is losing out at the expensive schools: The card privilege is enjoyed by parents who can afford high credit limits. They pay off their bills promptly and take advantage of frequent-flier miles that come with use of the cards.

"If you could pay off your card before the due date, you'd be a fool not to use it for tuition," said one college official. "A year's tuition at some of these schools could get you to Europe."

McDaniel and other schools that have dropped the card for full-time undergraduates still welcome card use by graduate and part-time students, and many offer payment plans through outside agencies. The Johns Hopkins University, which never took credit cards for undergraduate tuition, allows part-time students to use them.

Lower-tuition public and community colleges almost universally accept credit cards. It's a way to get quick payment, one of the financial aid administrators told me.

But low-income students who can't promptly pay their bills would be better off with a loan. Federally guaranteed loan rates are much lower than the interest on unpaid credit card balances, and loan repayments usually start at graduation.