Students face some tough challenges in college, but Money management is perhaps the toughest. Sure, the coursework is more intense and the social scene is completely new – but you’ve made friends and passed tests before. Money management is the one thing that most students never experienced living under mom and dad’s roof. Money management can make or break you in your first few years of college. If you flunk out of Sociology 103, you can take it again next semester. If you bomb on money management, you may packing your bags and heading home. In fact, just as many students drop out of college because of debt as they do for grades.

With ample opportunities to eat out, party and spend freely without the glares and spending lectures from your parents, you need to keep your spending in check. Or else in your sophomore year you will realize you don’t have enough money for books, beer or rent.

Too many college students wait until the well runs dry to start thinking about money management. At this point, most likely it’s too late. Instead of struggling to make ends meet when times are desperate, begin now.

MORE >>>> http://globaleducationsearch.com/online-degree-articles/college-students-and-money-management/

Our family qualifies for zero financial aid, despite my making a vwey modest salary and having to spend half of it on the family’s extra medical bills (not covered by insurance). What kills us is that we are not in debt…go figure…

As a result, not only are we spending retirement savings on private college tuition for the kids (at a time when I could be laid off at any minute, and when my spouse has been out of work for years), but there are virtually no jobs available on campus for them to help pay for it because they are all earmarked for students on financial aid.

By contrast, my daughter’s roommate in college last year, daughter of African immigrants, gets aid, received summer school coaching and pre-teaching at the college (not open to students like my daughter) before her freshman year (along with a bunch of other entering freshman from disadvantaged backgrounds) to help her manage the difficult course curriculum at their Ivy. Not only was it easier for her to get into the school, but it will be less burdensome for her parents to keep her there. She’s a perfectly affable kid, but not in the same league academically as mine. Of course, I am probably just an overly doting mama and a tad envious!

What upsets me is that either my spouse and I will face an impoverished old age to keep the kid in school (I try to have faith that I will be able to work until I am 90 as I love my kids and education is our highest priority) or the kids will have to take on so much debt that they will have to choose their future professions based chiefly on making enough money to pay off huge loans. Given the insecure job market, nobody has any security these days, but nobody in my family is mercenary and I don’t want them becoming so.

By contrast, my English nieces whined about the expense of college in the UK (a few thousand a year), but graduated virtually debt free. One is now a pediatrician, the other a barrister, and they make little money but are very useful and love their work, and do not have to worry about paying back hundreds of thousands of dollars for their education. If they have children after they marry, they will be able to afford to stay home and raise them properly for the early years, as they will not have huge student loan payments to meet. They, like my kids, were stellar students and also creative and altruistic,

In the old days, all of them would have received merit scholarships (as the British ones did).

One of my kids has actually got a merit scholarship, but it only covers less than a third of the cost of her college.

You may ask why not send them to state schools? Well, both are quiet, somewhat introverted and deterred by the gigantic anomic state school they got into (one with a free ride). With less challenging course, less interesting peers, and a much more oppressively heavy drinking social culture.

What bothers me is the social engineering that now seems to drive the attitude towards who should pay tuition and how much. Interesting that recent immigrants get more money than children whose ancestors fought in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and others since. That wouldn’t bother me if the process were based on relative academic merit. If it were purely meritocratic, most of the scholarships these days would likely go to Asian students anyway, and perhaps my kids would get them also. But certainly that would not be as unfair as a good student getting nothing, and a less good student getting a generous aid package because of ethnic status.

I don’t want to sound whiney. My spouse and I had three children despite being in difficult career and financial straits, because we love children. We have scrimped and saved for years to be able to send them to good schools. This is not (hopefully) a “Poor me” howl.

But I am staggered by the burden of debt that many middle class kids are going to graduate with at a time when many cannot even find jobs and end up living at home, doing partttime supermarket checker work. And by the insanity of colleges recommending to parents that the parents take out mortgages on their homes to pay for kids’ colleges. At a time when anyone over 40 who gets laid off (as any of us are vulnerable to being these days) will likely never work again, this seems like a recipe for future homelessness.

For the record, I received generous scholarship and loan aid that made it possible for me to stay at my college after my dad was laid off (got a life threatening illness requiring surgery and he recovered completely, but his company felt he would not project the right image after that). No one in my college’s FInancial Aid office would have considered asking an unemployed middle aged man to refinance his house to pay college tuition. Even back then, they knew that over 40 you are dead meat, unless already employed. And I received the highest award in my entering class in grad school (meritocratic), without which I could never have entered a low paying but useful profession like the ministry.

source: http://artemisretriever.blogspot.com/2009/11/why-you-are-about-to-go-broke-paying.html

What’s The Difference?

The main difference between a grant and a scholarship is that a scholarship has far more restrictions placed upon it than a grant. Both grants and scholarships are non-repayable, that is, unlike a loan you don’t have to pay them back when you are done your schooling, which basically means you’re getting free money. So if at all possible, try to get a grant or a scholarship. Scholarships are for specific academic or athletic categories, whereas grants are awarded primarily on financial need only.

MORE >>>> http://globaleducationsearch.com/financial-aid/what-are-scholarships-and-grants/

Stung by the loss of their needed aid money, some UB students are preparing to fight.

Affected students, together with the assistance of SBI Legal Assistance, are looking into taking legal action against the university for a financial aid policy change the university adopted in June.

“I can say that SBI Legal is strongly considering bringing legal action to make the university undo their change and provide affected students with money as soon as possible,” said Brendan James Gilbert, director of SBI Legal Assistance.

Vice provost and dean of undergraduate education Michael Ryan told The Spectrum in its Oct. 9 issue that the shift was made due to a change in federal guidelines.

“We had to make the change in the financial aid policy in order to be in compliance with federal guidelines,” Ryan said. “The federal government has a set of standards for financial aid eligibility and we must follow them.”

Beginning June 13, UB changed its financial aid policy, leaving an estimated 2,000 students without the option of financial aid – meaning that more students than ever before are lacking a means to pay for school.

The new financial aid policy makes it harder for students to be eligible for federal aid. Students now need a 70 percent completion rate, as opposed to the previous rate of 65 percent, and must have within 150 percent of the institution’s required credits for graduation, which at UB is 180 hours.

Also, the calculated number of credits is now cumulative. Previously, only completed credits were taken into consideration for financial aid. Now incompletes, resignations, withdrawals and failures count against the student when calculations are made as to whether to award aid.

UB attributed the change in policy to federal law, stating that it wasn’t the university’s decision but rather something that needed to be done to stay within the guidelines of federal regulations.

However, it was later determined by SBI Legal that the parts of the policy that UB changed were not, in fact, part of the federal regulations.

“Federal guidelines only state general terms for [Satisfactory Academic Progress]. Students only need to be within 150 percent of the required credits to graduate and must comply with the institution’s set percentage of credit completion,” Gilbert said. “UB changed the financial aid policy on its own discretion. Nowhere in the federal guidelines are UB’s new guidelines outlined.”

Legal has received estimates that between $360,000 and $380,000 have been withheld from students because of the policy change.

Students are now looking for a way to make UB accountable for its actions.

“We want to do something about this injustice,” said Rashod Coston, a senior biomedical sciences and psychology major. “It’s not fair and it’s not right. We’re going to fight for the funds that we have a right to.”

If the students and SBI Legal decide to take legal action against UB, they would do so under New York State administrative law, article 78, which is part of the New York Civil Practice Law and Rules.

“Basically there is no broken law or rule. Article 78 just gives you the ability to challenge government officials’ actions in New York and get them in front of a court,” Gilbert said.

While UB hasn’t broken the law or stepped beyond its bounds, the law states that a state agency, such as UB, can be challenged about any decision.

“It’s important that everyone knows how much of a wrong this is,” Coston said.
According to Gilbert, the whole point of taking legal action is to give students a venue to voice their distaste with the university’s policy change in a neutral venue.

“When the court examines [the issue] they may look at [what article 78 states as] ‘whether a determination was arbitrary and capricious or an abuse of discretion.’ If [the court] finds it was, then they might declare that [the policy] should be revoked or changed,” Gilbert said.
SBI Legal is hopeful for a change in the decision, as are students, though they are still in the process of building a case and gathering information.

Affected students can e-mail sbilegal@buffalo.edu or visit their office to file a report.

For parents who think they are doing the right thing, financially, to prepare for their children’s college years, there is a troubling article in today’s Times by Sean D. Hamill.

It points out that most of the nation’s prepaid college investment funds, offered by 18 states, are in trouble. Those funds pledged to cover the cost of attending their state’s public colleges and universities, regardless of how much tuition increased.

The funds — not to be confused with 529 college savings plans that do not promise a specific return —are facing two problems: their investments in the stock market have declined sharply in value and the tuition at most public colleges has been rising much faster than in the past.

Even with stock market gains since March, the losses have forced some programs, like Pennsylvania’s and Washington’s, to impose new and higher fees that could amount to thousands of dollars a year in additional costs to parents.

Others, like South Carolina’s, have developed doomsday scenarios, capping how much a family would get if the program shut down completely. West Virginia had to pump $8 million into its prepaid program to help restore its financial health because its fund lost 25 percent of its value in the last year. And Alabama closed its program to new enrollees because the fund lost almost half of its assets — more than $300 million — in the stock market in the last year, and the state might have to put its own money in to keep it solvent.

“I think ultimately more and more of these plans are going to close down to new investments,” said Mark Kantrowitz, the founder and publisher of FinAid.org, a financial aid Web site.

The article points out that no investor has lost money in the plans, but that some states may have to kick in state funds in order to meet their obligation to achieve a set return on investments.

Mr. Hamill spoke with a family dealing with what has happened to such funds:

Ganesh Seshadri has invested $200,000 in Pennsylvania’s fund, which has lost about 25 percent of its value. He is philosophical about the fund’s losses, which have not affected his investment, though he has stopped investing in it because of the increased fees and costs imposed recently.

“If I get back the return they promised, it will be a good investment, because all of my other investments tanked,” said Mr. Seshadri, 55, a hospital computer analyst in Murrysville, Pa. He has children at Northwestern University and Carnegie Mellon, and one in high school.

Source: http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/troubling-news-about-some-prepaid-college-tuition-savings-plans/

If you were going to come up with a list of organizations whose failures had done the most damage to the American economy in recent years, you’d probably have to start with the Wall Street firms and regulatory agencies that brought us the financial crisis. From there, you might move on to Wall Street’s fellow bailout recipients in Detroit, the once-Big Three.

But I would suggest that the list should also include a less obvious nominee: public universities.

At its top levels, the American system of higher education may be the best in the world. Yet in terms of its core mission — turning teenagers into educated college graduates — much of the system is simply failing.

Only 33 percent of the freshmen who enter the University of Massachusetts, Boston, graduate within six years. Less than 41 percent graduate from the University of Montana, and 44 percent from the University of New Mexico. The economist Mark Schneider refers to colleges with such dropout rates as “failure factories,” and they are the norm.

The United States does a good job enrolling teenagers in college, but only half of students who enroll end up with a bachelor’s degree. Among rich countries, only Italy is worse. That’s a big reason inequality has soared, and productivity growth has slowed. Economic growth in this decade was on pace to be slower than in any decade since World War II — even before the financial crisis started.

So identifying the causes of the college dropout crisis matters enormously, and a new book tries to do precisely that.

It is called “Crossing the Finish Line,” and its findings are based on the records of about 200,000 students at 68 colleges. The authors were able to get their hands on that data because two of them are pillars of the education establishment: William Bowen (an economist and former Princeton president) and Michael McPherson (an economist and former Macalester College president).

For all the book’s alarming statistics, its message is ultimately uplifting — or at least invigorating.

Yes, inadequate precollege education is a problem. But high schools still produce many students who have the skills to complete college and yet fail to do so. Turning them into college graduates should be a lot less difficult than fixing all of American education.

“We could be doing a lot better with college completion just by working on our colleges,” as Robert Shireman, an Education Department official who has read an early version of the book, says.

Congress and the Obama administration are now putting together an education bill that tries to deal with the problem. It would cancel about $9 billion in annual government subsidies for banks that lend to college students and use much of the money to increase financial aid. A small portion of the money would be set aside for promising pilot programs aimed at lifting the number of college graduates. All in all, the bill would help.

But it won’t solve the system’s biggest problems — the focus on enrollment rather than completion, the fact that colleges are not held to account for their failures. “Crossing the Finish Line” makes it clear that we can do better.

MORE >> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/business/economy/09leonhardt.html?_r=1

What is EFC? If EFC means nothing to you, chances are you have not filled out a FAFSA application yet. Anyone who fills out a FAFSA application will receive an EFC score. EFC stands for Expected Family Contribution. In short, EFC determines whether or not you are eligible for federal financial aid.
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The EFC number you receive upon completing the FAFSA form is the amount of money a family can expect to contribute to their child’s post secondary education. The Department of Education then subtracts the EFC from the student’s cost of attending college and that number represents a student’s need for federal aid. The EFC formula considers:
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Income
Assets
Family Size
Employment benefits
Number of college students per household
It is important to remember that EFC is not the amount of money your family will be paying for your college education and it is not the amount of money you receive in financial aid.
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EFC scores range from 0 to 9999, the lower the EFC score the better your chances are of receiving federal financial aid. EFC determines your eligibility for loans, grants, and work-study programs.
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One simple way to cut your EFC? Becoming an independent student. If you are paying for college on your own, using only your information when completing a FAFSA will more than likely qualify you for more financial aid. Dependent students are required to provide their parent’s information while filling out the FAFSA application.
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source: http://www.gofinancialaid.com/blog/fafsa-efc/

Earning a University degree online can be an experience that is every bit as enriching, interpersonal, and dynamic as attending college the traditional face-to-face way. A big misconception is that online learning is impersonal. This isn’t the case at all. Programs offered online present the same opportunities for group work, independent study, and interpersonal communication as do traditional methods of learning. In fact, attending college online helps to facilitate the independent learning process, as well as developing time management skills. Attending college online takes just as much commitment as the old-fashioned way of going to school, and the potential career and personal benefits are just as great, if not greater.
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There are many advantages for a student seeking a University degree to choose an online institution. A student does not need to live locally to attend the school of choice. Attending all classes and submitting coursework online eliminates the need for commuting or relocating. Earning an online University degree is a convenient way to advance your education and training. A school may offer more sections of popular courses, as well as night and weekend courses, which allows a student more flexibility. This is an ideal situation for those who work full time and/or care for a family. Additionally, if you are a student who is considering returning to school after several years, going to school online is a perfect way to ease into the routine of class work and projects again, and can lessen the stress of feeling the need to fit in with younger students. Besides, who wouldn’t find it appealing to attend college from the comforts of home?
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It is possible to earn and online University degree in a fraction of the time that it would take to attend a traditional college or University. Many online programs offer accelerated degree programs. This is ideal if you are looking to advance your career, and are in a hurry to do so. Many online programs also offer students the option of attending part time. These are often fully accredited programs, which is a benefit for you in having your degree recognized by potential employers and various professional organizations. Attending a fully accredited online University is also critical if you have credits from previous college courses that you wish to transfer, or if you decide to transfer to another University later on. It is important to check the credentials of the online institution to be sure of its accreditation.
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If you are worried that you might not be able to afford an online University, there are options. Some employers might offer to pay a portion or even all tuition and fees toward an employee receiving a degree. Also, financial aid in the form of grants, loans, and even scholarships might be available to you. Check with the particular online program of interest to see what financial options are available.
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The type of degree earned at an online University is practically limitless. Aside from earning Associate’s, Bachelor’s, and PhD degrees, professionals can continue their educations and stay up to the minute in their fields. Online learning is no longer just for web designers and computer programmers. You may study Business, Social Sciences, Criminal Justice, Humanities, Mathematics, Human Resources, Fine Arts, and various Healthcare programs. Depending on the type of degree you are seeking (graduate, for example), there may be certain academic requirements that you have to fulfill to be able to attend. Make sure you do your research when trying to decide on an online University.
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With the prevalence of the Internet and technologies such as teleconferencing available today, it is possible to come away from the experience of attending and online University not only with a degree, but also being more in tune with technology, which has the potential to broaden your career opportunities even more. Attending an online university is a legitimate, convenient, and flexible way for you to advance you education, as well as your career and personal potential.
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source: http://www.flixya.com/post/njandjj/1709304/Earning_An_Online_University_Degree

Darla Horn, 26, acknowledges she didn’t give much thought to the cost of college when she enrolled at State University of New York in Purchase.

“My plans were to get out of Texas, and college became incidental,” says Horn, who grew up in Nacogdoches, a city of about 32,000 near the Louisiana border. Because she didn’t qualify for financial aid, she took out student loans, graduating in 2005 with a double major in journalism and anthropology and more than $80,000 in debt.

Her loan payments were manageable until this year, when she lost her job as an information technology recruiter earning about $100,000 a year. Currently self-employed, she’s behind on her loan payments. In April, she organized an exhibition in Long Island that featured artwork by graduates who are trying to raise money to pay their student loans.

“To this day, I have yet to see the complete value of my education,” Horn says.
For years, an article of faith in this country has been that college is the gate way to a better life. So deeply held is this belief that many students, such as Horn, borrow tens of thousands of dollars to attend prestigious public or private universities. But as the worst recession since World War II trudges into its 21st month, many graduates are discovering that the college payoff could be a long time coming – if it comes at all.

MORE >> http://www.jaxobserver.com/2009/08/31/in-recession-is-college-worth-it/

The Obama administration has made it clear that college affordability for the less fortunate is a high priority on the presidential to-do list. One of the major stumbling blocks in getting economically challenged students into college has been complete and utter frustration when it came to applying for federal funds through the FAFSA (Free Education for Federal Student Aid) application. Rather than make their way through the complicated form, many families would simply throw up their hands and walk away.

As Education Secretary Arne Duncan once said as he spoke off the cuff to a small group of reporters, “This damn form was killing us.” He was referring to his time as superintendent of Chicago’s public school system and the role the FAFSA form played in preventing students from low-income families from applying to college.

In order to combat this problem, the DOE intends to gradually introduce changes to address this and other problems recognized with the current application process:

- No longer requiring students with low incomes to answer questions about their parents’ financial assets.

- Questions concerning drug convictions will only be asked to returning students since it does not apply to first-year students.

- Potentially allocate Pell Grants based on the aid applicant’s adjusted gross income (AGI) vs. the current needs analysis formula, which takes into consideration the income and assets of both the parent and the student.

- Provide incentives to institutions that admit a larger ratio of students from low income families by increasing their access to federal money.

- Simplify the FAFSA form through the elimination of questions that would allow financial aid need, and therefore eligibility, to be based upon approximately 18 questions that are contained on the federal tax form. This would give the applicant the opportunity to instruct the IRS to send the information directly to the DOE, hence, streamlining the aid process. A test of this communication between government agencies that will allow students to send Mom and Dad’s tax information to the DOE for financial aid eligibility purposes is scheduled for January of 2010 for aid assistance during the spring semester of that same year.

- Potentially eliminating some or all of the asset assessment for every applicant.

- Consider eliminating interest subsidies for students as they attend school.

- Consider capping the maximum amount of federal loans available for the student to borrow based upon the federal poverty level for individuals.

Determining how to implement some or all of the above with the blessings of universities across America could potentially be a tricky road for the administration to maneuver. Most universities and states use information obtained from the FAFSA to determine student eligibility for the institution’s own funds. If they feel that the revised edition of the FAFSA is incomplete regarding the information needed to determine allocation of institutional funds, they may be compelled to create their own form to assist with this determination.

This, in essence, would create a new profile form for public institutions. And for those of you who have had experience with this form, which is used by approximately 300 elite and private institutions across the country, you may have already guessed that this may create a whole new set of road blocks in obtaining preferred financial assistance for those who are already expected to pay for their child’s education.

source: http://www.submityourarticle.com/articles/Marc-Hill-5007/FAFSA-65663.php