How the Average American Family Pays for College

August 10, 2010

Tuesday
A national study by Sallie Mae and Gallup Sallie Mae's "How America Pays for College 2010" study, conducted by Gallup, finds that even in a continued period of economic uncertainty, families are digging deeper to invest in what they value: a college degree. Based on a nationally representative survey of college-going students and parents of...

Colleges Don't Do Enough to Stop Student Drinking

July 29, 2010

Thursday
(USAToday, by Robert Preidt) U.S. colleges aren't doing enough to limit student access to alcohol, a new study contends. College administrators do recognize that student drinking is a major problem, but they focus on individual interventions and campus-based alcohol restrictions. They need to do more work with communities to develop policies to...

Pell Shortfall Persists

July 28, 2010

Wednesday
(Insidehighered.com, by Jennifer Epstein) WASHINGTON -- A Senate panel wavered a bit from its House of Representatives counterpart, producing a 2011 funding bill Tuesday that aims to protect Pell Grants from cuts -- but doesn't fully fund the program -- and boosts funding to the National Institutes of Health. At a brief drafting session, the...

6 Ways to Avoid Letting Your Computer Distract You

July 8, 2010

Thursday
(By Brian Croxall, Chronicle of Higher Education) One of the best things that happened to me as a grad student was receiving the gift of a laptop from my brother-in-law. What was great about it was that what was a new computer to me was not, in fact, a new computer at all. In fact, it was quite old: five or six years old. What was so great about...

7 Ways Private Student Loans are Getting Better

June 25, 2010

Friday
U.S. News & World Report, by Kim Clark The credit crunch that caused bankers around the country to stamp "REJECTED" on millions of college loan applications appears to be easing. Banks, credit unions, nonprofits, and new alternative lenders are approving more and cheaper tuition loans with variable interest rates starting as low as 1.8 percent...

The 10 Best College Search Web sites

June 16, 2010

Wednesday
(U.S. News & World Reports, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy) When I typed "college" into Google today, I got 631 million hits. When I searched for "scholarships" and "financial aid," I generated another 51 million and 58 million results. Nobody has time to slog through all that and a lot of it is probably schlock anyway. You can, however, dramatically cut...

Want a Job Post-Recession? Better Have a College Degree

June 15, 2010

Tuesday
(ideastream, wcpn.org, by Mhari Saito) With today's tough economy it's hard to think about new job creation. But a study out today finds that when jobs do come back to Ohio, more of them will require a college degree or better than ever before. The study by Georgetown University’s Center for Education and the Workforce forecasts job growth ten...

Grads need sound plan to repay student loans

June 7, 2010

Monday
BY TERRY SAVAGE Sun-Times Columnist Millions of college graduates are about to ask this question: Was it worth it? And it's a question that students just entering college should be asking as they start looking at taking out student loans to finance their college degree. It's not the education, or the college experience that's the issue. It's how...

Student Debt and a Push for Fairness

June 4, 2010

Friday
By RON LIEBER, New York Times If you run up big credit card bills buying a new home theater system and can’t pay it off after a few years, bankruptcy judges can get rid of the debt. They may even erase loans from a casino. But if you borrow money to get an education and can’t afford the loan payments after a few years of underemployment, that’s...

The No. 1 Fear of 529 Plan Investors

May 27, 2010

Thursday
I hear from parents all the time who are afraid that they won’t qualify for financial aid because they’ve stuffed money into a 529 plan. The Vanguard Group, which is a huge player in the 529 college plan arena, says this financial-aid fear is the No. 1 myth of 529 plans. Yes, that’s right it’s a myth. Assets in 529 plans rarely hurt a family’s...