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Sock Puppet Web Video Can Help You Apply for College Financial Aid
Tweet Share on Facebook January 4, 2011 Comment (4)The web has a growing number of free resources that can help students and parents fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, which is the form that qualifies college students for grants, scholarships, and low-priced student loans.
[Read the three ways applying for financial aid is getting easier in 2011.]
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"Financial Aid eBay" Winners Set Off Scholarship Bidding Wars
Tweet Share on Facebook September 13, 2010 Comment (1)A recent announcement by Cornell University may be the just what is needed to get students and parents to understand one of the worst-kept secrets in the college financial aid world: Students who get into several competing colleges usually get more scholarships than those who focus on just one "dream" college.
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Government Mulls Making Debt Collection Rules Secret
Tweet Share on Facebook July 5, 2010 Comment (15)Should student loan borrowers have a chance to know the rules and strategies used by debt collectors?
The U.S. Department of Education appears to be saying no, at least for now, to the dismay of consumer rights and government transparency advocates.
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5 Ways You Can Create More Scholarships
Tweet Share on Facebook May 18, 2010 Comment (2)The economic downturn has shrunk scholarships from state governments and charities relying on endowments. Individual donors who are rushing to fill these new college financial aid gaps say it doesn't take much money or expertise to help a student.
In fact, helping students can become addictive, warns Lt. Col. Terry Owens, who has formed her own scholarship foundation. "You’ll want to help more than you can afford." So, she suggests, "start small."
[Read more about how Lt. Col. Owens created her own scholarship fund.]
Giving also has some surprising paybacks, says Dwight Burlingame, director of academic programs at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University-Purdue University—Indianapolis. "We can all be philanthropists. It is a matter of recognizing the joy of giving." There are plenty of selfish reasons to give, he adds, noting that studies show "people who give and are generous live longer and have healthier lives."
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Manual Reveals Loan Collection Secrets
Tweet Share on Facebook May 10, 2010 Comment (16)Anyone who borrows—whether for a flat screen TV or a college education—has a moral obligation to pay all debts in full. And taxpayers naturally want all who took out federal student or parent loans to pay back every penny they owe. The government enforces the sanctity of student debt obligations with comparatively draconian laws. Unlike most other loans, federal student loans have no statute of limitations, are extremely difficult to discharge in bankruptcy, and can be collected even from debtors’ Social Security payments after they retire.
So what is a recent graduate who can’t find a good job in this lousy economy supposed to do when big student loan bills come due? Besides following these 11 steps to getting relief, debtors who have fallen behind on their federal student loans can learn what to expect from a collections manual that was temporarily posted in a public section of the Department of Education’s website.
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5 Big Financial Aid Lies
Tweet Share on Facebook April 6, 2010 Comment (44)One of the reasons students and parents are so frustrated by their attempts to figure out how to pay for college is that many of the terms that government officials and college administrators use can be misleading.
In eight years of researching and writing about financial aid, I have met and interviewed hundreds, if not thousands, of the college and government officials who create and enforce financial aid rules. And the vast majority of them have seemed to me to be honorable, idealistic people. But too often they end up misleading students or parents because many of the financial aid terms they have to use turn out to have technical or legal definitions that run directly counter to commonly understood meanings. And in some cases, I believe, politicians or college officials have purposely crafted terms that give students more hope for aid than is realistic. I realize that calling something a "lie" is inflammatory. Before you post any blistering comments, consider these financial aid terms and draw your own conclusions:
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Who Really Gets the Most College Financial Aid?
Tweet Share on Facebook October 19, 2009 Comment (100)One of the complaints I hear most often, and which I see posted most frequently on Web stories about financial aid, is a version of this: "If you're poor, you get all the free money you could possibly want. If you're rich, you already have all the money you need or want. But if you're in that nice medium called middle class you get screwed right out of your socks," which was posted last year at USNews.com by "College studen" (sic) of Texas. (I'm assuming CS simply mistyped and knows how to spell the word student.)
Is there any evidence supporting this?
A soon-to-be-published book by a Princeton sociologist found that low-income minority students (mainly African-Americans and Hispanics) who have good grades and test scores appear to have an edge over whites and Asians with similar grades and test scores (but not necessarily other factors such as extracurricular activities or recommendations, which were not considered in this study) at getting into the elite private colleges that tend to give out the most scholarships.
But by U . S . News's count, only 54 of the 5,000-plus American colleges and universities promise to provide enough scholarships to meet all students' financial need. And those colleges give plenty of aid to the far greater numbers of middle- and upper-middle-class students whom they admit. Harvard, for example, charges no more than 10 percent of a family's income for all those who earn $180,000 or less.
A few dozen other schools promise to meet the need of students from low-income families only, typically cutting their generosity off at annual incomes of about $40,000.
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6 Scams That Target College Students
Tweet Share on Facebook October 13, 2009 Comment (11)Operating on the theory that it takes a thief to steal from a thief, a group of Internet scammers has been targeting students who illegally download music, books, and video.
The Chronicle of Higher Education has reported on an apparently bogus collections agency that sent out letters to Bucknell students demanding $500 to settle the students' alleged illegal downloads.
That's a new twist on an old strategy of targeting college students. Prosecutors say there are at least six common scams students should watch out for:
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7 Reasons to Work Your Way Through College
Tweet Share on Facebook October 9, 2009 Comment (12)Many students say they don't want to take part-time jobs when they start college because they'll need all their time to study (or party).
But new research confirms what parents and counselors have been saying for years: Part-time campus jobs not only raise cash but can help raise students' grade-point averages.
After interviewing and examining data on hundreds of undergraduates from 1996 through 2004, researchers found that the average GPA of freshmen at four-year universities who worked between one and 20 hours a week was 3.13. Those who didn't work at all had GPAs averaging just 3.04.
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How a New Tax Credit Can Help You Pay for College
Tweet Share on Facebook August 27, 2009 Comment (10)"Are grandparents who are paying the tuition of a grandchild eligible to claim the new American Opportunity Tax Credit" of up to $2,500? —Ken F.
Only the taxpayer who takes the student as an exemption on the 1040 tax form can collect the credit, the IRS says. If Ken can declare the student as a dependent (in other words, if the student has lived with him at least half the year and if Ken supplied at least half of the student's support), he can get a big tax break when he files his taxes next year.
But if Ken can't, then his kids, or his student grandchild, could collect the credit, the IRS says. In fact, even if the students or parents don't spend a penny of their own for tuition or books, they could still collect the tax credit. For example, Uncle Sam could send a $1,000 check to piggyback on Grandpa's check of $2,500. Or Ken's kids or grandkids could reduce their tax bills by $2,500 if Ken contributed $4,000 toward tuition and books. That means the IRS could turn a $2,500 gift into $3,500. Or it could turn a $4,000 gift into $6,500!
