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Student Loan Change Comes On Little Cat Feet
Tweet Share on Facebook November 2, 2011 Comment (4)Even though it's mailbag week, we would be remiss not to mention that the Obama administration recently announced important new initiatives that will help student loan borrowers. (Yes, we know, it's not FDR at Madison Square Garden.)
We will have a lot more in next week's blog on the proposals to accelerate changes to Income-Based Repayment (briefly, new borrowers in 2012 will benefit from a lower monthly payment cap and loan forgiveness after 20 rather than 25 years) and to encourage borrowers to convert federally guaranteed loans disbursed by private banks (FFEL loans) to Federal Direct Loans.
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Congress Cuts, Obama Attempts to Collect as Loan Default Rates Rise
Tweet Share on Facebook October 26, 2011 Comment (10)Your very own Student Loan Ranger (and many others) have chronicled the rapid growth of student loans and the associated rise in default rates (not to mention deferment, forbearance, and delinquency rates). This rise in default rates was reaffirmed by the U.S. Department of Education's release of its fiscal year 2009 national student loan cohort default rate.
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Research Job Prospects Before Investing in Your Education
Tweet Share on Facebook October 19, 2011 Comment (2)If you are thinking of attending law school, you should pay attention to a relatively obscure decision by the American Bar Association's Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. On September 23, the Section decided it will not require law schools to reveal the percentage of 2010 graduates working in the legal profession or in part-time legal jobs. In previous years, law schools have had to report separately the percentage of recent graduates in jobs that required bar passage, jobs for which a J.D. was preferred, and jobs that did not require a J.D.
Art Gaudio, chairman of the ABA's questionnaire committee, informed The National Law Journal that the question was dropped this year because members were uncomfortable with the way the jobs were defined. The question, he noted, will be included in the 2011 survey. Gaudio also said that job placement data will be collected on an accelerated schedule in the future so prospective law students will be able to base their decisions on more up-to-date information.
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As Student Loan Grace Period Ends, Consider Options to Avoid Default
Tweet Share on Facebook October 12, 2011 Comment (4)It's October and time for the Fall Classic (though without my beloved New York Yankees). For many recent graduates, it's also a far less exciting season: time to start repaying student loans.
That's right, your fleeting six-month grace period is almost finished. You aren't able to see us, but at the Student Loan Ranger, we are making a sad face for you. We've also compiled some tips for entering repayment and what to do if you aren't able to shoulder the financial burden just yet.
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The Student Loan Ranger's Mailbag Express: Public Service
Tweet Share on Facebook October 5, 2011 CommentGoing to law school today means you are going to borrow money—a lot of money— and it is not a decision to take lightly. Here at Equal Justice Works, we also believe that you can commit to a public interest career despite the burden of educational debt. In fact, generations of attorneys, doctors, social workers, and members of countless other professions have spent their careers in public service, and many of them made great financial sacrifices to do so.
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College Tuition Growth Rate Is Biggest Bubble of Them All
Tweet Share on Facebook September 28, 2011 Comment (8)Have you ever asked your mirror how student loan debt stacks up to the recently popped housing bubble that helped drive the Great Recession? Probably not, unless you have a Snow White mirror on your wall.
But if you are curious, Moody's Analytics has the answer: The rate of growth in tuition far exceeded real estate appreciation even during the housing bubble. That's just one of the interesting nuggets in "Student Lending's Failing Grade," a new report in which the staid agency warns that "[f]ears of a bubble in educational spending are not without merit."
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College Degrees Requiring More Student Debt
Tweet Share on Facebook September 21, 2011 Comment (1)Debt to Degree: A New Way of Measuring College Success, a report released in early August by Education Sector, attempts to provide students choosing colleges and policymakers with a single measure of value that combines debt and graduation. The report creates a "borrowing to credential ratio" for colleges by measuring the total amount of money borrowed by undergraduates and dividing that sum by the total number of degrees awarded. In short, it determines for each college how much student debt is taken on for each degree issued.
[For information on debt and loans, see U.S. News's Paying for College guide.]
This borrowing to credential ratio is Education Sector's attempt to assess the impact of two disturbing trends. First, barely half of the students who start college get a degree within six years. Second, as regular readers of this blog know well, educational debt is now greater than credit card debt and is closing in fast on $1 trillion.
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Enjoy College Without Spiraling Debt
Tweet Share on Facebook September 14, 2011 Comment (2)School is now in full swing for many college students and it's going to be a great year; everyone's moved in, classes have started, and the fun has begun!
The Student Loan Ranger has put together some steps you can take to manage your educational funds while in school. So, before making plans for tomorrow night, take a little time to make sure you're starting out on the right foot and making choices that will ensure your debt is manageable after you graduate.
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The Student Loan Ranger's Mailbag Express: The Real World
Tweet Share on Facebook September 7, 2011 CommentWe spend quite a bit of time on this blog trying to convey the impact educational debt can have on your life after graduation. In one post, "Take Another Look at Student Debt Consequences," we even made up a couple of fictional future college students to personalize the issue. In this edition of the Mailbag Express (for those who are wondering, yes, it was inspired by the Pony Express), we want to share the real-world stories of people who are struggling to repay their student loans.
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Consider AmeriCorps to Gain Job Skills, Education Funds
Tweet Share on Facebook August 31, 2011 Comment (1)If you are an avid reader of the Student Loan Ranger blog, you have probably heard about the tough job market, the debt ceiling deal that will cut critical funding to the most vulnerable populations, and let's not forget the seemingly insurmountable student debt crisis. Americans feel they must go to school longer and accrue more student debt just to have a chance at fewer available jobs with diminishing benefits.
