student consolidation | Student Loan Consolidation | student loans

Bad Credit mortgage gives you the opportunity

2010-12-19T05:11:00.002-08:00

Bad Credit mortgage gives you the opportunity to build up your credit if you do not have any and can not wait. It also gives you an opportunity to increase your credit score if you have a low credit score. If you are having a bad credit, you will have to look for a Mortgage Lender that is willing to work with you. Mortgage lenders are authorized by law to have a review of your credit report. Remember that every lender has criteria under which they will approve you for a loan. They know if you are eligible for the loan with these criteria which can also be called guidelines. These guidelines estimate the size of the risk you tend to create for the company. Someone with a bad credit can find it very difficult to get an approval to his or her application because of a low credit score. It is advisable to find a Mortgage lender with an easier guideline or criteria. The problem is that most lenders that approve people with Bad credit also charge higher interest rate. This can make repayment higher and less affordable. You can build your credit score if you set up a good payment history on your mortgage and once it is time to re-negotiate your mortgage, you will be entitled to a better interest rate. Listed below are some tips for estimating the quality of you decision for applying for a mortgage.

1. Some people think that they have a very bad credit and will not be approved for a mortgage. It is advisable that you apply for a loan ahead of time so that you know your rating.

2. Regardless of what your smallest repayment is, try to always bring your payment to the nearest $10 by adding some dollars. For instance, if you have a least repayment of $742, you can add a few dollars to it and round it up to $750.Make sure this is done whenever you can and always make it known to the bank that additional amount fees is to the principal and not the interest.

3. At present, the real estate market is in a low position. The real estate market also has times when they experience growth. All real estate markets also experience down times. There is no guarantee that the prices of real estate will go up but there has been a steady increase in prices all though the whole history of the United States. You will just have to buy at the right time. When you apply for a mortgage with a bad credit and you buy a home now, you can save thousand of dollars when the real estate market begin to experience growth and home become costly.

4. Can you settle the repayment rather than refuse to accept an Interest rate that is potentially high sounding? Have you seen a home that fits the mortgage you qualify for at that particular payment? If you answered these questions to the affirmative then do not get too bothered about the Interest rate. Instead continue to increase your credit score and you can refinance later on.

5. You have a few favorable chances to increase your credit score as soon as you are approved for your bad credit mortgage. Repayment counts. Try and make you repayment early as this is seen as an evidently trustworthy financial behavior. This can really help you increase your credit score. A mortgage is a loan with a repayment time period that is fixed. A mortgage that is paid to agreement gives the greatest weight when calculating your FICO score.

The Banks will be ready to negotiate with you for a reduction in your interest rate immediately they notice that your credit score has increased. You can also negotiate for a greater rate reduction once you credit score improves. This will make your repayment amount become less and make it easier to manage your budget.

6. Begin to build your equity as soon as you buy your home. You are opportune to do this. Equity is the amount between the worth of your home and the unsettled balance on your mortgage. The two important ways to build your equity is to make there be an increment in the worth of your home or a decrease in the balance of your home.

7. You will find out that your bank is ready to assist you in consolidating some of your unsettled debts into your mortgage. This can help you in paying off any personal loans, student loans and credit cards that you have. This can have a continued result of helping to increase your credit score to a greater extent.

Bad credit Mortgage gives you the favorable chance to:

1. Build up or clean up your credit
2. Be relieved from a high interest debt
3. Gearing you out of a bankruptcy that is likely to happen
4. Get additional money for home repairs or some personal expenses
5. Relieve yourself from people you owe debts by paying them off
6. Make bills that exist combine into one monthly payment

For more helpful articles from mortgage professionals, Click here

http://www.MortgagesProfessional.com

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New Federal Laws That Make Debt Settlement More Affordable

2010-12-19T05:11:00.001-08:00

Debt settlement appeared when the recession started as a method to keep the people on the floating line. A lot of people had their salaries reduced or got fired so they couldn't afford to pay the installments for the loans they took. To get rid of this situation they only had one possibility, bankruptcy. Bankruptcy also destroyed the economy making it harder for the country to get over recession. The government decided that there should be a program implemented that offers people a viable option instead of bankruptcy. This program is called debt settlement.

Fortunately for people eligible for a settlement, the program pays back the reductions their creditor makes. This way the reductions are bigger and people get more affordable rates or installments on their debt. They manage to pay their debt in 1-3 years and after that their credit score remains high and they can take other loans. If they choose bankruptcy, those two are not possible. They cannot get another loan because their credit score will keep them from doing it and bankruptcy also remains on their credit report for 7-10 years. This makes it hard for most people to even consider getting a smaller loan.

With the new laws, debt settlement is even more affordable and risk free. The Federal Trade Commission issued a law that would make it easier for people to use a settlement. This law completely eliminates upfront fees that debt settlement companies were charging and makes any payment illegal until completion of negotiations. This means that you won't pay anything until the settlement company will negotiate your debt. Many people lost money because debt settlement companies promised that they will negotiate and they never did. They had to file for bankruptcy because the companies delayed their case. Now this can no longer happen and settlement is more secure.

To be eligible for a settlement you need to have more than ten thousand dollars of unsecured debt. If you don't have this amount of debt you should choose another option like financial consolidation or counseling. Debt settlement will not work with mortgage loans or secured credit cards, but it can work with student loans, business loans, unsecured credit cards and medical loans.

Debt settlement is a legitimate alternative to filing bankruptcy. Consumers can expect to eliminate around 50% of their unsecured debt with the help of a legitimate settlement program. With the new FTC laws recently passed in July 2010, debt settlement is a much less risky option. If they don't settle your balance you don't have to pay a dime.

Check out the following link for free help from a certified debt relief specialist:

Free Debt Advice

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Instant Finance Without Any Hassle

2010-12-19T05:09:00.000-08:00

Unsecured loans do not require you to place real estate, property, home, commercial land, automobile, or any of your assets as security against the money. Any individual can go with this option including tenants, non-homeowners, students, employed, self-employed, homeowners etc. Generally, only those homeowners like to apply for unsecured finance who does not want to take risk of collateral. In the absence of security, the risk associated in this option is higher than secured loans. So, you are charged high interest rate to cover up the some part of risk. But, this money is fast and easy option for borrowers as far as risk is concerned. Less legal formalities like evaluation of property makes the process really quick and applicants can get the loan amount within few hours.

There are different kinds of unsecured loans available in market and people can apply for anyone as per the requirement and need like for home improvements, debt consolidations, holidays, weeding, business, credit card payments, education, car purchase etc. These finances are advanced up to £25,000 for the repayment term 6 month to10 years. They are best when unexpected expenses contain the less amount and you need money for short period of time. For obtaining quick money, you need to fulfill the following conditions:

- Borrowers age should be 18 years old or more
- Regular source of income is something you have to prove in front of lenders through salary slip and bank statement
- Bank account is necessary for transferring the amount
- Lenders lend the money only those people who got the UK citizenship

It is important for every applicant to keep all the related documents ready while applying for unsecured loans. Now days, procedure of money has changed completely. Applications are received through the new online method instead of traditional method. So, it has become quiet convenient for consumers to make the application from home or office and receive the money immediately without visiting lender personally. But, make sure that you provide the correct information and lenders should not face any issue while verifying it.

Scurfy Jackson is an expert author and has more then 7 years of experience in writing finance related topics. To know more about unsecured loans Visit: http://www.loansz.co.uk/

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Student Loan Debt Consolidation An Overview Of Federal Loans

2009-10-22T05:30:00.000-07:00

Though there are no deadlines in federal accommodation alliance programs, there are assertive things to accumulate in mind:
Your loans accept to be absolutely disbursed to be acceptable for Federal Alliance Accommodation program.
You are no best, student consolidation
, enrolled in school.
You are actively repaying, student consolidation
, your accommodation (including adjournment or forbearance), or are in your six-month post-graduate, student consolidation
, adroitness period.
Your minimum circumscribed accommodation bulk is $10,000.
The best time to go for apprentice accommodation debt alliance of your federal apprentice loans is if you still are in your adroitness period, because of the in-school lower, student consolidation
, amount of interest.
Every apprentice has his, student consolidation
, or her affidavit for traveling in for apprentice accommodation debt consolidation, and so would you. Look at some of the affidavit why you should go for apprentice accommodation debt alliance of your federal apprentice loans:
Fixed ante of interest
Lower account payments
Payment incentives that saves you money
Single transaction anniversary ages in abode of assorted payments to altered accommodation issuers.
New or renewed deferments
You will charge the afterward advice if applying for your apprentice accommodation debt alliance of your federal, student consolidation
, apprentice loans:
The balances and absorption ante of your accepted acceptable federal apprentice loans.
The names, student consolidation
, and addresses of the companies that authority or account your federal apprentice loans. These are the companies that handle, student consolidation
, billing, collections, deferments, etc. of your federal apprentice, student consolidation
, loans.
The names and addresses of two claimed references in the United States.
Student accommodation debt alliance of federal apprentice loans accept a anchored amount of interest. The anchored amount is affected by the abounding boilerplate of the absorption ante of the alone loans getting consolidated. These are angled up to the abutting 1/8 of a percent, up to the best of 8.25 percent.
Found this commodity interesting? Then appointment our website at: http://debtconsolidationcenter.net for, student consolidation
, added advice on this subject, and aswell to acquisition hundreds of added online writing and assets about debt consolidation.
Gibran Selman takes affliction of http://debtconsolidationcenter.net a website committed to accumulate information, on and off the internet, about debt alliance and added accompanying subjects.

http://www.students-loan-consolidations.com/2009/10/student-loan-debt-consolidation-an-overview-of-federal-loans/

What Student Loan Consolidation Rates Are?

2009-10-22T05:29:00.000-07:00

Are you a career-minded student? Aiming is to go for higher studies? But can’t go because of the shortage of money, don’t worry student loan consolidation will help you to go for higher studies.

A student can apply online for student loan consolidation, as there are various debt consolidation packages are present.

A student can save money by combining student debt loan into one loan with the help of student loan consolidation rates. It will lower your interest rates and will save your time.

According to the Education Department, students who are graduated or are still in school may consolidate their government-guaranteed loans — a step that clears the way of hurdles, were stopped by the high interest rates.

Now a student doesn’t have to pay high interest on student loan consolidation rate, apply and enjoy LOW rates.

A student has to check some points when he/she going to sign on the loan papers. Carefully examine each and every point written on the papers. Prepare you mind about the student loan consolidation rates.

If the burden of paying monthly bills are in your shoulders, than you have to check for the companies who are offering additional services regarding your requirements.

Consider some points for Student Loan Consolidation Plans

1. Give a thorough search before taking any decision on student loan consolidation rates. Choose a lender who is offering low monthly rates and provides good facilities.

2. Try to get only student loan consolidation as for student loans you have to pay differently to every loan provider. Student loan consolidation will take your all tensions in one package.

3. These days, some federal consolidation loans have a fixed rate for the life of your student loan. It’s best to do research to see what the best interest rates and term you are eligible for.

You can check online to calculate the interest rate on a new student consolidation loan based on the rates of your current student loans. You can then round up to the nearest 1/8th of a percent of the weighted average of the interest rates on your eligible student loans.

4. Federal consolidation rates can give you relief as you can extent your payment period up to 30 years. This way you can focus on your studies effectively and when you get a good job you can pay back all the debts.

5. Student loans consolidation is also made for school going students. This way you can get loans on low rates.

6. With a new student loan consolidation, you may be able to get a much better interest rate. Interest rates are now at an all time low.

You may have been paying on debt you built up from several years ago, at high interest rates. Things change over time in the financial industry.
http://www.clicktoloan.com/debt-consolidation/would-you-like-to-know-what-student-loan-consolidation-rates-are.html

Student Debt

2009-10-22T05:27:00.000-07:00

Most students and recent graduates are struggling with oppressive loans for education, according to a report by the College Board today. But the report also documented a surprising and troubling increase in the debt burden borne by students at the lowest cost all schools, public community colleges. Third of all beneficiaries of a new baccalaureate degree in June of 2008 with their careers, without a penny of federal student loan debt or private. Only 10 percent of graduates last year was more than $ 40,000, according to lead author of the report, researchers from the College Board Patricia Steele. (They do not charge for the debts of credit card or other obligations such as car loans rather than academic.)

The median borrower graduated last year of nearly $ 19,999, an increase of $ 1026 of debt burdens typical of graduates in 2004. “Most people say it’s a reasonable amount of debt to pay for a bachelor,” especially if students adhere to federal loans, which are now available on their payments to debtors to pay their income said Steele.

The College Board, a body composed of lectures, published the report “removal of a notch sensational stories about students drowning in debt,” said Steele.

But Steele was surprised “by the extreme” has found in new statistics released federal loan. About 5 percent of students who received associate degrees, from public community colleges in 2008 have left the school for more of $ 30,000. The middle class in a public community college last year was only $ 2402. Add $ 1,000 or two per year for books and supplies, and the total cost of education may not exceed two years $ 7000.

Steele was also surprised by the jump in the percentage of public community colleges finishing borrowed against 30 percent in 2004 to 38 per cent in 2008.

David Baim, Vice President of Government Relations American Association of Community Colleges, noted that government subsidies and grants are not keeping pace with inflation for most of the decade. Classes at community colleges raised their average of almost $ 500 between 2003 and 2007. But the federal Pell grant has increased by only $ 260.

Real household income has declined in this period. The cost of textbooks are pear, and have been very easy to get loans during the credit bubble, “says Baim.

Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access and Success, said that the cost of living, such as health and energy has also increased significantly during this period. In addition, the lack of grant money means that 80 percent of students in need with a community $ 5277 gap between what the government believes they can afford and should pay the bill, said she.

“People think community college as affordable, but students attending full-time community college (and therefore more likely to complete) is a difficult time to cover their living expenses without borrowing,” says Asher.

Asher, Steele, and other analysts agree, however, a reasonable amount of interest to students from low alarm for lack of education or parents. “This is not all that bad loans,” says Asher. “As you near the finish and you need to borrow so you can get a diploma, you can create a very wise decision,” she said He added: “If you abandon your studies, you will be left worse.

The peak of the recession of unemployment, which run thousands of new students in need in college, will probably lead to an increase in the number of students who borrow. And recent increases in tuition and federal student loans maximum may increase the amount students would borrow, analysts said. But analysts also note that the credit crisis has swept financial companies used for private educational loans easy $ 40,000 on advertising on television. Thus the number of students from large, expensive private loans to pay.

http://www.debt-usa.net/student-debt.html

Student Loan Consolidation Is Great Money Management Which Save Money and Time With a Loan

2008-09-21T21:52:00.000-07:00

Just finished College and you need to reduce your student loans?? Student Loan Consolidation is a great way to manage your money after you have completed school. With current history low interest rates your student loan consolidation couldn’t come at a better time. You can combine federal and private loans under a single low monthly payment. Student Loan Consolidation Is Great Money Management which save money and time with a loan consolidation

With your student loan consolidation you can save money and pay federal and private student loans off at the same time. With interest rates at record lows you can benefit with low monthly payments. After graduation consolidation loans can help reduce the stress of repaying by putting all your student loan all under one easy monthly payment. Everyone saves time and money with a loan consolidation.

Making the right step to reducing your student loan can make your future alot easier by going with a consolidation loan. Take the time to benefit from a student loan consolidation. Student Loan Consolidation is great Money Management which save money and time with a loan consolidation The stress can all be reduced with a loan consolidation and you will save money monthly with a lower payment overall. Apply for your consolidation loan today!!

Ken and Deidre Bissonette are successful authors and publishers of Mortgage and Credit information http://www.mortgage-credit-card.com

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Student Loan Consolidation - Save Money With These Tips

2008-09-14T23:52:00.004-07:00

If you are one of those persons who had to ask for any existent kind of loan to afford college expenses, and if you are near your graduation date, you may have already started to think about how close repayment starting are and how are you going to do to live within a monthly budget if you have to pay the many bills that will come. Student loan consolidation may be the best option to reduce your debt and also your bills. Here you have some answer to all those questions you may have.

What is a Student Loan Consolidation?

Student Loan Consolidation consist in the centralization of all your education loans into only one loan. The idea of doing this, is to try to save money by reducing the interests and have less bills accumulating into your mail every month.

What Kinds Of Loans Can Be Consolidated?

All Federal student loans are eligible to be consolidated, even PLUS loans. And most of private loans can also be consolidated, with some restrictions that you will have to consult with your chosen lender.

When Should I Consolidate My Education Loans?

To be eligible for a student loan consolidation, you have to be already graduated; your loans must be either still in their grace period or already started repayment. Your parents, in the other hand, can consolidate their loans at any time they consider best.

The best time for you to apply for a student consolidation loan, if you meet the mentioned requirements, is whenever you feel it is necessary. Anyway, if you are already near canceling any of your loans, you should consider first the benefits offered to you by your actual lender, and if it will be better for you keep that loan out of the consolidation and fulfill its payments by separated.

What Are Consolidation Benefits?

These kinds of loans may help you to save thousands of dollars on interests. As your loans become only one loan, interest rates of all your actual loans are combined into only one interest rate, this will beneficial for your pocket in the long term.

Regularly offered terms of student loan consolidation are 10 years. You may choose an extended term, or a shorter one if you think you will be able to do the monthly payments. Make sure you have asked all those questions that you could have before choosing a certain lender and a term length. The interest rate will be in your favor only if you chose a standard or reduced term plan. Longer terms reduce your monthly payment but their interests' rates are higher.

Anyway, the good news is that you can change your student loan consolidation's terms once a year. You may want to start with a regular 10 year plan and then you will see, if you can get along with monthly payments you may want to keep or reduce your plan's length. If the amount to be paid month by month gets to high, you can choose then, to switch into a longer repayment plan.

Where Can I Apply For A Consolidation Loan?

You can consolidate your education loans with any lender. You may choose to consolidate with any of your actual lenders, or find a new one. Interest rates offered by different lenders are the same, they can make the difference by offering you rewards programs or benefits like future interests reduction for on time payment. The best thing to do is to search and compare many lenders, including your actual, before taking a final decision.

Mary Wise is a personal loan consultant who has been associated with Bad Credit Personal Loans and has more than thirty years of experience in finances. She has helped a lot of people to obtain Unsecured Loans with Bad Credit, home loans, car loans, unsecured credit cards and many other products regardless of their credit situation. If you want to learn more about Personal Loans you can visit her at http://www.badcreditloanservices.com

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Student Loans - What You Should Know About Federal and Private Student Loans

2008-09-14T23:52:00.003-07:00

With the cost of college tuition rising every year, many students find relief by getting student loans. Student loans can allow a student to go to a school that they might other wise not be able to afford. Typical student loans have a much lower rate than a traditional bank loan because they are insured and guaranteed by the government. Lenders will usually give you a longer period of time to pay back the money and most student loans don't need to be paid back until the student have completely finished school.

Many times student loans are accompanied by grants and scholarships which are forms of financial aid awarded by schools, businesses, institutions, associations and private industry that does not have to be repaid. It's wise to apply for scholarships and grants first, and then you can apply for a student loan to cover the remainder of your costs.

Federal student loans require no payment while enrolled in at least half time status. The student must maintain the minimum hours required to keep from having to make payments until they graduate. If the student falls below the hours allowed, their account will go into a 6 month grace period. If the student re-enrolls in at least half time status, the loans will be deferred, but when they drop below half time again they will no longer have their grace period.

Student loans made to parents usually have a much higher limit, but monthly payments start immediately.

Private student loans are similar to federal student loans, in that they do not have to be paid back until after graduation. However, interest starts to accrue immediately. Private loans may be used for any education related expenses such as tuition, room and board, books, computers, and past due balances.

Poor Credit Student Loans - You Still Have Options

2008-09-14T23:52:00.002-07:00

Are you trying to finish a degree or go back to school and you are worried that your poor credit will effect your student loans? Do you know what type of options are out there and what you can get? There are many options for poor credit student loans and there are even options that you never have to pay back. Here are just a few of those options for you.

First, you can fill out a FAFSA and see if you qualify for pell grant money. This is money that you will never have to pay back and it will help with tuition, books, and housing. Typically you have to be at least 23 years old and making very little money to qualify. However, if your parents do not make much money or you are emancipated from then, then you might qualify as well.

Second, you can use that same FAFSA to see if you qualify for stafford student loans. There is no credit check for these and they are based on how much money you make. The less you make the closer to the maximum you will be able to get. If you make under $30,000 or your parents do, if you still have to go off their income, then you should qualify for the maximum.

Last, there are also parent plus loans and other types of private student loans that will help. Sometimes with poor credit student loans all you need is a good co signer and you are good to go. None of these loans will you have to start paying on until you graduate and no matter what there is always a way to go back to school.

Do you need a loan and you have bad credit? It doesn't matter what the reason for the Poor Credit Student Loans is, you will be approved! Go to:

Poor Credit Student Loans

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Top Ten Tips to Avoid Scholarship Scams

2008-09-14T23:52:00.001-07:00

Both government as well as private organizations offer a number of scholarship schemes to students enabling them to meet the rising cost of their education. These scholarships are based on academic performance, unique qualities and talents of students in fields such as sports, arts, literature and entertainment. Taking advantage of the students' interest in obtaining a scholarship, various false schemes are being offered to make money and make students a victim of scholarship scams. The following tips help students to be aware of such scholarship scams.

• Where you are required to pay money of any sort towards application fee, loan fee or any other fee it is a scam.

• If any scheme sounds to be too good then beware, it could be a scam. Certain sites offer guaranteed award/ scholarship, which are not true.

• You can spend time, but think before spending money. The maximum you spend will be for postage.

• Every scholarship has certain criteria to be fulfilled. Hence no body will offer you a scholarship for merely existing

• Few ads talk about huge amounts of scholarship funds being unused and thereby assure you of a minimum amount. Kindly be alert it is a scam. Scholarships are highly competitive, hence there is no question of any money being unused.

• Do not believe announcements which say that they apply scholarship on your behalf. You need to apply to get a scholarship.

• Scholarship matching service providers do not have any control on the decision of sponsors regarding granting of a scholarship. Any such claim is a scam

• Overhyped success rates of providing scholarships are probably not true.

• Unusual request for personal information then beware it could be scam

• Factors such as no telephone number, mail box for a return address, time pressure, typing and spelling mistakes in application forms, a Florida or a California address, disguised advertising, newly formed company generally result in being a scam.

http://www.studentloaninfo.org/

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Private Student Loan Debt Consolidation - Obtaining a New Single Loan

2008-08-17T21:46:00.005-07:00

If you have a serious plan for student loan debt consolidation, be reminded that you private loans cannot be merged with federal student loans. This is because the low interests that we can benefit from government loans will not anymore become available if we consolidate these loans with the private ones.

Therefore, it is clearly to your best advantage if you can obtain separate student loan debt consolidation for your private student loans as well as government loans.

However, the following are some advice when wanting to consolidate private student loans:

Remember that when opting for private student loan consolidation, we are just merging all our eligible private loans into a newer single private one. So basically what we are after when consolidating is the replacement of our multiple monthly payments into a single new one. Imagine the relief that we can get with the financial stress of meeting multiple payments every month taken off us because of consolidation.

The good new when it comes to interest rates is that there is a possibility of getting a much lower rate of interest if your credit rating becomes significantly much better after you made good payments after obtaining the loans.

To cite an example, after graduation, you can try making better your credit rating by paying off your loans regularly and on time. Once your credit history has improved and increased by many points, you will be rewarded with a much lower interest once you get student loan debt consolidation from the lender of your choice.

Another way by which you can obtain lower interest rates is by making negotiations with your present lenders and see if they can work out on reducing your loans' interest rates less you consolidate your student loans to another prospective lender who can give you a better student loan consolidation offer.

If you are interested in articles and discussions such as student loan consolidation and other college loan topics, do visit us at our Student Loan Refinancing For You blog.

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Upper Echelon Universities Discard Student Loans

2008-08-17T21:46:00.004-07:00

The cost of higher education continues to grow and at a pace well above the inflation rate. The pressure that these costs is putting on many middle class families has forced students to explore every option to fund their education including taking out government and private student loans. Even with scholarships, grants and other assistance options included, it isn't uncommon for some students to come up short by thousands of dollars each school year.

At Select Colleges, Student Loans Are No Longer Needed

A new trend in college financing may soon relieve thousands of families of their heavy burden by replacing student loans with scholarships. According to a report published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the University of Pennsylvania plans on offering financial aid to all eligible students beginning in 2009. Currently, the cost to attend Penn is about $46,000 annually with half the students required to borrow loans which they must repay. Thanks to a $3.5 billion fund-raising campaign, Penn will be able to expand their assistance, thereby eliminating the need for students to come up with other financing alternatives.

Penn isn't the only Ivy League university eliminating student loans as Princeton and Yale have already announced similar initiatives as have other private schools including Williams and Amherst. Each school have very large endowments and it is from these funds that eligible students will receive their financial assistance.

Will the trend spread to other colleges? Only if their endowments can cover these expenses. Otherwise, we could see the day where a public university education costs more than obtaining a degree from Harvard or Duke.

Copyright 2008-2012 -- Matthew C. Keegan is a freelance writer based in North Carolina, USA. He is a contributing writer for several college-themed sites covering topics from Stafford loans to Parent PLUS Loans

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Student Loans - The Great Lakes Higher Education and Affiliates

2008-08-17T21:46:00.003-07:00

Have you ever hear about The Great Lakes Higher Education and Affiliates? They are a specialized niche website that offers several services for students that need help. This article will mention some of them, for example: information in order to apply for a student loan, and not just in order to apply, they offer advise in order to understand what a student loan is, you get counseling aids, even they can manage your student account and make payments in your behalf, let review then what The Great Lakes Higher Education and Affiliates may offer you:

Student Loan Information;

The Great Lakes Higher Education and Affiliates website offers several options for students:

1.- The main section is for borrowers, where you can manage your account and contact information, make loan payments or consolidate loans as well. This section lists many tips for repayment options too.

2.- Secondly, there is a schools option, on there you can learn about their services and products and get online access to yours, you can download reports as well and order materials and forms.

3.- Thirdly, in their section "financial aid professionals" you get student counseling, professional training, delinquency and default prevention tips, among others.

4.- Finally yet importantly, in college access counselors section you will find free resources to help students and families achieve their goals for higher education.

To sum up, The Great Lakes Higher Education and Affiliates website offers valuable information for students, while you might be thinking that college is very expensive and that there is no way you can go for it, do a little research on internet, it is free and you could be surprised, just give it a try.

Hector Milla at http://www.StudentLoansCity.org has listed several Bad Credit Student Loan resources. Visit for further information.

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Students, Student Loans and Debt Consolidation - Financial Ease

2008-08-17T21:46:00.002-07:00

As if more difficulty and confusion is needed after students graduate college. Yet, they undoubtedly get it because confusion is there in big old handfuls upon graduation, and all with a perplexing financial twist, no less. Once that degree is achieved and all that overwhelming happiness sets in, reality hits. And it's time to get serious. You've just graduated and are about to embark on the real world. And financially, you're already there. You've got the loans to prove it and, sadly enough, payments have to be made soon. Worst part about this though is that these payments are at varying interest rates - and you're just getting flat out confused. However, there is a way to address this confusion, namely through the option of a debt consolidation loan.

Now consider that through your time at college you sought student loans through various lenders. This was a move that, more or less, set you up for seeking some form of consolidation. But, don't feel as if you're forced to seek consolidation to rid yourself of confusion.

Decide If Consolidating Student Loans Is In Fact For You

Everyone is different. As are individuals' attached student loan circumstances. But, take into account how currently obtaining this all too necessary college education, to become successful in today's world, is a pricey endeavor. As such, student loans have increased in weight, popularity and overall scope. And costly student loans means hefty payments after graduation. Also, depending on what job you've landed right out of school and how much it actually pays, the money taken out of your paycheck each month to pay down your student loans could range from amounts petite to gargantuan.

This considered, it might be wise for you to seek debt consolidation assistance simply to bring all those different school loans together as one to pay them down each month in a consolidated and least expensive fashion.

Debt Consolidation For Those Recently Educated

If you do opt for seeking consolidation methods to ease your after college financial confusion and overall trouble know that you have options. In fact, offered through the USDE or United States Department of Education is a student debt consolidation program in which most any student can qualify for and even - to your betterment - fully benefit from.

As with all debt consolidation actions payments become a payment. Each month you will only have to make one payment to satisfy your school loans. Benefits here come in clear organization offers. No longer will you have to worry about paying different lenders' varying amounts on assorted dates. Now, one payment each month will take care of all your lenders' balance requirements all on one set schedule.

Just Like The Old Days At College - You've Got To Research

It's all too important. This necessity to research is wholly suggested because although debt consolidation is a helpful financial tool - especially for confused college graduates like yourself - you need to sort through options. You need to inform yourself by reading involved documentation, doing some loan balance mathematics and just general research. Sort through your options. And also, consider your situation while doing all the aforementioned, obviously. If you have no trouble paying down your student loans currently, whether they be from one lender, two or a few, then reconsider seeking student loan debt consolidation. On the other hand, if you're struggling to pay off student loans, can't fully monitor different due dates and keep on track then these services might be just what you need.

Gain some composure in your financial situation post-college. If troubles arise in paying student loans get all of them compiled together with a debt consolidation loan. Do this and your bank account will thank you a few years down the line.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=E.S._Cromwell

Student Loans - Looking at the Different Types

2008-08-17T21:46:00.001-07:00

In recent years, the rising educational costs have made students to apply for student loans. A student not only has tuitions fees to pay, but also costs of books, cell phones, gas, meals and recreation.

At present, banks and financial institutions offer different types of student loans that enable you to take care of your varying college expenditures. However, you need to repay this loan within a specific period or else you have to bear extra additional costs.

Types of Student Loans:

Below discussed are different types of student loans offered by various banks and financial institutions:

Direct Student Loan: This loan comes with a fixed schedule of repayment term ranging from 6-9 months, once you complete your college or school. Often, banks offer this loan through schools to regular school students. Often, the rate of interest on this loan is less.

Guaranteed Student Loan: At times, this loan is also called as Stafford loan It comes with a reduced rate of interest. You can apply either for a subsidized student loan or for unsubsidized student loan In a subsidized student loan the government comes forth to pay your interest amount, when you are in school. Next, based on your financial needs, banks offer you subsidized student loan On the other hand, in an unsubsidized student loan you ought to pay the interest rate, when you attend the high school. You need to start paying your principal loan amount, once you pass out from your college.

PLUS Loan: These loans are also known as Federal Parent Loan Usually, banks do not offer this type of loan based on your earning, but some lender do consider your personal credit history. Parents or custodians with a dependent kid enrolled in high school are entitled for this loan Usually, banks charge interest rate of 9% or less on the PLUS Loan.

Private Loan: Generally, private lending institutions offer this form of loan If federal student loans do not cover your financial needs, consider private loans for students as a secondary source of funds. As other personal loans such as car loan or home loans, private loans are also offered based on your present credit status, therefore, if you hold good credit standing, banks approve your loan without asking any question.

If you have a bad credit, a cosigner is required to get your loan approved. Unlike other standard loans for students, this is an instant process to obtain funds. Terms and conditions vary from one lender to another, so ensure to find the best option for your financial needs.

Borrow only the amount that you need for educational purpose. Before signing on the dotted line, ensure to know all the terms and conditions applied on that loan Whether you apply for a private or a guaranteed student loan you have to be prompt in your loan repayment, as irregularity in loan settlement hurts your credit history. More significantly, student loan plays a vital role in your credit history, so ensure to choose the best one.

Tom Tessin is an author for FINDcollegecards.com that is geared toward students looking for student credit cards

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tom_Tessin

Comparison Shopping For Student Loans

2008-08-11T22:30:00.004-07:00

Finding the ideal student loan lender can be a nightmare if you plan on driving from bank to bank. If you only go to your school for suggestions, you could end up with unfavorable rates or even worse, unfavorable terms that could end up costing you a fortune in the long run. Shopping around to compare student loan lenders is a very smart move. The problem is that many people do not know where to begin.

The good news is that finding the right student loan has never been easier. Thanks to the internet, students and parents can now shop multiple top lenders without ever leaving their homes. Web sites are available that have comparison tools to help you compare loans and lenders. This can make a huge difference in the amount that you end up paying or the terms that you end up with.

Shop around for loans that you may qualify for. If you have good credit, then you can get some great rates and terms for repayment. If you do not have perfect credit, relax. There are still loans out there that will fit your needs. You may have questions about which facts you need to compare.

The first thing to look for is a good APR. Percentage rates can affect how much you pay in the long run. Fixed rates make repayment a lot easier to plan for. Fluctuating rates can change your minimum payment with short notice and get you into trouble. If you do accept a rate that can change, find out if it changes yearly or on any other type of schedule. Be prepared for a larger payment if it happens to come up.

Ask about your monthly minimum payment. No matter how great terms and rates are, you have to be able to pay the monthly rate or you may not keep those great terms for long. Some loans have deferred payments that can let you suspend payments until after graduation. This brings us to terms.

Find out about origination fees. Many loans have an origination fee, which simply means that you will have to pay a lump sum up front before you can get the loan money. This amount can be a hefty sum, so make sure you ask before you accept a loan. Find out about any other special incentives and compare them from lender to lender, loan to loan. Some lenders reward you for on time payments by lowering your rates. There may be other useful terms of the loan that you may not know about until you ask.

Once you narrow down the lenders and loans, make yourself a chart and compare incentives and rates. Using an online source to do this can save you a lot of time and energy. Getting your student loans should not be a shot in the dark. It is an important decision that you do not want to take lightly.

About the Author: Evelyn Saunders, a retired teacher, is the editor for student-loans.net, a provider of student loans and information on how to get private student loans as well as consolidation.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Evelyn_A._Saunders

Bad Credit Education Loans - Make Education Possible

2008-08-11T22:30:00.003-07:00

Bad credit dictates all the doings of your past. It means you had trouble in the past paying your bills on time, the victim of identity theft, or most likely, you might not have paid all your bills promptly. Today, bad credit education loans allow you to borrow money for your education. Typically, these education loans have a bit different application forms to make it easier for even those with an imperfect credit history to get the best education possible. You can find these loans from private lenders and from other sources.

Though it is not possible for you to go in for improving your credit and forget the actual need of education right away. However, this will allow you to qualify for better interest rates. Take your current credit report and go through it carefully once. Just try to find out the errors, inaccuracies, or other fallacies. Now, try to get corrected them to improve your credit scores that can make you eligible for many education loans later.

Apart from this, if your parents have a good credit record, education loans can be made possible through them also. Also, you can arrange a cosigner with good credit record to improve your chances of loan applying.

Bad credit education loans come in secured as well as unsecured forms. If you are a homeowner then you can apply for secured loans. This form of loan is collateral-backed. You will get a good chunk of funds with the loan form. But, if you are a tenant or non-homeowner and unable to manage collateral, even then, unsecured loans are there for your help. They provide you fund without pledging-placing in no time.

Quarters of lenders are out there in the money market. You can tame them even online. Online tool is simple and convenient way of loan accessing. You can make the loan application at any point of time from anywhere across the globe. By comparing different lending options, you can even cull out the best possible loan also. There is a stiff competition amongst the lenders. Your chances are bright enough to hit upon cost-effective education loan.

Henry Bell is an author who can certainly identify the kind of insurance that you will need. He is proficient in the insurance world; he is an MBA(finance) from University of Oxford. To find Bad Credit Education Loans, education loans, cheap education loans, private student education loans visit http://www.cheapeducationloans.co.uk/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Henry_R_Bell

You DON'T Need Student Loans to Go to College

2008-08-11T22:30:00.002-07:00

Each year millions of kids will graduate from High School and many look to try and get into college. Their parents have worried for years about how to pay for college. Saving for most families is nearly impossible. By most estimates, college costs have increased an average of 14% a year for the last 10 years. Parents stress levels are at an all time high. They know their kids' future could be at stake because of the money issue. Let's take a quick review of traditional options when it comes to paying for college.

Your Financing Options

When the Family Share of paying for COLLEGE Is More than You Can Afford

There are a variety of financing options available for families who are concerned about their ability to meet their family share of costs. These alternative sources of aid, most often in the form of loans, can help families cover financial aid gaps, or unmet need in a financial aid package.

Student Loans,
Federal Unsubsidized Loans,
Private Student Loans,
Parent Loans,
Federal PLUS Loans,
Federal Grad PLUS Loans,
Home Equity Loans
IRA Withdrawals,
Tuition Tax Credits

These are all most certainly options for being able to pay for the cost of college BUT...
All these options require at least one of a minimum of five things:

1. Borrowing money
2. Filling out mounds of paperwork
3. Affording the LOAN
4. Saving enough money for an IRA in the first place
5. Good Credit

I keep thinking to myself, all this constant worry, stress and pressure could have been easily prevented if families would have just had the information and knowledge of creating a home business to generate income to pay for college for their kids.

Here are several benefits of having a home business to pay for college;

1. Generate a monthly cash flow to save and pay for college.
2. Congress has passed laws giving Thousands of Dollars in Tax Deductions to average Americans who operate legitimate home-based businesses. Thereby creating additional savings.
3. The average American who runs even a part-time home-based business can now qualify for more Tax Advantages than any other category of taxpayer.
4. Pay less taxes than you do now. Don't have a home-based business? Then you are definitely paying way too much taxes. This alone will help most families save more than enough to pay for college.
5. The United States has TWO Tax Systems, and You Just Might be in the Wrong One!
6. Hire Your Family Members to Perform Business Services, and Watch Your Deductions SOAR!

There are all kinds of home businesses to get into. Many can help you generate monthly cash flow and potentially reduce income taxes you pay. However, there are many businesses out there that are scams and you have to do your homework on them to make sure they are legitimate.
One of the best methods to finding a home business is already at your fingertips. A hobby, or interest you have can easily be turned into a cash generating machine that would provide cash flow and keep many families from having to borrow money for college.

Student loans are expensive. Credit is tight. There are better ways. Look to starting a home business and open up a whole new world of opportunity for yourself and your family.

Matt Ney is married with 3 teenage girls. He has started home-based businesses to provided himself as well as his girls with their own opportunity to generate monthly cash flow. Taking advantage of US tax laws, he has also reduced his income taxes allowing his family to save more for the future. More info on how easy it is to do this; matt@kidspay4college.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Matthew_J_Ney

Finding College Education Funds to Help You Fulfill Your Dream

2008-08-11T22:30:00.001-07:00

The cost of going to college can be a daunting prospect for many high school students. When there is a choice between earning a wage straight away or paying thousands of dollars to go to college it is understandable why many choose the former. Even though it is well known the paying for a college education is one investment that always gives huge rewards, that doesn't make it any easier for students to find the funds.

Luckily, there are many ways of getting financial aid to add to your college education funds. The most common way of raising the money required is to get a college loan. There are many different loans available and most allow you to pay off the loan over a long period of time which considerably reduces the financial strain on the students.

The other way is to get a college grants to raise funds. Usually grants don't ever have to be paid back which makes them a lot more attractive than loans. Depending on your financial status and choice of subject a grant may be available for you. You can find out more by searching on the internet.

It's important to look at the college education funds available before making a decision not to go into higher education. With the extra funds the cost of college is often a lot less than advertised which can make a big difference to your final decision. Going to college could be the smartest investment you'll ever make, so taking your time is essential

Are you having trouble deciding whether college is for you? To learn more about why going to college can give you an advantage, please read good reasons for going to college.

ImportanceOfCollege.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Edward_Henderson

Student Loan Consolidation Companies- Things To Keep In Mind

2008-03-01T03:06:00.000-08:00

With the advent of student debt consolidation, a number of student loans consolidation companies have appeared, each one offering a number of payment programs to ease the tension of student debt. While all of them may sound like a dream come true, it is worthwhile to do some research before diving into a student loan consolidation plan.

Student debt consolidation is often a last resort for students who see student loans piling up year after year. Eager to deal with debt issues quickly so they can focus on their course work, many students may blindly sign for the first student loan consolidation program they come across. Before opting for any sort of student debt consolidation, do a background check to see if these student loan consolidation companies are offering you what you really need.

Read The Fine Print

As with any financial program or set up, student loan consolidation companies have their own set of fine print and it is imperative that you read these before signing. When reading through the documentation, look for the kind of interest rates that are being offered and do some calculating. Oftentimes, interest payments can exceed the amount of the actual loan.

Remember that these kinds of student debt consolidation programs can extend for as long as twenty years. The last thing you need is to be saddled with a debt program you are unsatisfied with for two decades. Make sure you are completely clear about what you are signing up for.

Dos And Don'ts For Student Debt Consolidation

There are a number of important tips you can keep in mind when sifting through student loan consolidation companies. Avoid companies that ask for large fees upfront. If there are any initial fees, make sure you know what they are for. Don't let the company rush you. Shop around and compare financial packages before committing to anything.

Before signing, make sure you have a physical checklist of everything covered in the student loan consolidation program. Check with the Better Business Bureau to ascertain whether the company has a track record you are comfortable with. Also, ensure that the company is accredited by the Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies.

With so many student loan consolidation companies, it can be hard to decide which one suits your needs best. By following these simple rules and doing a little research, you will be able to find a company that offers a student debt consolidation plan that works for you. Having the right debt management package can make a world of difference in ensuring a stable and bright financial future.

Student Debt Consolidation Loan - Make Debts Payments Easier

2008-03-01T03:04:00.000-08:00

A student takes many loans to meet rising expenses on studies. This often results in lots of loans to be cleared. But the problem arises when the student has to fork out higher amount each month towards these loans payments. So there is little amounts left for other expenses apart from the problem that student may come under debts soon. The remedy is to opt for student debt consolidation loan.

A student debt consolidation loan implies that all debts of the students are merged under one new loan. In other words, the student now pays low monthly payments towards the consolidation loan. This makes the repayment of debt fairly easier.

There are Federal student debt consolidation loan available to the student. Federal debt consolidation allows for consolidation of all Federal student loans like Stafford and PLUS loans. These loans are usually given to students who have at least $7000 of outstanding amount as debt against their name.

As far as repayment plan for student debt consolidation loan is concern, there is standard ten-year plan available to all type of student. This plan is ideal as it enables in clearing debts early and at the same time you pay low monthly amount towards the new loan. But in case you want to further reduce the monthly outgoings, then repayment plans for 12 to 30 years are also available. These alternative plans include graduate repayments, income contingent repayment for direct loans only and income sensitive repayment plans. In case you do not opt for these plans than it is understood that you are taking a standard ten-year repayment plan. But note that though your monthly payments get chopped down, you will end up with higher overall interest payments towards the loan. Also, you would be carrying the debt burden for many more years.

If you have private loans, you can consolidation them under a private lender. There are host of private lenders providing student debt consolidation loan under secured or unsecured options. Secured debt consolidation loans come against some collateral and are of lower interest rate. Unsecured loans for debt consolidation are of higher rate of interest as no collateral is taken from student. Both these loans are given to bad credit students also, who made payment mistakes in the past.

Palm Handheld-Toting High School Students in District 230 Offered Wireless Printing with Bachmann Software's PrintBoy

2008-02-20T04:31:00.001-08:00

Business Editors & Education/High-Tech Writers

SPARTA, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 25, 2001

No more "The dog ate my homework" excuses as students can now beam

assignments to their classrooms' infrared printers from their Palm

handhelds

Consolidated High School District 230 of Orland Park, Illinois, is a pioneer in the deployment of handheld computers to students. Nearly 1,700 students and 65 teachers are participating in the program, each equipped with Palm(TM) handheld computers and a variety of useful software programs, providing an anytime/anywhere learning environment unparalleled in the country.

To enable students to easily print their assignments directly from their handhelds, the school district has chosen to implement Bachmann Software's PrintBoy Deluxe utility, the leading printing application for the Palm OS(R) platform.

PrintBoy Deluxe provides the convenience of highly readable graphical printouts for almost any kind of information stored on a Palm handheld. PrintBoy Deluxe leverages the power of the company's Bachmann SDK to create fast, formatted output with almost any printer. At District 230, students will now be able to point their handheld computers at printers equipped with an infrared port and, with the touch of button, the students' assignments will immediately be formatted and printed on full-size paper.

Many of the classes at District 230 are utilizing the Palm handhelds to collect and analyze data outside of the classroom, and the results are shared during class time. Many of these assignments are completed using applications that can be wirelessly printed using PrintBoy, such as spreadsheets and word processing documents. One of the key reasons District 230 selected PrintBoy is that it is the only application on the market that supports the school district's document and spreadsheet printing needs.

By enabling students to work on assignments in an electronic format on portable devices, the school district has extended the boundaries of learning from the classroom to wherever and whenever the students wish to work on their assignments. By providing wireless printing capabilities, the school district has also facilitated the task of grading assignments for classroom instructors -- it is easier to review and provide comments on printed essays, spreadsheets and other extensive documents than on the small screen of a Palm handheld.

"We hope our handheld computing program will be a model for school districts across this country," said Darrell Walery, District 230's director of technology. "Handheld computers enable our students to learn anytime and anyplace. We are very pleased that Bachmann Software is enhancing the learning experience for our students and faculty with the printing capabilities that PrintBoy offers, especially since it integrates so well with the applications that are used most frequently by the program's participants."

About Bachmann Software & Services

Bachmann Software & Services is a leading provider of software products and development services for handheld computing and wireless applications. Based in Sparta, N.J., the company primarily develops applications for the Palm OS platform. Its premier products include PrintBoy(TM) Developer Kit, which "snaps" into Palm Powered(TM) devices and provides a standard text and graphics printing engine that can be used by virtually any application, and PrintBoy(TM), a suite of applets that allows users to print highly readable output of most information stored on the Palm OS. For more information, visit www.bachmannsoftware.com.

Palm OS is a registered trademark, and Palm and Palm Powered are trademarks of Palm, Inc. or its subsidiaries. All other products, service and company names are trademarks, registered trademarks or services marks of their respective owners.

Johnson & Wales plans Charlotte, N.C., campus - News - Brief Article

2008-02-20T04:30:00.000-08:00

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The $82 million campus that Johnson & Wales University will open downtown here by 2004 eventually will become the second largest campus for the culinary and hospitality institution, following only J&W's original Providence, R.I., location in size.

J&W, which is based in Providence, plans to consolidate its campuses in Charleston, S.C., and Norfolk, Va., into the Charlotte location. Charleston, with more than 1,300 students, and Norfolk, with more than 600, eventually will close. J&W, however, plans to maintain a presence in those cities, most likely through continued student internships.

The university system's other campuses are in North Miami with about 1,700 students, Denver with 646 students and an information technology campus in Worcester, Mass., with 69 students. The Providence campus has more than 9,000 students, giving the entire system more than 13,600 students.

The Charlotte campus is expected to have more than 800 students enrolled by 2004 and should reach a student population of more than 2,800 by 2007. Employment is expected to reach 250 staff members and faculty.

While Charlotte officials and businesses heralded the addition of a major educational institution as an economic and cultural boon to the city's downtown, J&W administrators view the move as fitting to its role as a career university.

The campus, which will be the anchor in a commercial and residential development project called Gateway Village, will be in an urban setting and close to businesses where J&W students can fulfill their internship requirements and, one hopes, obtain jobs after graduation, officials said.

"This is just a very complementary strategic fit," said John Yenna, president of J&W "As a career university, we're defined by our relationships with employers. Charlotte is full of world class partners. We fit in."

One of those partners is Compass Group LLC, which is based in Charlotte. Compass employs many J&W graduates around the world. The on-site foodservice operator also took about 100 J&W sophomores with it to the Winter Olympics in Utah. Compass was the official catering supplier for the 2002 games.

Compass recently made a $2 million donation to the university.

The city also sold a 6-acre parcel to J&W for $1 million. The site, which will be a part of the campus, was valued at more than $7 million, said Charlotte Mayor Pat McCory.

The university will take over major portions of the Gateway Center segment of the Gateway Village project, a joint-venture development by Cousins Properties Inc. and Bank of America.

The campus will have administrative offices, classrooms and dormitories. The university will build from scratch its culinary school, complete with state-of-the-art kitchen classrooms.

The J&W campus is expected to generate nearly $60 million in annual economic activity for Charlotte once it is fully developed. In addition to offering another educational alternative to residents, the Charlotte campus will create jobs and spur the city's travel and tourism, the mayor said.

"I think it will first improve and build upon the restaurant industry in Charlotte with all the new talent coming here," McCory said. "I think [the campus] itself will be a tourist destination and will invite people to come watch the students in action."

The city and Charlotte Center City Partners, a special tax corporation created to encourage development and entertainment venues in the city's downtown, were the ones to approach J&W officials about coming to Charlotte, McCory said.

J&W alumnus John Tuomala, a human resources manager for Compass in Charlotte, made the suggestion to city officials after hearing that J&W was in need of more space for its Norfolk and Charleston campuses.

"I'm very passionate about Charlotte, and this was a way to make a difference for both Charlotte and my alma mater," said Tuomala, who graduated with a business degree from the Providence campus in 1992.

The Charleston campus offers culinary and hospitality degree programs, while the Norfolk campus offers only culinary degree programs. Neither campus has room to offer all of J&W's course offerings, said Donna Yenna, who is vice president of career development and wife of university president John Yenna.

The Charlotte campus will offer both associate's and bachelor's degrees in those disciplines as well as business degree programs.

"At the other campuses we were limited by space," Donna Yenna said. "With Charlotte all of our campuses will have full-course offerings. Our brand will be consistent, and students will have an equal experience."

While the Norfolk and Charleston campuses are expected eventually to shut down over the next four to five years, the university aims to maintain the relationships it already has with employers in those cities.

A major part of the J&W curriculum requires students to do internships and work in the industry as they obtain their degrees. Nearly 80 percent of J&W students earn about half of their tuition through work during the school year. That relationship with employers also contributes to the university's high rate of job placement for students after graduation. About 98 percent of students are placed in career positions within 60 days of graduation, J&W officials reported.

Federal appeals court upholds use of race in Michigan law school admissions - Law & Justice - Brief Article

2008-02-19T04:41:00.002-08:00

In a case that could go to the U.S. Supreme Court, a federal appeals court ruled that the University of Michigan law school's policy of considering race as a factor in deciding which students to accept is legal.

"We've find that the law school has a compelling state interest in achieving a diverse student body," the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Detroit said.

The recent 5-4 ruling, which reverses an earlier decision by a lower court, sprang from two consolidated lawsuits brought by White students who were denied admission to the university. They contended that Michigan's law school and undergraduate admissions policies discriminate against Whites in favor of less-qualified minorities.

The university argued that racial diversity enhances the education of all its students. It said it considers race among a number of factors, including an applicant's academic record.

Analysts have said the Michigan case could give the Supreme Court an opportunity to revisit the 1978 Bakke case, involving the University of California, which allowed consideration of race in college admissions but banned racial quotas.

In a dissent, Circuit Judge Danny Boggs called Michigan's policy "a straightforward instance of racial discrimination by a state institution."

University of Michigan Interim President B. Joseph White called the recent ruling "a very wise decision, both for the university and for all of higher education."

Fitch Anticipates $22 Billion In Student Loan ABS For 2001

2008-02-19T04:41:00.001-08:00

Even though the student loan industry has undergone dramatic consolidation in the last year and has lost several frequent issuers, overall volume could again reach the $22 billion mark in 2001, according to a new research report published this week by the international rating agency Fitch.

"Many investors will add student loan asset-backed securities to their portfolios for the first time, whether the new-found interest comes from student loan ABS credit quality, additional structural innovations, or the amendment of federal pension plan legislation," said Claire J. Mezzanotte, Managing Director, Fitch. "All the while, the same factors that triggered an unprecedented 51% increase in student loan asset-backed securitization volume last year will still be in play."

In addition to detailing the student loan asset-backed securities market, the new Fitch report summarizes recent trends in student financial aid and post secondary education. The report also includes commentary on Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) credit quality, industry consolidation, current and future regulatory issues, and the change in the Administration.

What You Should Know About Student Loan Consolidation Rates

2008-02-13T05:05:00.001-08:00

When most people think of Student Loan Consolidation Rates, what comes to mind is usually basic information that's not particularly interesting or beneficial. But there's a lot more to Student Loan Consolidation Rates than just the basics.

Those of you not familiar with the latest on Student Loan Consolidation Rates now have at least a basic understanding. But there's more to come.

There are many options available for a student to select the best provider of student loan consolidation. Student loan consolidation rates are competitive and can be lend through government or private lender. You can search for a lender online and can check their interest rates. In student loan consolidation, interest rates plays a great role. There are many lenders that are lending loans to student but when it comes to their interest rates, they are charging very high which is unaffordable by a student.

It is wise for students to look into consolidating loans and getting good student loan consolidation rates as this can help a student shift into responsible bill paying consumer. In student loans, a student has to pay interest every month and for their monthly bills, he has to pay separately but in student loan consolidation, a student has to pay only one payment.

It is not uncommon for a borrower to get a fixed interest rate that is up to 0.6% lower than their current rates. According to federal regulations, calculating the interest rate on a consolidated loan disbursed on or after July 1, 1994 involves the weighted average of the interest rates of the old school loans you are consolidating under the new one, rounded up to the nearest one-eight of one percent. Fixed interest rates on a consolidated loan cannot exceed 8.25 percent.

There are many advantages of getting a student loan consolidation and it is researched that Americans are the first one in the row of taking the advantages of student loan consolidation rates. Many students are taking the advantage of applying for student loan consolidation as it not only allows them to study well but give them the options of shopping also. Consolidations are one way of getting control over ones spending and effectively planning a budget. For a best student loan consolidation rates you can search the internet and you should be able to find lenders who are proposing affordable payment plans. Students can then choose the best student loan consolidation rates based on the many proposals that they get.

Before you decide on taking up the student loan consolidation, it is best to browse different company’s brochures so that you get the best student loan consolidation rates. You also need to enquire about the company’s creditability, etc. It is important to ask yourself about your requirements before you procced to apply for student loan consolidation. When a student applies for student loans, it is advisable to check the terms that are offered by the student loan provider. But in the student loan consolidation you don’t have to apply for different types of loan, only one will solve all your problems. You have to make one monthly loan payment every month, instead of several loan payments every month over time. This not only saves the student’s time, but gives them total peace of mind, thereby enabling them to keep their sanity.

Basics Of Student Loan Consolidation

2008-02-13T05:04:00.000-08:00

Are you concerned about the multiple student loans taken by you? Wondering about how to manage them? Well, student loan consolidation programs are set up for this very purpose. As a student you may think of venturing with student loan consolidation schemes. A whole lot of questions might be coming into your mind at this point. This is quite natural. However, there is no cause of worry or botheration. All you need to do is get to know the very basics of student loans consolidation process. Upon learning this you will be able to help yourself in going about with successfully managing consolidated student loans.

Consolidation of loans involves combining of the various loan products which may have been taken into a single product. It is undertaken in order to manage the loans with greater ease and to secure better terms of loan repayment. As a result of loan consolidation one will need to actually dole out lesser repayment amounts. Moreover, the period of repaying is also made higher thus facilitating procurement of funds which are to be provided towards making repayments. Now a student consolidation loan is such a consolidation loan and a part of the family loans which have been made available by the federal government under the Federal Family Education Loan (F.F.E.L.) program. The student consolidation loan enables you to unite together all or some of your outstanding education loans into a single new loan program. Even if the loans are of different kinds and are held by several different lenders it does not pose any problems. It is the U.S. government which guarantees federal student loans and these federal student loan consolidation schemes are applicable to all students whether in school, in the graduation level or on the phase of launching a career.

Federal consolidation student loans are characterized by their fixed interest rates and repayment terms extending even to 30 years. It is to be noted that there are the non-federal student loans consolidation programs too which are available. These may be obtained through banks, credit unions, other types of financial institutions, institutions attended by student etc. The private loans consolidations come in this category. The primary benefit derived from these loans is obtaining of a single monthly payment or reduction of the monthly payment. This is at the cost of increasing the total interest paid over the lifetime of the loan.

There are online ventures of student loans consolidation too. These sites set up by lenders can serve as convenient means of obtaining a consolidation loan. However, it is advisable to consult a professional qualified loan counselor before striking a deal online. The repayment options and other crucial points of consolidation need to be explored and some thought needs to be given towards checking out comparative usefulness of various deals.

The 4 Types Of Student Loan Debt Consolidation

2008-02-12T02:46:00.003-08:00

If you have several student loans to pay concurrently, it can be hard and financially difficult to manage. Luckily for students, there is the option to consolidate all your student loans together. We called it Student Loan Debt Consolidation.

What is student loan debt consolidation?

It simply means consolidating all your student loans into one so you only have to make monthly payments to one lender instead of several. The advantage is that you pay lower interest rates and most student loan debt consolidation have higher repayment periods.

There are many financial institutions and banks that offers student loan debt consolidation. They will pay off your existing student loans to their respective lenders. They will then consolidate the loans into one. The interest rate of the new student loan debt consolidation is then calculated by taking the average of the interest rates of your previous student loans. That is why your student loan debt consolidation’s interest rate is lower.

Some student loan debt consolidations are payable at a fixed rate though so be sure to check with your lender first.

There are 4 different types of student loan debt consolidation plans available from lenders each with its pros and cons.

1. Standard Repayment Plan

Standard Repayment Plan offers a maximum of 10 years to repay your student loan debt consolidation at a fixed rate. Payments are calculated by dividing the loan amount within that time period at a fixed interest rate.

2. Extended Repayment Plan

There is also the option of an extended repayment plan. It is the same as standard repayment plan except it stretches the repayment period to a maximum of 30 years. The length of repayment is dependent on the total amount borrowed.

You should note that you may ended up paying more by opting for an extended repayment plan because of the fixed interest rate. On the other hand, the monthly payments would be easier to handle so you will have to decide how much you can afford to pay each month.

3. Graduated Repayment Plan

The Graduated Repayment Plan has a maximum repayment period of 30 years which is the same as extended repayment plan. However, the amount of your monthly payments will increase every two years.

4. Income Repayment Plan

For income repayment plan, the monthly payment is not fixed. Rather it is determined by several factors such as your total student loan amount, the size of your family and your income level. The maximum repayment period is 25 years.

So how do you decide which student loan debt consolidation is suitable for you? Here’s a few tips. If you are close to repaying your student loans, then there is no need to get a student loan debt consolidation unless you foresee some cash-flow problems in the coming months. Consider your financial status now and in the coming months or years. Are you able to comfortably pay the loan? Getting a new student loan debt consolidation is also a good way to improve your credit score since you have effectively cleared your old student loans and getting a new one.

Student Federal Loan Consolidation - 11 Facts You Must Know

2008-02-12T02:46:00.001-08:00

With this student federal loan consolidation FAQ section, you can get some answers to your questions that might often come to your mind while choosing the option of student debt consolidation.

1. What is student federal consolidation of loans?

It is a program under which, your multiple loans are converted to one single loan, which benefits you in paying to one lender instead of multiple lenders.

2. Why should we choose federal debt consolidation for students?

Choosing consolidation of loans cut down the interest amount, which was originally much higher than it is after consolidating the loan. With this, it also reduces the hassles of making many monthly payments.

3. How do I consolidate the loan?

Applying for federal debt consolidation is a very simple procedure. You can apply online, or download the application form, fill in and send it to us.

4. Is there any kind of credit check done?

This is a remarkable feature of debt consolidation that it does not require any credit history check. Therefore, no matter how bad or good your credit background had been in the past, you can still qualify for this loan.

5. Are there any disadvantages of student loan consolidation?

Although, there are many advantages of loan consolidation, but there is a disadvantage also, which states that your total interest cost is increased. Yes, making small monthly payments over a long time can increase the overall cost.

6. Are there any provisions for cancellation of student consolidation?

The consolidation application once processed cannot be cancelled, only if the application process is not completed then there are some chances of its cancellation.

7. Am I eligible for debt consolidation?

For availing the consolidation option, you must be a student borrower and your loans should be in grace, repayment, and deferment. In addition, if you are a parent borrower i.e. parents who want loans for the education of their child, you can also get the loan.

8. Can my spouse and I consolidate loans?

Spouse consolidation loans existed before, but are now no longer available.

9. What loans are eligible for federal debt consolidation?

Loans that possess one or more of the federal subsidized and unsubsidized loan, direct, subsidized and unsubsidized loan, Federal Perkins loans, Federal Nursing Student loans, Health education assistance loans etc.

10. Are there any loans, which cannot be consolidated?

Yes-private loans from banks, institutions, parents or any other such individuals cannot avail loan consolidation process.

11. Is there any option of reconsolidation of loan?

Yes, loans either new or old can be included for consolidation, if done within 180 days after the student loan consolidation is issued.

Fitch: 3Q U.S. Student Loan ABS Volume Sets Up Sector for Another Record Year

2008-02-11T02:47:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK -- According to the latest student loan asset-backed securities newsletter published this week by Fitch, student loan asset-backed securitization volume for the third quarter of 2005 was slightly lower than in the second quarter of this year but remained strong nonetheless and at a level that should push end-of-year volume to another new record high. The strong third-quarter volume can be attributed primarily to a continuation of higher-than-expected consolidation loan volume.

The newsletter also highlights several noteworthy transactions rated by Fitch's student loan ABS team in the third quarter and provides an update on the Higher Education Act reauthorization process that is expected to culminate in the coming weeks.

The newsletter 'The Student Loan Report Card' is available on Fitch's web site at www.fitchratings.com by linking to the 'ABS' sector and clicking on 'Newsletters'.

Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use of such ratings are available on the agency's public site, www.fitchratings.com. Published ratings, criteria and methodologies are available from this site, at all times. Fitch's code of conduct, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, affiliate firewall, compliance and other relevant policies and procedures are also available from the 'Code of Conduct' section of this site.

Xanthus plans Springs office

2008-02-11T02:46:00.000-08:00

Looking to expand its business reach to the West Coast, student loan consolidator Xanthus is opening an office in Colorado Springs on April 11.

The St. Petersburg, Fla.-based company has named Paul Kendrick manager of the office, initially overseeing a staff of 24 and as many as 100 by year's end.

It will nearly double the number of employees for Xanthus, which counsels students in options to lower their loan debt. In 2004, Xanthus consolidated more than $400 million worth of loans.

"We are extremely confident that this move to Colorado Springs is the right decision," said Jim Zach, president and chief executive of Xanthus. "We need to expand our work force to meet the future growth we see for our company in this industry.

"Colorado Springs is ideally situated and suited to meet those needs."

The 5,000-square-foot office at 4775 Centennial Blvd. is temporary for Xanthus, which hopes to move into a permanent building quickly.

"We are working with the Pikes Peak Workforce Center to locate employees right now," Kendrick said. "We won't be formally interviewing until next week, but I was down in their office today and they will have employees lined up for us."

The availability of talent was one of the main selling points that the Greater Colorado Springs Economic Development Corp. used to get Xanthus to come here instead of Phoenix, where the company had planned to settle.

Xanthus, which has grown quickly since it was founded in July 2002, wanted an office in the West so it could tap into the lucrative California market, especially at a time when rates are projected to jump radically.

"What we are hearing is that rates may double when they are reset in July," Kendrick said. "Getting a fixedrate on a loan now is very, very important."

Why Do People Go For Student Loan Debt Consolidation

2008-02-08T03:05:00.002-08:00

If one wants to join the college then it costs a lot of money for him or her. The college education needs heavy amount of money that includes the cost of books, fees and traveling fare etc. In fact, there are many people who take the student loan to deal with these costs. When you take the loan then it will bring with it the monthly payment bills that you have to pay. Often it has been seen that to clear this bills, one is taking more loans.

Normally, it has been seen that these type of loans result to debts, to get rid of the student loans sometimes students take the student debt consolidation loan. While we are talking about student loan debt consolidation, here all of the student loans are consolidated in one particular loan and that is known as the student debt consolidation loan. When you are taking this loan then you don't have to keep a track for all the single student loans with the headache of making their payments. As an alternative, only one particular payment can be made to clear the student loan debt consolidation loan.

The principle cause of children opting for the student debt consolidation is this. It becomes very tiresome for the students to bear the duties of day to day living, managing studies along with that dealing with all the student loans by giving the payments timely to the required resources. While you take a student debt consolidation loan, the student can reduce all kinds of linked headaches and can focus further on their studies so that they can take out the best from their education. If the students opt for the student loan debt consolidation loans then they can generally save some of their monthly installments from there. So many students like to choose the student loan debt consolidation loan. There are many student loans that you can take for completing the studies but the rate of interest for different loans will vary. Few of them may cost you much, while some may be lesser. So, the installments of some loans for each month can be high and some can be low.

The student normally gets a longer period of time to refund the loan if they take the student debt consolidation loan. Actually, if your combined student loan amount is larger then you will get a longer time to refund your loan amount. If you get a longer period of time then the installment of each month will also be lower that you are going to pay. But, if you want to pay extra money rather than the set amount by student loan debt consolidation service, you can easily do that it will help you to clear your debt in a short period of time.

Student Loan Consolidation

2008-02-08T03:05:00.001-08:00

Every high school student thinks of college at one point in their academic life. They very seldom think of how they are going to pay for the cost of higher education. When they do, they just figure that they can apply for student loans, grants and scholarships.

Every year, billions of dollars in student loans are granted. What the student fails to consider is that how fast the years go by and it is then time to repay the loans. Often a student has more than one loan and the repayments can be more than what the student can handle. It often becomes overwhelming and the student cannot make the payments.

Student loan consolidation was designed to assist each student with the repayment of their loans while being able to pay their monthly bills also.

There are several different types of student loan consolidations. Each one was developed to assist a certain type of student loan. It is crucial that you choose the student consolidation loan that meets your needs.

The most popular type of student consolidation loan is a standard loan consolidation. This type of loan has a fixed interest rate, which makes your payments more consistent. The repayment time for a standard loan consolidation is ten years. It is possible to repay this type of loan early, however you may incur early repayment fees.

Another type of student consolidation loan is called an extended payment plan. This type of consolidation loan is the same as a standard loan however the repayment time is extended up to thirty years. It is important to note that with an extended repayment plan, the interest rate that is paid over the thirty years can be far more than the initial loan or loans.

A graduated repayment plan was developed for students who are already working in their chosen field and can begin the repayment process upon graduation from college. With this type of loan, the repayment amount begins very small and gradually increases throughout the years. The increase occurs every two years. The loan repayment time can be up to thirty years. Again, the interest rate on this type of loan can be very high and you could end up paying a lot more then you borrowed.

Student Unemployed Debt Consolidation - One Loan Many Advantages

2008-02-06T05:33:00.002-08:00

Student unemployed debt consolidation is also a debt consolidation loan. The only difference is, it can be availed by students only. Student unemployed debt consolidation helps you to merge all your existing debts into a single debt with low interest rate and with flexible repayment duration. It can be availed by students suffering from bad credit status also.

Student unemployed debt consolidation helps you to consolidate all the debts availed for the purpose of higher studies into one with comparatively low interest rate. This way it becomes easier to pay for you and that too at low interest rate. Student unemployed debt consolidation is basically of two types, secured and unsecured. To avail secured student unemployed debt consolidation loans you’ll have to place collateral against the loan amount. This can be any of your personal properties like car, home etc. On the other hand no such security is needed to avail an unsecured student unemployed debt consolidation. No credit check is required to avail student debt consolidation loans. It means students having bad credit history due to arrears, defaults, CCJ, IVA etc can also avail the benefits of student unemployed debt consolidation, but with slightly higher interest rate compared to good creditors. The interest rate may vary depending upon the type of loan availed by student and the credit history of the student. Unsecured student unemployed debt consolidation loans carry slightly higher interest rate than secured one, this is because lenders advance loans without any security.

Student unemployed debt consolidation is very beneficial for students suffering from multiple debts. Student unemployed debt consolidation helps them to merge all their debts into a single debt with low interest rate. Student unemployed debt consolidation carries low interest rate and hence can be easily repaid. It helps you to get rid of all your loans and enjoy a debt free life. It can also be availed by students having bad credit history. With the help of student unemployed debt consolidation, students having bad credit history can increase their credit score by paying the loan installments regularly.

You can easily apply for student unemployed debt consolidation either by visiting physical lenders or by applying online. If you don’t want to take the pain of visiting lenders personally you should apply online. Also online method is a lot faster and hassle free compared to traditional method. With student unemployed debt consolidations you can easily pay off your multiple debts and lead a debt free life.

Student Debt Consolidation Loan UK - Settling from Muddling

2008-02-06T05:33:00.001-08:00

The figures cast a shadow on the thousands of students hoping to start studies in the coming autumn. However dream is getting distant since spiraling debt problem. Debt has not deterred students from applying through, but daunting debt does put off some students from poor backgrounds from the facilities they are looking for. They have nothing to ponder over but debt elimination first before taking any loan. Consider the students’ financial situations; the lending authority has made their mind for generous assistance of student debt consolidation loan UK.

A student debt consolidation loan UK is an act of debt solution. This student debt consolidation program is an organised from of debt repayment on monthly basis. Under the provision of student debt consolidation loan UK a single lender works as a middle man. This selected man calculates whole of the debtors’ debt amount, and charts out a single comparative repayment scheme.

No matter of individuals’ credit history, since individuals having IVA, CCJs, bankrupts, arrears, defaulters too can avail the benefits of the student debt consolidation loan UK. On the problem if any they may have to face up with is a brief current credit checks. On the basis of the study of the debtors’ financial status, the subsequent student debt consolidation loan UK program is planned to the students.

There are many lenders going in for the cause of student debt consolidation loan UK. With their respect terms and conditions, these lenders try to lure student to their sides. Cautiously, students are required to hold their breath making any debt consolidation loan plan. Just once go through the policies and plans being offered to them.

For, the best thing about the student debt consolidation loan UK is that, these days, this loan can be accessed and applied through online too. There are innumerable sites of student debt consolidation loan UK, cull some of them and make a comparative study of the terms and conditions. Lastly, make your plan of student debt consolidation loan UK according to your financial feasibility.

Johnson & Wales plans Charlotte, N.C., campus - News - Brief Article

2008-02-05T06:44:00.000-08:00

Palm Handheld-Toting High School Students in District 230 Offered Wireless Printing with Bachmann Software's PrintBoy

2008-02-05T06:43:00.000-08:00

No more "The dog ate my homework" excuses as students can now beam

assignments to their classrooms' infrared printers from their Palm

handhelds

Consolidated High School District 230 of Orland Park, Illinois, is a pioneer in the deployment of handheld computers to students. Nearly 1,700 students and 65 teachers are participating in the program, each equipped with Palm(TM) handheld computers and a variety of useful software programs, providing an anytime/anywhere learning environment unparalleled in the country.

To enable students to easily print their assignments directly from their handhelds, the school district has chosen to implement Bachmann Software's PrintBoy Deluxe utility, the leading printing application for the Palm OS(R) platform.

PrintBoy Deluxe provides the convenience of highly readable graphical printouts for almost any kind of information stored on a Palm handheld. PrintBoy Deluxe leverages the power of the company's Bachmann SDK to create fast, formatted output with almost any printer. At District 230, students will now be able to point their handheld computers at printers equipped with an infrared port and, with the touch of button, the students' assignments will immediately be formatted and printed on full-size paper.

Many of the classes at District 230 are utilizing the Palm handhelds to collect and analyze data outside of the classroom, and the results are shared during class time. Many of these assignments are completed using applications that can be wirelessly printed using PrintBoy, such as spreadsheets and word processing documents. One of the key reasons District 230 selected PrintBoy is that it is the only application on the market that supports the school district's document and spreadsheet printing needs.

By enabling students to work on assignments in an electronic format on portable devices, the school district has extended the boundaries of learning from the classroom to wherever and whenever the students wish to work on their assignments. By providing wireless printing capabilities, the school district has also facilitated the task of grading assignments for classroom instructors -- it is easier to review and provide comments on printed essays, spreadsheets and other extensive documents than on the small screen of a Palm handheld.

"We hope our handheld computing program will be a model for school districts across this country," said Darrell Walery, District 230's director of technology. "Handheld computers enable our students to learn anytime and anyplace. We are very pleased that Bachmann Software is enhancing the learning experience for our students and faculty with the printing capabilities that PrintBoy offers, especially since it integrates so well with the applications that are used most frequently by the program's participants."

About Bachmann Software & Services

Bachmann Software & Services is a leading provider of software products and development services for handheld computing and wireless applications. Based in Sparta, N.J., the company primarily develops applications for the Palm OS platform. Its premier products include PrintBoy(TM) Developer Kit, which "snaps" into Palm Powered(TM) devices and provides a standard text and graphics printing engine that can be used by virtually any application, and PrintBoy(TM), a suite of applets that allows users to print highly readable output of most information stored on the Palm OS. For more information, visit www.bachmannsoftware.com.

Palm OS is a registered trademark, and Palm and Palm Powered are trademarks of Palm, Inc. or its subsidiaries. All other products, service and company names are trademarks, registered trademarks or services marks of their respective owners.

COLLEGE LOANS

2008-01-31T02:52:00.001-08:00

With tuition rates spiraling higher and higher, college students and their parents finally are getting some good news: Interest rates on college loans are going down.

Interest rates soon will be the lowest they have ever been, and that could save borrowers hundreds to thousands of dollars over time.

The interest rate on Stafford loans, which are open to all students, is expected to fall to 3.42 percent from 4.06 percent, the lowest since the program began in 1965. The government will pay the interest for financially needy students while they are in school.

In addition, the Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students will likely fall to 4.22 percent from 4.86 percent.

The rates are even lower for those who consolidate loans. They could be as low as 3.5 percent, down from 4.13 percent. On $25,000, that could save as much as $2,000 over 20 years or about $8 a month.

The lower interest rates also will help those students who, because of the tight job market, are opting to stay in school and get advanced degrees.

Steve and Cokie Roberts, in their column on this page today, report that law schools are swamped with applications. American University, for example, received 9,800 applications for 400 openings. In Topeka, Washburn University reports applications are up about 70 percent.

REMINDER/Los Angeles City College Unveils $147 Million Program to Turn Campus into 'Urban Oasis of Learning'

2008-01-31T02:51:00.001-08:00

What: In a ceremonial groundbreaking, Los Angeles City College (LACC)
will unveil the first phase of a comprehensive campus re-design
and provide details for a new $18 million Student Admission
Center, the first of several projects to be funded by
Proposition A, the $1.2 billion bond measure Los Angeles voters
overwhelmingly approved in April 2001. The Student Admissions
Center will consolidate the admissions offices into one
building, making it easier for students to enroll at LACC. The
Student Admissions Center will be the first sustainable "green"
building at LACC.

As part of LACC's $147 million Proposition A-funded renovation,
the college will also announce plans for a wide range of new
buildings including the new Student Admissions Center, a new
Math, Science and Technology Building and a new Health Education
building and Stadium facilities.

Who: Dr. Mary Spangler, president, Los Angeles City College
The Honorable Warren Furutani, president Los Angeles Community
College District (LACCD) Board of Trustees
The Honorable Mona Field, LACCD Board of Trustees
The Honorable Nancy Pearlman, LACCD Board of Trustees
The Honorable Michael Waxman, LACCD Board of Trustees
The Honorable Zev Yaroslavsky, Los Angeles County Supervisor
Leron Gubler, president, Hollywood Chamber of Commerce

When: Thursday, August 29, 2002
11:30 a.m.

Where: Los Angeles City College
855 N. Vermont Avenue
"The Green" in front of the Communications Building
Parking available in Jefferson lot (enter on Heliotrope Drive)

Photo op: Several hundred elected officials, community leaders,
faculty and students will join LACC president Mary Spangler
for a ceremonial groundbreaking with hardhats and shovels to
make way for the new Student Admissions Center. Large sized
model of Student Admissions Center will be on display.
SOURCE: Los Angeles City College

COLLEGE LOANS

2008-01-30T02:49:00.000-08:00

With tuition rates spiraling higher and higher, college students and their parents finally are getting some good news: Interest rates on college loans are going down.

Interest rates soon will be the lowest they have ever been, and that could save borrowers hundreds to thousands of dollars over time.

The interest rate on Stafford loans, which are open to all students, is expected to fall to 3.42 percent from 4.06 percent, the lowest since the program began in 1965. The government will pay the interest for financially needy students while they are in school.

The rates are even lower for those who consolidate loans. They could be as low as 3.5 percent, down from 4.13 percent. On $25,000, that could save as much as $2,000 over 20 years or about $8 a month.

The lower interest rates also will help those students who, because of the tight job market, are opting to stay in school and get advanced degrees.

Steve and Cokie Roberts, in their column on this page today, report that law schools are swamped with applications. American University, for example, received 9,800 applications for 400 openings. In Topeka, Washburn University reports applications are up about 70 percent.

Congress' debate deepens over Republican College Access Bill

2008-01-30T02:47:00.000-08:00

The debate over the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act is deepening between Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives as they focus on student aid--specifically student loans and Pell Grants. Democrats say the changes Republicans recently proposed in a new bill won't increase college access for low-and middle-income students, as Republicans contend, but will have the opposite effect.

Introduced by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairman John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., the College Access and Opportunity Act would wrap up the renewal of HEA and calls for moving from a fixed rate student-loan consolidation to a variable rate. It also proposes removing the 6.8 percent interest-rate cap for student loans, which would go into effect starting in 2006.

"Moving from the fixed rate on loan consolidation to a variable rate is very costly to students, where a fixed rate would be advantageous to them," said Rep. Dale E. Kildee, D-Mich. That measure alone, Kildee said, could cost students an additional $4,000 or $5,000.

Kildee said eliminating the 6.8 percent interest-rate cap would also drive up the cost of student loans.

"These students would again be paying more. It would be additional interest payments over the life of the student loan," Kildee said. "Those two things are serious problems we have with the bill."

"The Republican bill forces millions of low- and middle-income students to pay thousands of dollars more for their college loans, caps the maximum Pell Grant, and fails to provide meaningful relief from soaring tuition, just as students continue to struggle to meet rising college costs," Miller said. "Instead of yet another raid on the pocketbooks of students and their families, we should be investing federal resources to make college affordable."

At a hearing on the bill May 12, Boehner said by applying variable interest rates to consolidation loans, about $21 billion would "free up" during the next seven years.

"If consolidation loans are left on autopilot, the cost to low- and middle-income students will be $21 billion in lost opportunities," Boehner said.

But Kildee said such changes would only serve to discourage some students as they consider pursuing a postsecondary education, possibly deterring them from attending college at all.

"They see how much this will cost them, and they see that they can't consolidate their loans at a fixed rate," Kildee said. "All these things go into the decision-making process. A fixed rate gives you some encouragement ... and then when they take the cap off the interest rate--the cap of 6.8 (percent)--the students have no idea what interest rate they'll be paying then."

Another problem with the bill Kildee said, is its treatment of the Pell Grant and how it suggests extra aid for low-income first- and second-year students through the State Scholars Program. There's a real danger in trying to expand or change Pell to provide grants based on merit, Kildee said.

Alexa Marrero, press secretary for the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said the debate is ongoing, and there will be more hearings in the near future, although no official dates have been set.

Fitch: U.S. Student Loan ABS Market Poised to Remain Hot

2008-01-29T06:10:00.002-08:00

NEW YORK -- According to the latest student loan asset-backed securities newsletter published this week by Fitch, the U.S. student loan ABS market received another boost for future volume growth as the loan rate reset came in a record low for borrowers over the next 12 months. The low rate should continue to fuel strong growth in the sector both for Stafford loan and consolidation loan volumes.

The newsletter also highlights several noteworthy transactions rated by Fitch's student loan ABS team that demonstrate the firm's continued success in establishing itself as a leader in the sector.

The newsletter 'The Student Loan Report Card' is available on Fitch's web site at 'www.fitchratings.com' by linking to the 'ABS' sector and clicking on 'Newsletters'.

Fitch: 3Q U.S. Student Loan ABS Volume Sets Up Sector for Another Record Year

2008-01-29T06:10:00.001-08:00

Xanthus plans Springs office

2008-01-25T05:56:00.002-08:00

Looking to expand its business reach to the West Coast, student loan consolidator Xanthus is opening an office in Colorado Springs on April 11.

The St. Petersburg, Fla.-based company has named Paul Kendrick manager of the office, initially overseeing a staff of 24 and as many as 100 by year's end.

It will nearly double the number of employees for Xanthus, which counsels students in options to lower their loan debt. In 2004, Xanthus consolidated more than $400 million worth of loans.

"We are extremely confident that this move to Colorado Springs is the right decision," said Jim Zach, president and chief executive of Xanthus. "We need to expand our work force to meet the future growth we see for our company in this industry. .

"Colorado Springs is ideally situated and suited to meet those needs."

The 5,000-square-foot office at 4775 Centennial Blvd. is temporary for Xanthus, which hopes to move into a permanent building quickly.

"We are working with the Pikes Peak Workforce Center to locate employees right now," Kendrick said. "We won't be formally interviewing until next week, but I was down in their office today and they will have employees lined up for us."

The availability of talent was one of the main selling points that the Greater Colorado Springs Economic Development Corp. used to get Xanthus to come here instead of Phoenix, where the company had planned to settle.

Xanthus, which has grown quickly since it was founded in July 2002, wanted an office in the West so it could tap into the lucrative California market, especially at a time when rates are projected to jump radically.

"What we are hearing is that rates may double when they are reset in July," Kendrick said. "Getting a fixedrate on a loan now is very, very important."

"Now we go to their school": Desegregation and its contemporary legacy

2008-01-25T05:56:00.001-08:00

This article explores one southern community's response to the 1954 Brown decision and its subsequent history of dealing with school desegregation. This local perspective is developed using historical data focusing on events immediately following the Brown decision, which provide a context for events leading up to a decision in the mid-1980s to consolidate the community's middle school students to reduce perceptions of inequality based on race. This consolidated school is the focus of the second half of the article, which analyzes the current status of desegregation in the school. Although the school has been desegregated, it is far from integrated. Many racially based inequalities exist and race continues to play an important role in structuring relationships among students, teachers, and parents.

Over the last four decades, educators, politicians and the public have fervently debated school desegregation. Since the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the mandate to create desegregated schools has forced communities to redistrict, bus, and create opportunities for Black and White students to go to school together. Recently, however, courts have backed away from this mandate. According to Orfield (1996), court decisions including Milliken v. Bradley (1974), Board of Education of Oklahoma v. Dowell (1991), and Missouri v. Jenkins (1995) "reflect a quiet but severe erosion of Brown" (p. 50). In these cases, the Supreme Court ruled that efforts such as redistricting and busing were unconstitutional if they drew suburban and inner-city children together unless the suburbs could be held directly accountable for contributing to the existing segregation. These recent court decisions, often couched in the rhetoric of reform and increased local control, threaten to undermine the limited progress schools have made toward desegregation (Eaton, 1996), and they underscore what author and activist Jonathan Kozol (1991) claimed is the contemporary era of retrenchment from the commitment to integration represented by Brown. In many cases, Orfield and Yun (1999) suggested, schools have become more segregated than they were 10 years ago:

After nearly a quarter century of increasing integration [in the South], the tide turned the other way in the late 1980s. That process of resegregation has continued through the 1996-97 school year. The percent of black students in majority white schools in the South fell from a peak of 43.5% down to 34.7% in 1996, a clear and consistent eight year decline, with integration falling below the level achieved 24 years earlier, in 1972. (unnumbered page)

Because there is no universal pattern of resegregation, broad-based studies such as those conducted by Orfield and Yun (1999), Orfield and Eaton (1996), Oakes (1995), Kozol (1991), and others are helpful in mapping the changing patterns of national public opinion on issues of race and segregation. Beyond these studies, however, there is a need to explore resegregation more fully within the community context. At the local level, researchers can gain greater insight into the resegregation process by listening to the stories of parents, teachers, students, and administrators. This approach places the data in a historical and cultural context in which they are more easily understood and more useful in facilitating change. In this article, we attempt to provide such a context by characterizing the current status of desegregation in one Southern middle school in light of its historical position within the community.

We refer to the middle school as Indigo Middle School and the community as Davis. These names are pseudonyms adopted to protect the identity of the study's participants. The topic of racial resegregation is sensitive and the parents, teachers, students, and administrators who provided us with information for this study felt more comfortable doing so under the condition of anonymity. Because of our consideration for these individuals, we are unable to provide citations that would reveal Davis's location. What becomes apparent through this story is that these policies and practices could happen in any school attempting to desegregate.

Although this case recounts the specific history of Davis, it demonstrates many issues typically associated with school desegregation. By telling the story of Davis, we attempt to broaden the definition of segregation to include the segregation that can take place within schools after desegregation has ostensibly occurred. We suggest issues that have not been part of the recent resegregation literature by presenting data from a single school that was officially desegregated but continued to experience within-school segregation. To help readers understand how these issues arose, we provide a historical sketch of education in the city of Davis and the problems Indigo Middle School faced in attempting to serve the needs of its community.

DESEGREGATION IN DAVIS

Until the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, the separation of Blacks and Whites in schools was often an unquestioned fact of life, particularly in the South. The Brown decision altered the educational landscape dramatically. In Davis and across the South individuals reacted strongly and vocally against efforts to desegregate schools. According to one prominent state politician, the Brown decision was, "a burden, suddenly and unexpectedly thrust upon the South."' One common argument against integration was the belief that segregation was natural and should not be prohibited by law. "Like likes like," wrote the author of a pamphlet distributed to Davis residents shortly after the Brown decision. To argue otherwise, the author suggested, was to "make a virtue of hypocrisy." Furthermore, he stated that the issue of integration should never become more than one of aesthetics.

Federal appeals court upholds use of race in Michigan law school admissions - Law & Justice - Brief Article

2008-01-18T05:29:00.001-08:00

Fitch: Student Loan ABS Credit Quality Will Worsen, But Ratings Will Remain Stable

2008-01-18T05:28:00.000-08:00

Fitch Ratings expects the amount of student loans in deferment and forbearance to increase over the next six months as pressure on consumers mounts given the weak employment situation and increasing consumer leverage, according to the latest student loan asset-backed securities newsletter published this week by Fitch. However, while downward rating volatility has persisted in other asset-backed (ABS) sectors, bonds collateralized by student loans have held up well due in part to the relatively stable excess spread prevalent in student loan portfolios.

The newsletter also highlights the historically low interest rates, noting that the consolidation trend that began three years ago will continue for at least another year. However, Fitch views the growing amounts of consolidation loan collateral making its way into current and future securitizations as a positive trend.

In the second quarter of 2003, Fitch assigned ratings to 28 student loan ABS transactions accounting for over $12.8 billion of new student loan-backed bonds. Sallie Mae accounted for approximately 54% of the overall securitization volume, with approximately $6.9 billion in the second quarter and $13.2 billion through June 30.

Government Student Loan Debt Consolidation

2008-01-10T01:08:00.000-08:00

Cost of Education

As a large section of the students today opt for higher education, the cost of education has increased considerably, and the students are compelled to resort to educational loans after school. So for those who are staggering under a huge credit, the government student consolidation loan is a perfect boon!

How Can a Government Student Loan Consolidation Help You?

With a government student consolidation loan, the students can combine and consolidate their existing loans into a new one, and thus reduce their monthly debt payments. With less to spend on their debt repayments, students would find it easier on their pockets.

The students get more time to repay the government loan consolidation. What's more, its interest rate is far less than that of the others. This pulls down the monthly payment amount, making it easier for the students and their parents. A student gain would most from this loan if he takes it after graduating, when his grace period is yet to end. He can thus avail of the lowest possible rate of interest on the new consolidation loan. With this loan, a student can do with signing only a single check a month. One can even consolidate private loans, but it wouldn't be possible to change the loans if he wants to go back to school.

Who can Opt For a Government Student Loan Consolidation Program?

Generally the students who have taken federal student loans are allowed to take a government student loan consolidation. It's necessary for the students to have more than one loan, and that too without any arrear on the existing loans. The students need to pass out of school before they take this loan. The time period allowed for repayment would vary according to the amount of loan consolidated.

The Loans that the Government Loan Can Consolidate

• Federal Consolidation Loans

• Federal Direct Consolidation Loans

• HEAL/HPSL Student Loans

• Parent Plus Loans

• Perkins Loans

• Stafford Loans

• And many more...

When you consolidate the federal student loans, not only would it reduce your number of loans, but will also give you a better credit score. You would not even need any credit check in this case, as the federal student loans are endorsed by the US government.

You'd find the Government Student Loan Consolidation Easy

You can seek the help of the loan counselors in your school to know what steps you need to take to applying for these loans. Application for student loan consolidation quite easy- even an email or a phone call would be enough for applying and one could consolidate his loans within one to three months of applying.

Gibran Selman works for CuraDebt, a company providing financial and creditor negotiations, settlement, and arbitration services on behalf of individuals and small businesses.

Consolidate Your Student Loan Debt

2008-01-10T01:07:00.000-08:00

Many people consider an education to be the vehicle to the future - a way to fulfill their professional and personal dreams. Travel, family, owning property, wealth, opportunity and happiness seem more attainable with an education.

And yet, many students finish their education feeling cheated. They are left with a piece of paper, a massive job hunt and often more than $20,000 in debt. This can be discouraging. What many students don't realize, however, is that they don't have to be controlled by their student debt. In fact, they can control the purse strings.

Consolidating student loan debt is one way that many young people are using to take control of their financial future. They already have the education and now they need to move forward in a positive way.

Normally, with debt consolidation people are able to combine all of their debt, including credit cards, lines of credit and loans, into one big loan. This can result in lower interest rates and savings, as well as less stress and hassle.

With student loan debt consolidation, there are some added benefits:

1. While with most debt consolidation programs, a person is required to qualify based upon their credit rating, student debt consolidation programs don't. So, even if you have a poor credit score, you are able to access the benefits of debt consolidation.

2. While some people may be restricted in terms of the amount they can receive in one loan to consolidate their debt, student loan debt consolidation typically has no maximum amount.

3. If money is ever tight, with student loan debt consolidation, people can postpone repayment until graduation or until they get a job.

4. With student loan debt consolidation, the debt is usually discharged at the death of all borrowers. So, you won't be leaving an unnecessary burden behind on your co-signers or family members.

5. Everyone loves to save money on taxes and with student loan debt consolidation the interest you pay may be tax deductible.

So, if the amount you owe the bank for your education is getting out of hand or you've just graduated and you want to make repayment easier, a good student loan debt consolidation plan could be right for you. Check into local financial institutions and consider seeing a credit counselor to help you.

Student Debt Consolidation Loan - Make Debts Payments Easier

2008-01-03T00:27:00.003-08:00

Student Loan Consolidation Companies- Things To Keep In Mind

2008-01-03T00:27:00.001-08:00

Student Loan Consolidation Information

2008-01-02T05:22:00.001-08:00

Student Loan Consolidation is a really useful repayment tool that gathers all your federal student loans and puts them into one loan, also significantly reducing your monthly payment. Student loan consolidation is one of the most popular used methods for reducing and paying off student debt. Student loan consolidation is a powerful financial tool which has the backing of the federal government to help you lower your payments by extending your repayment term. Student loan consolidation also gives you the opportunity to lock in at a low interest rate, which can save you a huge amount of money over time.

Federal student loan consolidation amalgamates all your existing loans into one single loan which will show a good future payment history, which will help you improve your all important credit score. These student loan consolidation benefits could save you hundreds, even thousands of dollars in additional interest over the term of your loan. Federally funded loans are initially administered through the US Department of Education's Federal Student Aid programs, and are usually the easiest to get student loan consolidation services for.

After student loan consolidation, the variable interest rate becomes a fixed interest rate for a set period of time. Many people suffer from bad credit and this can cause problems with trying to obtain that all important college loan consolidation funding but if you utilize services of a federal-based company, they don't do any credit checks and the top benefit of all, student loan consolidation is considered as good debt and will be more appealing to any future lenders. The Federal Student Loan Consolidation Program lets anyone with more than $7500 in outstanding Federal student loans (including PLUS loans) to reduce their monthly student loan repayments and lock in a low fixed interest rate.

Federal loan are sent to the controllers office at your school, you then sign it over to the school and it is applied to the balance owed to the school. Federal Loans and Private loans cannot be merged when you opt for student loan consolidation. Federal student loans offer low interest rates and deferred payments. Federal student loans are some of the most affordable loans available to students and families, with interest rates lower than most other forms of financing and deferred payments (principal and interest) until after graduation.

By consolidating your federal student loans first and improving your credit score, you could get a better interest rate. Anyone with outstanding non-federal education-related expenses is eligible to apply for a Private Consolidation Loan. Students can consolidate while still in school, during the six-month grace period immediately following graduation or during the repayment period. A student loan consolidation program is a lucrative and efficient way for students to deal with student debt.

How Does Student Loan Consolidation Work?

2008-01-02T05:21:00.001-08:00

Nowadays, the cost of higher education is getting more and more expensive. Some families may not be able to afford to send their son or daughter for further education. Getting a student loan will help.

There are 2 broad categories of student loans available. Government student loans and private student loans

Government or federal student loans are funded and administered by the US Department Of Education. It is classified under Federal Student Loans Aid Program. They have very few requirements other than you are studying in a US college or university. International students may also apply though approval is on a case by case basis.

Every year, the student loan aid program disburse nearly 60 billion dollars so it is a good choice for get a student loan from the government. Thus the interest rates are pretty low.

Private student loans are funded and administered by banks and other financial institutions. These lenders provide student loans at a higher interest rate compared to federal student loans. Some common student loans available are from Citibank and Sallie Mae

You are allowed to apply for both private and federal student loans for your education needs although I would not recommend it.

For some students who have a few student loans to repay concurrently, it can be a financial drain on their family finances. That is where student loan consolidation comes in.

Student loan consolidation basically consolidates all your student loans into one loan so that it is easier to manage and make payments. When you are getting a student loan consolidation whether from the government or the private market, your existing student loans are paid for and erased by the student loan consolidation lender. The balances are transferred to the new student loan consolidation. Thus you start a new loan and only needs to make a single payment each month.

There are many advantages to using student loan consolidation. The interest rates will be lower since it takes the average interest rates of your previous student loans. Thus due to government legislation, the maximum interest rate cannot be higher than 8.25 percent.

It becomes a lot easier to manage a single student loan and payment are easier. The repayment options are quite flexible. For federal student loan consolidation, you can opt to start repaying after you have graduated from school. There are also several other options.

Another beneficial side-effect of student loan consolidation is that it can also improves your credit score. Since you are effectively clearing all your old student loans and taking a new one, your credit score will increase and is important if plan to take other types of loans in the future.

Student Loan Consolidation - That Lowers Your Burden

2008-01-01T07:02:00.001-08:00

Nowadays, student loan debt consolidation has become more popular. The number of such loan providers, which provide debt consolidation loans to college graduates, students, parents or high-school students has also increased.

Under student loan consolidation you can simply convert your all student loans into one. It is also known as the school loan consolidation. You will have to pay only one fixed rate of interest for one monthly loan payment with only one lender.

There are no extra fees or charges on such type of loans. You can also choose flexible repayment structure and there are no prepayment penalties. There is no need of credit checks for such loans, which in turn saves time. The Student Loan Consolidation Program will provide more than $7,500 at the lowest interest rates.

Consolidation is the best method of lessening your burden by converting all students’ loans under a single loan with one lender. Such type of loans can help you to invest more for future and easily maintain your budget. A person may apply for student loan consolidation only when he is in a loan grace period or doesn’t consolidate loans before this.

You can also apply online for student loan consolidation. There are different companies, which consolidate your student loans, bad credit student loans, high education loans, education loan, school loan, federal student loan, joint loan and many more. Once the interest rate is fixed, it doesn’t change. The repayment will begin within 60 days.

Student Debt Consolidation Loan - No Debts To Trouble You Now

2008-01-01T07:01:00.000-08:00

Higher education has become very important now. But the fact which remains is that it comes at a very high price. During the time period of higher education, there are many expenses that cannot be escaped from and loans are taken up to cope up with those expenses. This leads to a burden of debts on the student. This entire burden can now be easily removed by taking a student debt consolidation loan.

The student debt consolidation loan helps the borrower in removing these debts. The student is just supposed to take up a student debt consolidation loan which is atleast equal to the total amount of debts that he owes to various lenders. He can repay and clear all the debts with the money.

By paying off all debts with a student debt consolidation loan, the student now just has to repay the lender of student debt consolidation loan instead of the multiple lenders of the previously unpaid debts.

The student debt consolidation loan is available to the student at an interest rate lower than other loans in the market. Also the terms and conditions have been structured in such a manner that suits the students well.

As for the repayment of a student debt consolidation loan is concerned, there are flexible options of repayment that are available for students like:

• standard payment of set monthly payments;

• graduated payment plan involving low monthly payments initially that gradually increases;

• variable plan that adjusts amount of payments as per changes in your income and expenses

• Extended payment plan allowing you to extend the loan pay off period and reduces monthly payments.

Other benefits of student debt consolidation loan are that the repayment has to be made after the student gets employed. There are no credit checks made on the student. Online application facility is available for student debt consolidation loan so that the students do not have to go and meet the lenders personally.

All these benefits and features help the student in getting rid of his debts and thus makes student debt consolidation loan a just choice to make.

Save Yourself With Debt Management

2007-12-27T04:28:00.001-08:00

Britain is a nation of debtors. The average debt amount per household in the UK now is over £30,000, compared to an average £17,000 ten years ago. In recent years, loans have been more easily accessible and yet, with the cost of living rising, the repayments are harder to meet.

Although lenders are now cracking down on the amount of loans they approve, for some people the damage has already been done. They are into the red with their repayments and have a steady flow of creditors calling or sending nasty letters.

If you find yourself bogged down with overheads, there are steps you can take. A little debt management never hurt anybody, and could save you a tidy sum in the long run. Obtaining your credit file can be an invaluable step in the process of managing your finances. Examine each entry and make sure you know where each of the debts has come from. Doing this will highlight any unfamiliar debts which may indicate you are a victim of ID fraud.

Once you're satisfied your credit file is accurate, make a note of how much you owe to each creditor. Contact each one to ask for a settlement amount, and total them all up. If you can't afford the settlement amount, ask if there is a chance of overhauling the loan and starting from scratch. If you're honest with your creditors from the start about your difficulties, they'll be more likely to help you.

If you manage to get reasonable settlement amounts, get quotes for consolidation loans to that amount. Depending on your credit rating, you may not be eligible, but some debt consolidation companies offer these specifically to people with bad credit. Do your maths when comparing consolidation loans. Don't just go by the monthly payment, take notice of how much you'll actually be paying back once interest is added. If this is substantially higher than your actual debt amount, it may not be worth it.

For example; a £5000 debt consolidation loan taken out over 5 years with an APR of 12.6% will end with you paying £6764.65 in total. If your debts are only £5000 to begin with, that's nearly £2000 more you'll be paying. Get the best APR you can and do your homework, instead of accepting the first loan offered to you.

But debt management needn't involve taking out more debt. Try contacting all your creditors as mentioned above, and if you can afford it, put a percentage of your income into a high-interest savings account each month by standing order. This accumulated interest will help towards your debt repayments. It's also worth asking your creditors if you can take a payment holiday while you save up some funds. Depending on your past behaviour some lenders may grant you this, if you explain why you want it.

The Benefits of Consolidation

2007-12-27T04:21:00.000-08:00

Debt consolidation is something that many people have benefited from over recent years, and there are many valuable benefits that come with consolidating your debts. Consolidation is where you wrap up a variety of debts into one larger debt, and although this may seem like a pointless exercise it can actually benefit you in a number of ways. There are many lenders that offer consolidation loans, so you will enjoy plenty of choice in terms of finding the right loan for your needs.

If you have a wide range of debts, such as credit cards, store cards, loans, catalogues, etc. you probably find financial management quite difficult, as you have to deal with so many repayments to so many different creditors. This can increase the chances of missed and late repayments, which in turn can badly affect your credit rating and make it far more difficult for you to get any form of finance in the future.

However, by consolidating your debts you can eliminate this hassle, as you will only have to make one repayment to one creditor. In addition to this you will find that a low rate consolidation loan can really make a difference to the amount that you pay out each month compared the amount that you are paying on your existing debts - you could see your monthly outgoings reduced significantly. Plus, you can save money on the amount of interest that you pay on your total debts over the term of the loan, as you will be paying a low interest rate on one loan rather than high interest rates on a wide range of debts.

When you are looking for a consolidation loan you should make sure that you compare the different deals on offer, as this will enhance your chances of finding a suitable and affordable loan. You can get consolidation loans on both a secured and an unsecured basis, so there is something to suit most needs. Your eligibility will depend on a number of factors, such as your income, your outgoings, your credit rating, your employment and financial status, and for secured loans your equity levels.

Once you have consolidated all of your debts into one loan you can look forward to easier financial management, less hassle, increased convenience, less interest, and lower repayments. However, it is important that once you have consolidated debts such as credit and store cards you do not run up balances on them again, otherwise you will find yourself in a worse situation that you were in before.

Coming Clean With Student Federal Loan Consolidation

2007-12-09T21:20:00.000-08:00

Student federal loan consolidation is one of the best ways to clear up messy student debts that come from multiple lenders and involve non-fixed interest rates. Pursuing a degree can be an expensive affair and by the time they graduate, many students find themselves saddled with heavy student debts. While the majority will be able to find employment soon enough, starting out on a new career with a trail of debt following you can be a frustrating affair.

Student loan consolidation gives you an easy and affordable option to deal with student loans. This allows you to combine all outstanding debts into one thus making it easier to deal with. While there are a number of debt consolidation programs available, the federal loan consolidation programs are best suited for students.

Efficiency And Options

Student federal loan consolidation comes with so many benefits that it is hard to find a reason not to opt for them. They have been specifically designed to help students deal with the burden of student debt so that they can concentrate on studying and finding a good job on graduating. A student federal loan consolidation is ideal for those whose debts run above $7000.

Student federal loan consolidation allows students to bring together all their federal loans into one loan. Practically speaking, this is treated as an entirely new loan which is easier to maintain since you are not dealing with multiple lenders and making multiple payments. This kind of debt consolidation allows you to lock your interest rate at a reduced level and offers flexible payment plans as well.

Flexible And Secure

Since the government offers federal loan consolidation, private lenders are also benefited. The government will cover the costs in case the borrower cannot pay. Student federal loan consolidation can reduce the burden of monthly payments by as much as 60% in some cases. Apart from offering flexible payment plans, the term period can also be extended depending on the total amount. Since there is no need for co-signers or credit checking, students who are under financial stress can also avail these consolidation packages.

There are a number of different student federal loan consolidation schemes that are available and students can choose the one that best suits their needs. These include Loans for Disadvantaged Students, Auxiliary Loans to Assist Students and Federal Parent Loans for Undergraduate Students. By availing student federal loan consolidation programs, students can drastically reduce their debt burden and help put their finances in order. By doing so, they can focus their energies on studying and laying the foundations for their future careers.

student consolidation Student Financial Problems

2007-12-09T21:14:00.000-08:00

The process of student loan consolidation is getting very popular and common these days among the students. There are many organizations offering these services for the benefits of students. This helps the students to pay the education fees easily and in a cheap way.

Information about Loan Consolidation

Various student loan consolidation programs are scheduled, in which they give counseling for applying and managing debts. Loan consolidation process involves bundling of different loans borrowed by the student, to cover their education expenditure to a single loan. With this, they have to pay one monthly payment instead of different payments and to a single lender.

The rate on which the interest is charged is fixed and is calculated by taking up the weighted average of the interest rates of the loans that you are willing to consolidate, which are further rounded up to the nearest one-eight of one percent or 8.25, which ever of the two is less.
Am I Eligible For The Loans?

It is must to study the eligibility criteria before applying for the student loan consolidation. Some are mentioned below:

* You are dealing with more than one lender at the time of applying loan consolidation.
*Must have eligible loans of more than $7500.
* You do not have any student loan consolidated until date or have gone back to school due to some reasons and have acquired new student loan.
*graduation.

Consolidation of loans is an easy task and can be easily availed by students and even by their parents. For the student debt consolidation, you can contact any bank or credit union that deals with Family education loan program or directly from the U.S. Department of Education. No matter from where you get the loans consolidated, the terms and conditions for applying the loan are similar everywhere.

Before doing research and applying for student loan consolidation, it is important to know the loans that can be consolidated. The list of such loans is below:
* Guaranteed Student loan
* Nursing Student Loans
*Direct Subsidized and Unsubsidized Loans
* Direct Plus Loans and Federal Plus Loans
* Health Education Assistance Loans
* Health Professions Student Loans
* Auxiliary Loans to Assist Students
* Federal Subsidized and Unsubsidized Federal Stafford Loans
* Federal Insured Student Loans
*Federal Perkins Loans
*Loans for Disadvantaged Students
* National Defense Student Loans
* National Direct Student Loans

To sum up, you should choose the best option and the best times for getting the loans consolidated, because it can be done once unless you move back to school again or take any new loan

Student Loan Consolidation - A Solution to Student Financial Problems

2007-12-05T04:10:00.003-08:00

The process of student loan consolidation is getting very popular and common these days among the students. There are many organizations offering these services for the benefits of students. This helps the students to pay the education fees easily and in a cheap way.

Information about Loan Consolidation

Various student loan consolidation programs are scheduled, in which they give counseling for applying and managing debts. Loan consolidation process involves bundling of different loans borrowed by the student, to cover their education expenditure to a single loan. With this, they have to pay one monthly payment instead of different payments and to a single lender.

The rate on which the interest is charged is fixed and is calculated by taking up the weighted average of the interest rates of the loans that you are willing to consolidate, which are further rounded up to the nearest one-eight of one percent or 8.25, which ever of the two is less.

Am I Eligible For The Loans?

It is must to study the eligibility criteria before applying for the student loan consolidation. Some are mentioned below:

# You are dealing with more than one lender at the time of applying loan consolidation.
# Must have eligible loans of more than $7500.
# You do not have any student loan consolidated until date or have gone back to school due to some reasons and have acquired new student loan.
# In case you have started repaying your loans or are in six month grace period following graduation.

Consolidation of loans is an easy task and can be easily availed by students and even by their parents. For the student debt consolidation, you can contact any bank or credit union that deals with Family education loan program or directly from the U.S. Department of Education. No matter from where you get the loans consolidated, the terms and conditions for applying the loan are similar everywhere.

Before doing research and applying for student loan consolidation, it is important to know the loans that can be consolidated. The list of such loans is below:

# Guaranteed Student loan
# Nursing Student Loans
# Direct Subsidized and Unsubsidized Loans
# Direct Plus Loans and Federal Plus Loans
# Health Education Assistance Loans
# Health Professions Student Loans
# Auxiliary Loans to Assist Students
# Federal Subsidized and Unsubsidized Federal Stafford Loans
# Federal Insured Student Loans
# Federal Supplemental Loans for Students
# Federal Perkins Loans
# Loans for Disadvantaged Students
# National Defense Student Loans
# National Direct Student Loans

To sum up, you should choose the best option and the best times for getting the loans consolidated, because it can be done once unless you move back to school again or take any new loan.

Coming Clean With Student Federal Loan Consolidation

2007-12-05T04:10:00.001-08:00

Obtaining a Debt Consolidation Loan to Deal with Your Student Loans

2007-12-05T04:09:00.000-08:00

In this day and age, many young men and women are beginning their careers carrying a tremendous debt load. Students have been forced to obtain significant amounts of financing in the form of student loans in recent years. If you are such a person, you may be interested in finding a method through which you can bring your student loans under control. You might want to consider a debt consolidation loan to deal with your student loans and other outstanding debts. There are many benefits to be realized through a debt consolidation loan when it comes to dealing with student loans and other debts.

Through this article, you will be provided with a basic overview about the benefits of a debt consolidation loan when it comes to your student loans and other accounts. This article is designed to provide you with a starting point in your contemplation of whether a debt consolidation loan is the right course for you, whether a debt consolidation loan will solve your problems.

If you have fallen behind on your student loans, you likely are facing higher interest rates and penalties. Of course, you’re not alone, many people have ended up in your position. One of the benefits associated with a debt consolidation loan is that you will be able to lower the interest rates, fees, penalties and other related costs associated with your student loans and other debts. You really can end up saving a good deal of money through a debt consolidation loan plan.

By seeking a debt consolidation loan for your student loans, you will only have to deal with one monthly payment as opposed to multiple loan payments that you historically had to manage month after month. You will no longer have the hassle of trying to deal with multiple loans, and multiple loans that are past due.

By obtaining a debt consolidation loan for your student loans and other debts you will be able to work towards restoring your credit history, increase your credit score and better your credit report. If you have delinquent student loans, this has had a negative impact on your credit history and credit score. Through getting a debt consolidation loan you will be able to bring you accounts and loans current. Your credit history and credit score will improve significantly, opening other important doors for you in the future.

There are a number of different lenders that can aid and assist you with a debt consolidation loan as you go about working a plan to deal with your student loans and other debts and accounts. You can obtain help from these resources both in the real world and online. You will want to shop around when it comes to selecting a debt consolidation loan lender that can aid you in dealing with your student loan and other debt issues. Because different debt consolidation loan lenders will offer different deals and interest rates, you will be best served by taking the time to find a debt consolidation loan package that will best meet your current and long term goals.

We must address student absenteeism

2007-11-27T05:09:00.001-08:00

AT A moment far too early in the day to be convenient for attendance by employed voters in Hayward Unified School District, the proponents of the schools' master plan went into self-described "round two" of public discussion dealing with the need to consolidate schools. The consolidation will occur with or without the passage of the bond issue as proposed.

I am fully aware that the physical conditions found at many schools require our attention and would, in good conscience, recommend to any who ask that they vote yes for bond issuance.

What I am really alarmed about is the matter of student absenteeism, which, if my math is anywhere near being correct, reflects major annual loss.

Nearly $30 per day is paid by the state of California for each student in attendance on a daily basis. It is commonly referred to as ADA money. On each daily absence, $30 is withheld by the state.

At the meeting held at Mt. Eden High School on April 24, I learned that on any given school day, 7percent of HUSD high school students are absent, 5.5 percent of middle school students are absent and 3.7 percent of elementary school students (K-6) are absent.

Would someone please advise how this community is unable to require parents to deal with the value of their children's attendance at school at every moment of all possible days in a school year? I view the reported rates of absenteeism as being outrageous.

I estimate the annual loss to be in excess of $5million! I want to hear an explanation of how that is possible without suspecting parental negligence. What solutions are we able to craft in response to the problem?

John W. Kyle

Hayward

New residents should

acknowledge older communities

IF YOU can print one more letter about the flap over Five Canyons people not wanting to be associated with the older neighborhood into which their development was placed (as Laura Comstock noted, not without a fight!), here is my two cents: It is justification for one of the arguments used against building this huge development in our hills, and it just underscores more problems to come as more and more big, expensive homes are built, many in "gated communities" that close themselves off from the neighborhoods into which they are inserted.

The residents send their children to private schools, refuse to support taxes to improve neighborhood parks and other amenities, and generally do not act as if they are part of a larger community. For example, the residents of Blackstone (a group of custom homes built along Fairview Avenue) object to having people ride horses through their neighborhood, even though an equestrian trail begins at the end of Blackstone Court.

Those of us who have lived in this diverse community for many years and had to put up with the noise and mess of the construction of their lovely homes can't help but feel some resentment toward their elitist attitudes.

JoEllen Rice

Hayward

Let's put the squeeze

on oil companies

JUST STAY home -- don't go anywhere for just three or four weekends. Only police, fire and medical personnel on duty. These six or eight days would back the oil tankers all the way back from where they came -- and down will come gas prices.

Keep it simple: you don't need a mammoth staff or an elaborate office to make millions from your invention - Innovations

2007-11-27T05:08:00.000-08:00

THE INVENTOR: Andrew Dewberry, 43, founder of Vancouver Tool Corp. in Vancouver, British Columbia. He runs the business with his wife, Jayne Seagrave, 42.

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION: Dewberry's company specializes in home-renovation products, such as the Caulk-Rite, a tool launched in 1996 that allows users to create a perfect bead of caulk. Subsequent inventions include the Caulk-Away, the Caulk-Injector, Grout-Out and Grout-In.

WHEN YOU DREAM OF running a million-dollar business, chances are you envision employees, cubicles, an HR department and so on. But what if you could have that dream business, without any of the personnel headaches? Andrew Dewberry lives that dream--today, he and his wife, Jayne Seagrave, run a business that sells the home-improvement products he's invented, and they do almost everything themselves. By taking advantage of outsourcing and keeping costs down, this husband-and-wife team is able to focus on running the business without being side tracked by personnel issues. Here's how they made it happen:

1. DO THE EARLY STEPS YOURSELF. Dewberry's first product was made out of an acrylic plastic, and he made all the prototypes himself. According to Dewberry, money-saving measures have always been part of the mix: "I've taught myself how to do the 3-D drawings manufacturers and machinists need, and I can make a model of a steel part out of aluminum first to keep the costs down."

2. PARTNER WITH SOMEONE WHO COMPLEMENTS YOUR TALENTS. Dewberry is an inventor, not a marketer or salesperson. So when it came to selling the Caulk-Rite, he turned to his wife for help. Although she was a criminologist, not a salesperson, she was willing to make those first sales calls. "Jayne started out selling six to 12 Caulk-Rites to a local hardware chain," says Dewberry. "Her big break occurred a few months into the project at a local hardware show, where she sold our entire production [run] to four hardware store chains."

3. OUTSOURCE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN. According to Dewberry, Vancouver Tool saves money by outsourcing "the production, the blister-pack manufacturing and the assembly. We outsource everything but the paperwork and billing."

4. HAVE MULTIPLE SUPPLY SOURCES. "We have three vendors that make the product, two that assemble it, two that do the shipping, and one that makes the blister pack," Dewberry says. Having several vendors keeps prices down and protects you if one vendor goes out of business or has production or quality problem Dewberry uses Canadian vendors: "[They] might not be as inexpensive as overseas manufacturers, but they allow me more control over my business."

5. CONSOLIDATE DISTRIBUTION. The cost and effort involved in selling to an independent retailer can be every bit as big as selling to a large company. You'll have far fewer headaches and costs if you sell direct only to big customers and sell to everyone else through distribution. Dewberry made this move in 2002. "There was a lot of consolidation going on in the industry, so [our] customers were not upset," says Dewberry. "This move significantly cut both our number of shipments and our paperwork."

Lessons Learned

1. OUTSOURCING ALLOWS YOU TO DO WHAT YOU DO BEST. Dewberry is an inventor, and what he does best is create new products for his target market. Outsourcing allows him to focus on new products, rather than spending most of his time hiring new workers, putting quality control systems in place, or worrying about the day's shipments.

2. WHEN YOU OUTSOURCE, YOU ALMOST ALWAYS HAVE A LOWER MARGIN. Businesses make a profit from every unit they sell--generally called margin. From that margin, they must subtract their administrative overhead and selling costs, also referred to as SGA (Selling, General and Administrative) expenses, to generate their EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes). Outsourcing usually leads to a lower margin, because your outsourced vendor makes a profit. But at the same time, you should have much lower SGA expenses, as you can probably run your business from home or a small office. So there's a good chance you'll have a similar EBIT whether you outsource or make the product yourself.

3. KEEP YOUR OFFICE EXPENSE LOW. The benefit of outsourcing your production is that you don't need a big staff. But because you'll have a lower margin, you also need to keep your office expenses low, or those expenses might wipe out all your profits. The best situation is to set up an office at home if you can. If that doesn't work for you, be sure to go with low-rent office space.

4. KEEP YOUR MARKETING AND SALES EXPENSES LOW. Sales and marketing expenses can run 10 to 20 percent for many manufacturers. That's probably too much of a burden if you're outsourcing all your production, packaging and shipping. To keep costs down, focus on just a few customers and a few marketing activities. Trade shows are typically the most cost-effective marketing activity.

Consolidate student loans before July 1

2007-11-26T04:30:00.001-08:00

Question: I'm still in college and have about two years to go. Should I refinance the student loans I already have even though I will be getting other loans to finish school?

Answer: Yes, by all means consolidate your loans right away.

Interest rates on outstanding Stafford loans will rise substantially on July 1. Start the consolidation process before then so that you can lock in the current rate -- 4.7 percent for students who are still in school or for new grads who are in the six-month post-graduation grace period, and 5.3 percent for borrowers already in repayment.

If all your loans are held by a single lender, contact that lender to get information about consolidating. If your loans are held by a number of lenders, go to ConsolidationComparison.com or FinAid.com for information and help in choosing a lender.

Question: I'm 21 and will soon be graduating from nursing school. I want to buy a car, but I don't have any credit. Will I be able to finance a car, or should I keep saving my money to pay for one in full?

Answer: Even if you had a credit record, it could be tough for you to finance a car. Whether justified or not, dealers often assume that young, first-time car buyers are a flighty bunch. "They change jobs, move around and have no history for lenders to gauge how they'll repay," says one dealer.

Even using a credit card responsibly for a few years may not be enough. If you've never had a car loan, a dealer might still turn you down.

Check into special programs offered by automakers to help recent or soon-to-be graduates purchase a new or used car. Or check with your own bank or credit union (or your parents') to see if you can arrange financing before you hit the dealerships. Then you can compare rates.

As a last resort, you could ask a parent to co-sign a loan with you. That's something the two of you should negotiate, but it's not my favorite option. I don't like the idea of parents and kids mixing credit histories, and your parents would be on the hook if you were late making payments or defaulted on the loan.

If you have trouble borrowing, seek a less expensive car and keep saving until you have a down payment of at least 20 percent and preferably more. You may find it easier to get a loan.

UB: annual finance buyer's guide: an easy-to-use guide on finance information for higher education

2007-11-26T04:29:00.000-08:00

Collegiate Funding Services is a leading education finance company dedicated to providing students and their families with the practical advice and loan solutions they need to help pay for and manage the cost of higher education. Collegiate Funding Services also offers a comprehensive portfolio of education loan products and services--including loan origination, loan servicing and campus-based scholarship and affinity marketing tools-to the higher education community. Since 1998, Collegiate Funding Services has facilitated the origination of over $20 billion in education loans and currently manages $12 billion in student loans for more than 460,000 borrowers.

We offer STAFFORD and PLUS loan programs that reward borrowers for automatic withdrawals and consecutive on-time payments. Our PLUS loan programs also offer parents the option to delay payments for up to 48 months while their son or daughter is attending school. CERTIFIED and NON-CERTIFIED PRIVATE EDUCATION loan programs are available to finance up to 100% of a student's higher education. Our beneficial programs are for undergraduates, graduate students, continuing education students, and K-12 students. For online entrance and exit counseling, COLLEGEXIT is an easy way for students to complete required counseling sessions and for campus professionals, it cuts down on the paperwork and increases counseling completion rates. Registered students are also entered to win monthly $1,000 scholarship drawings. Visit www.collegexit.com or ask for details.

Our FEDERAL CONSOLIDATION loan program is one of the nation's leading student loan refinance products, offering graduates the ability to lock in the lowest rates in the history of the student loan program. Graduates may also qualify for additional money-saving interest rate discounts of up to 1.25% *. We offer our graduates the benefit of combining multiple loans into a single monthly payment and bill, repayment flexibility, and no application fees or charges. Graduates can apply easily over the telephone or online, and pay no prepayment penalties.

Our PRIVATE CONSOLIDATION loan program is one of the few consolidation products available to the growing number of graduates with privately insured student loans. Graduates will benefit from refinancing their multiple privately insured student loans into one refinanced loan with lower monthly payments and one simple billing statement. Graduates can apply easily over the telephone or online and there are no out-of-pocket expenses.

Consolidate student loan before time runs out

2007-11-22T21:50:00.001-08:00

As forecast in my April 15 column, student loan rates will increase dramatically on July 1. Based on the May auction of Treasury bills, rates on Stafford Loans for those in school, in grace or in deferment will jump to 6.54 percent a year from 4.7 percent. Stafford Loans already in repayment will jump to 7.14 percent from 5.3 percent. And rates on PLUS loans (for parents) will jump to 7.94 percent from 6.1 percent.

Let me put my advice in bold type: If you have a student loan and have not consolidated and locked in current low rates, you must do it now -- today. This advice applies to graduates and current students, even though you may take out other loans in the future.

In order to lock in the current lower rates, you must have a "substantially completed" loan consolidation application on file by midnight, June 30.

When you consolidate your loan, the rate will be a weighted average of your existing loans. Current students could potentially lock in a consolidation rate as low as 4.75 percent, compared with a rate of 6.625 percent after July 1. Older loans might result in a higher consolidated rate.

A special note for student borrowers who are still in school: This will be the last opportunity to consolidate existing loans while you're in school. Changes in the law mean that all future consolidations must be done after graduation.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Where do I consolidate? If you have only one lender, you must consolidate with that lender. If you have loans from different lenders, you can consolidate with any lender approved by the Department of Education.

uHow do I compare? By law, all lenders and consolidators must charge the same rate, and may not charge additional fees. But many lenders do offer additional special deals.

For example, Sallie Mae, a private company that is the largest lender and consolidator, will shave one-quarter of a percent off your loan rate if you agree to have your monthly payments directly debited from your checking account. Many other lenders offer this same deal.

And many lenders offer a full percentage point drop in your interest rate after you've paid your loan on time for 36 months. You'll want to find a lender that offers these benefits.

uIs there anything to watch out for? Yes, you need to watch out for several key points when choosing a place to consolidate your loan.

Make sure your loan is eligible. Some lenders will not consolidate loans of less than $5,000 and others have maximum consolidation limits. Find out before you apply, since the deadline is fast approaching.

Make sure the lender is eligible. The lender must be approved by the Department of Education, and before applying, confirm that it can consolidate loans from all of your original lenders.

Ask about minimums or caps on the discount deals. A typical requirement is at least a $7,500 loan balance for automatic debit, and a $10,000 original loan balance to qualify for the prompt payment discount after 36 months.

uWhat if I have both subsidized and unsubsidized federal student loans? You can, and should, consolidate both types of loans. In fact, you can consolidate them into one loan without losing the benefit of the federal subsidy that not only defers interest while you are in school, but actually pays your interest for that period.

uWhat if I have private student loans? Private student loans can also be consolidated. These loans must be consolidated separately, and the rate will be variable and based on the student or co- signer's credit.

uWhat if my parents have PLUS loans? Parents can consolidate PLUS loans and lock in current rates of 6.125 percent for as long as 30 years. The same rules apply regarding where you can consolidate.

uWhich lender should I choose? Student loan consolidation has become a big business, with billions in loans outstanding. Since the loans are federally guaranteed to the lender, it is also a profitable, low-risk business. That's why you're seeing

so many advertisements, and e-mails on the subject.

With time running short, you want a company that will let you apply online and efficiently to make sure you beat the deadline.

As long as you follow the guidelines above, and don't procrastinate, you'll save a small fortune in interest over the life of your loan. And that's The Savage Truth.

FinancialAid.com Relieves Graduates' Financial Burden with Nation's Lowest Student Loan Consolidation Rates

2007-11-22T21:49:00.001-08:00

Education Finance Leader Allows Eligible Recent Grads to Obtain 2.25%

Interest Rate, Save Money in Tight Job Market with HALO Rewards

Program

Today's college students graduate with a degree -- and also with debt, carrying an average of nearly $29,000 in student loans.

And, with today's uncertain job market, recent grads are having to tighten their purse strings more than ever. Education finance leader FinancialAid.com today announced a new student loan consolidation program that could help alleviate the student loan burden for millions of college graduates: The HALO Rewards Program.

This student loan consolidation program will allow eligible recent graduates to reduce their monthly student loan payments by up to 54 percent and reach an interest rate as low as 2.25 percent faster than ever.

Developed by the education finance experts at FinancialAid.com, the HALO Rewards Program is available to most student loan borrowers with federal loan balances over $10,000. When they consolidate their student loans with FinancialAid.com's HALO Rewards Program, under current federal rates, most borrowers will receive an immediate low interest rate of 3.25 percent and those with loan balances over $20,000 will be eligible for a one percent rate reduction after 36 months of on-time payments. This 2.25 percent rate represents the lowest student loan consolidation rate currently available in the industry.

"Our new HALO Rewards Program allows many recent graduates to reduce the interest rate on their new student consolidation loan to 2.25 percent," said Mike C. O'Brien, CEO of FinancialAid.com. "Simply stated, this means students can start saving money faster with HALO than with any other federal consolidation loan program."

By consolidating their student loans with FinancialAid.com's HALO Rewards Program, recent grads may save hundreds of dollars in student loan payments each month by reducing their monthly payments up to 54 percent. The money saved with student loan consolidation may be used to alleviate credit card debt, help with living expenses or provide grads the option to save money for the future.

Nick Jimenez of Fresno, Calif. -- a recent graduate and new father -- recently consolidated his student loans. "I've reduced my monthly student loan payments by $200 with FinancialAid.com's HALO Program," said Jimenez. "Now, I'm able to put that money away to save for my daughter's college education."

In addition to offering the industry's best student loan consolidation rates, FinancialAid.com boasts the simplest online loan application process, as well as the assistance of highly trained loan counselors. Borrowers and potential borrowers receive the benefit of free one-on-one advice about their educational loan repayment options.

About FinancialAid.com

FinancialAid.com (www.FinancialAid.com) was established in March 2000 with the aim of guiding students and their parents through the college selection and education funding process. Today, FinancialAid.com has expanded to serve life's financial needs by providing a comprehensive range of financial services under one, Web-based "roof."

In addition to matching students with colleges, student loans and scholarships, FinancialAid.com helps consumers take charge of their finances by consolidating student loans and credit card debt and securing mortgage financing/refinancing and car loans.

Beyond offering the most competitive rates for these financial services, FinancialAid.com provides the best customer service in the business. The company's highly skilled loan representatives share the founders' commitment to matching clients with the best loan products for their needs, while educating them about the process every step of the way. FinancialAid.com is a limited liability company based in San Diego.

This news release is not an offer to lend and is merely provided for informational purposes. Interest rates are subject to change and will depend on market conditions and the specific loan involved.

Student-loan debt soars

2007-11-21T03:37:00.000-08:00

Higher education is on hold for Max Hunsaker.

It's not that the 24-year-old Brigham Young University graduate doesn't want to get a master's degree. He simply can't afford it.

And while he dreams of someday working in public policy, he's now putting in his hours as a business consultant to get a jump on the $15,000 in student debt he has accrued in the past four years.

Like Hunsaker, the average Utah student is also carrying thousands of dollars in debt after earning a four-year degree. Student debt is at an all-time high in Utah, and students are in for another shock come July 1 when interest rates on existing loans jump by 1.84 percent.

Rates on new loans issued after July 1 will also climb, to a fixed 6.8 percent from the current 5.3 percent.

That pending hike has Utah education leaders worried that the growing student-debt burden may be forcing students to bypass lower- income careers like teaching and social work to more quickly pay off their loans.

Perhaps even more worrisome, the rising interest rates, coupled with higher tuition, may be enough to price some Utah students out of an education altogether.

"You have to go on to get a graduate degree to be marketable, but I didn't feel comfortable with the debt I already had to get further into debt," Hunsaker said. "I want to have it paid off. It's kind of the motivation for all the decisions I'm making right now."

Nationally, about two-thirds of students at four-year colleges have student debt, averaging around $19,000, according to the national Project on Student Debt. In Utah, the average for a bachelor's degree is about $14,790 -- a 45 percent increase since 1995.

"There's some growing trends that because of the costs, people have to look at what is the major that's going to help me pay this back, which is not especially good for society," said David Feitz, associate executive director of the Utah Higher Education Assistance Authority. "If somebody has $80,000 in debt and they have an MBA degree, we don't worry too much about them. But if they're going into elementary education, those borrowers are the ones we have concerns about."

At the same time, the number of loans processed through Utah's Higher Education Assistance Authority has grown by more than 85 percent in the past decade, to a high of 100,760 loans in 2005. While that number does not indicate individual borrowers, it does show a surge in the volume of loans, Feitz added.

Feitz attributes that increase mostly to annual tuition hikes. Total tuition and fees at the University of Utah, for example, have shot up more than 60 percent in the past 10 years.

At the same time, the amount of aid money offered through federal grants has remained stagnant. The maximum Pell Grant of $4,050 per year has not increased in the past four years.

For Utah students, that means the buying power of the Pell Grant has eroded to the point that aid money makes only a small dent in tuition costs, Feitz said. In the end, students are forced to turn to loans.

The loan-volume increase also has some students taking longer to repay their debt, added John Curl, financial aid director at the U. The 10-year payoff periods of the past are now being stretched to more than 30 years, cutting into family budgets and forcing students to make life decisions based on student debt.

Hunsaker plans to put off his hopes of working in the public sector until he can get his loans paid off, a feat that will require him to pay much more than the minimum payment each month.

"I don't want my education to be a burden for me in the future and the family I'd like to have," he said. "Loans are so easy to get, and it puts students in a tough situation later on. A lot of people are caught off guard."

The July 1 interest-rate hikes are only going to paint a bleaker picture for most Utah students, Feitz added. They can, however, take a few steps to avoid paying that higher interest.

Consolidating student loans and locking them in under the current 5.3 percent interest rate could save students up to $5,000 in interest payments over the life of a $20,000 loan, he said.

"We're encouraging students to act now, don't delay," he said. "We want this consolidation application to get right to the top of their summer reading list so they don't ace themselves out."

The student loan crisis

2007-11-21T03:35:00.000-08:00

Few things are as important in life as an education. In that sense, it can be smart to borrow money in order to get one. But as in all financial decisions, students are best served if they take out loans only as a last resort and only with the thought in mind that they will have to pay the money back, with interest.

As this newspaper reported this week, student debt in Utah is at an all-time high. The average graduate here leaves school having to pay off nearly $15,000. That's hardly the best way to begin life in the working world, but it can be managed if graduates avoid other national trends regarding debt.

In fact, we're guessing many families could pay for their child's college education without debt if they didn't have huge car payments and credit card bills. Family finances involve the setting of priorities. But too often, family purchases defy logic. A new car never can rival an education in importance.

Meanwhile, low-income students could take better advantage of scholarships and grants available to them.

Until July 1, students who already have accumulated loans will have the opportunity to consolidate and refinance them at a fixed rate. On that date, the rates on existing loans will jump by 1.84 percent. A consolidation -- made possible by a bill the president just signed into law -- could save students thousands of dollars over time.

Nationally, about two of every three college students has a loan to pay for tuition and expenses. Many graduates with loans have told pollsters they are putting off important decisions, such as buying a house or having children, until they can retire the debt. Others (nearly one-third, according to one survey) have moved back with their parents. In addition, educators worry students will forgo rewarding but low-paying careers, because of this money crunch.

These are real concerns. In Utah and elsewhere, public officials always need to worry about the balance between the need to keep taxes low and the need to make higher education affordable. In this case, they need to do so with an eye toward India, China and other emerging nations whose college graduation rates are climbing.

This crisis isn't as bad as the one more than 10 years ago, when student loan default rates topped 20 percent (it's about 4 percent now). But Americans can't afford to fall behind in the race to educate the next generation.

NextStudent Encourages Recent Graduates to Start Off Student Loan Repayment by Consolidating

2007-11-13T09:48:00.001-08:00

Students who graduated in May with student loans may be facing six-month grace periods that are ending sometime this month. Once those grace periods end, graduates will be entering repayment on those loans. With multiple student loans in repayment, graduates will likely be juggling multiple bills, multiple due dates, and multiple monthly payments. To help make their student loan repayment easier to manage, NextStudent, a leading Phoenix-based education funding company, encourages May graduates to consider consolidating their eligible federal student loans with a Federal Consolidation Loan.

With the student loan consolidation program, graduates can bundle all their eligible federal student loans into one single consolidation loan with one lender, one monthly bill, and one monthly payment. Besides offering convenience and less hassle, a Federal Consolidation Loan gives graduates the security of a fixed interest rate -- they won't have to worry about variable interest rates going higher, leaving them guessing about their monthly payment amount. And because a student loan consolidation could extend the repayment term on their student loans by up to 20 years, graduates may be able to lower their monthly student loan payment amount, cutting their monthly payments by up to 50 percent.

To be eligible for student loan consolidation , a federal student loan must be in repayment, in a grace period, or in an authorized forbearance or deferment period. Graduates consolidating their student loans cannot currently be attending school more than half time. Parents with Federal PLUS Loans may also consolidate their parent loans with a Federal Consolidation Loan. However, parents and students may not consolidate parent loans in the parent's name with student loans in the student's name.

There's never any cost to apply for a Federal Consolidation Loan with NextStudent, and there are no fees, no credit checks, and no co-signers required. There are also no prepayment penalties, so graduates who consolidate their student loans will never be charged for paying more than the minimum each month or for paying off their student consolidation loan early.

Graduates who have private student loans in addition to (or instead of) federal student loans won't be able to consolidate their private loans with the federal student loan consolidation program. But graduates looking for the same convenience of a single consolidated loan for their private student loans may be eligible to consolidate their private loans separately with a NextStudent Private Consolidation Loan .

Immunization Information System progress—United States, 2003

2007-11-13T09:46:00.000-08:00

One of the national health objectives for 2010 is to increase to at least 95% the proportion of children aged <6 years who participate * in fully operational, population-based immunization registries (objective 14-26) (1). Immunization registries are confidential, computerized information systems that collect and consolidate vaccination data from multiple health-care providers, generate reminder and recall notifications, and assess vaccination coverage (2,3). A registry with added capabilities, such as vaccine management, adverse event reporting, lifespan vaccination histories, and interoperability with electronic medical records (EMRs) ([dagger]), is called an immunization information system (IIS). This report summarizes data from CDC's 2003 Immunization Registry Annual Report (IRAR), a survey of IIS grantees in 50 states, five cities, and the District of Columbia (DC) that receive funding under section 317b of the Public Health Service Act. The findings of the 2003 IRAR indicate that approximately 44% of U.S. children aged <6 years participated in an IIS. In addition, 76% of public vaccination provider sites and 36% of private vaccination provider sites submitted immunization data to an IIS during the last 6 months of 2003. Increasing health-care provider participation by linking EMRs to IISs is vital to meeting the national health objective.

The 2003 IRAR, a self-administered, Internet-based questionnaire, was made available to immunization program managers as part of an annual reporting requirement. As in previous years, respondents were asked about the number of children aged <6 years participating in an IIS, health-care provider participation in the IIS, and other programmatic and technical functions (e.g., data linkages with other public health programs, data use, vaccine management, software/hardware capability, and reporting functions) (4). All 56 grantees were asked to complete the questionnaire; 52 reported on the number of children aged <6 years participating in an IIS. Estimates of the total number of children aged <6 years were based on 2003 U.S. Census data.

The findings indicated that, in 2003, approximately 44% of U.S. children aged <6 years participated in an IIS. Nine (16%) IIS grantees (Arkansas, Arizona, Delaware, DC, Michigan, New York City, North Dakota, Oregon, and San Antonio, Texas) had achieved the national health objective of [greater than or equal to] 95% of children aged <6 years participating in an IIS (Figure). An additional eight (14%) grantees were approaching the national health objective, with participation of 81%-94%.

[FIGURE OMITTED]

Nationally, 76% of public vaccination provider sites and 36% of private vaccination provider sites submitted immunization data to an IIS during the last 6 months of 2003. Twenty-five (45%) grantees reported that [greater than or equal to] 95% of public provider sites submitted immunization data to an IIS; four (7%) reported submission of immunization data by 81%94% of public provider sites. Five (9%) grantees (Arkansas, Connecticut, DC, Mississippi, and South Dakota) reported that [greater than or equal to] 95% of private provider sites submitted immunization data to an IIS; six (11%) (Arizona, Hawaii, North Dakota, Oregon, Philadelphia, and Wisconsin) reported data submission by 81%-94% of private provider sites.

A substantial number of grantees reported linkages between an IIS and other information systems or entities. Twenty-two (39%) reported sharing data electronically with a Medicaid Management Information System. Thirty-six (64%) reported data linkages with the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Twenty-six (46%) reported IIS data access by health plans; 14 (25%) reported access by colleges and universities; 14 (25%) reported access by correctional facilities; 29 (52%) reported access by hospitals; and six (11%) reported access by long-term-care facilities. Nineteen (34%) reported that schools accessed an IIS to look up a student's vaccination status, and nine (16%) reported that schools had the ability to read, submit, and exchange data with an IIS.

Editorial Note: In 2003, approximately 44% of U.S. children aged <6 years participated in an IIS; the national health objective for 2010 is to increase this proportion to at least 95%. The findings presented in this report indicate that grantees must overcome substantial challenges to increase child and provider participation rates in IISs. CDC is developing a plan of action to identify and address the barriers to increasing child and provider participation.

Increasing data linkages between IISs and other health-information systems will enable consolidation of large immunization data sets, likely resulting in more complete immunization histories, increased coverage levels, improved support of outbreak containment, and decreased costs associated with over-immunization. Linkages have been developed between certain IISs and their respective state Medicaid Management Information Systems, blood-lead programs, and WIC programs. Such data linkages can improve program effectiveness and efficiency. For example, certain Medicaid programs use IIS data in Medicaid reports; some WIC programs use the IIS for patient look-up and subsequent referrals to immunization providers for children who are behind schedule; and many kindergartens and elementary schools access IIS data to obtain student immunization status. Protection of IIS data is managed through state privacy, confidentiality, and security laws and through compliance with federal privacy rules and regulations.

Plan to Implementation: An In-Depth Look into a Well-Orchestrated, Functional, CORE Laboratory

2007-10-31T00:45:00.001-07:00

The overall objective was implementation of a fully integrated and functional CORE laboratory. The "CORE laboratory" is a model of a fully integrated and functional, multifaceted, clinical laboratory. Delineation of the process is to enable clinical laboratory managers, in the government or civilian sectors, to make sound decisions about formulating and implementing the CORE laboratory concept. The defining and comprehensive decisions should be based on concept requirements, advantages, disadvantages, and employee core competency assessments. Operationally, the organizational change resulted in well-rounded, multidisciplinary, multiskilled laboratorians and instructors/mentors for the Phase II military medical laboratory technician (91K student) training program. As of this time, our laboratory is the only Department of the Army medical center that operates a fully integrated and functional CORE laboratory.

The Department of Pathology and Area Laboratory Services of Dwight David Elsenhower Army Medical Center (DDEAMC) has undergone a reengineering of its physical layout to create a better, more effective, clinical laboratory. Before full implementation of the CORE laboratory concept at our facility, the automated stat chemistry, hematology, and urinalysis sections were structured as three separate entities, staffed with respective supervisors and uniquely trained and highly skilled laboratorians who were specialists in their particular disciplines. For example, the hematology section was staffed with personnel knowledgeable and technically proficient in hematology only, and likewise for the automated stat chemistry and urinalysis sections. This form of organizational structure not only created sectional experts but also fostered great limitations in personnel utilization. In addition, it lacked the flexibility to cross-level staff during shortages, created divisiveness, and diminished crosstalk between peers concerning commonly noted problems and technical knowledge. Similarly, it increased the cost of doing business because of lack of consolidation of analytical platforms, which sometimes contributed to delays in analyzing emergency samples for critical patients. Typically, in other medical centers within the Department of the Army and probably in the Department of Defense medical centers, the areas that are colocated include portions of the chemistry subspecialty such as automated routine chemistry profile testing, immunoassay testing of hormones, therapeutic drug monitoring, blood gases/ osmolality/ionized calcium testing, urine screening for drugs of abuse, and urinalysis. The hematology component usually includes automated complete blood counts and coagulation analysis.1,2 Although their laboratorians might have been crosstrained, their utilization has been contrary to the CORE laboratory concept that is exhibited by DDEAMC. Our laboratory is designed around a CORE laboratory concept, in which high-volume automated routine chemistry, urinalysis, hematology, coagulation, and flow cytometry testing are colocated in a large open-bay laboratory. Our laboratorians are cross-trained and, as a result, they become generalists who are able to rotate through all of the workstations in the CORE laboratory.

Why CORE Laboratory?

Clinical laboratory medicine is becoming highly automated and costs necessitate more streamlined processes. This is especially true for federally financed Army medical center laboratories. Similarly, the force projection for the 21st century reveals that the most severe dilemma that faces military laboratory medicine is outsourcing. Except for military readiness issues, all other military laboratory medicine aspects could be outsourced to the civilian sectors. This outsourcing could be controlled effectively if military laboratorians fostered innovative ways of doing laboratory medicine business that are more costeffective and enhance productivity and efficiency. Another aspect of this equation is the dwindling enlisted military personnel workforce coupled with an aging civilian laboratorian population. Of equal importance is the civilian sector's mantra for the 21st century that alludes to the outsourcing issue, cost cutting, competitiveness, and the right to claim "center of excellence" status.2 A graphical representation of these concerns is illustrated in Figure 1.

Planning and Construction Phases

Discussions regarding this re-engineering began in earnest in early June 1998 and are just now coming to fruition. Several preconstruction meetings were held between management and the laboratory staff members. The premise behind these meetings was to get their collective input regarding the process and to solicit their expertise on the physical configuration of the laboratory, thus creating better workstations and a more cohesive workflow. The goal was to have the laboratorians participate in the decision-making process, which fosters claims of ownership of the concept that will influence their work environment.3 Serious consideration was given to ergonomics, platform placement, and workstation layout, to include specimen-receiving and specimen-processing workstations. Similar preconstruction meetings were held between management and the contracted construction company. The focus of these meetings was to discuss and set construction milestones and major objectives for each construction phase. Other major facets of preconstruction concerns were also discussed, and provisions for the following were addressed: (1) space options outside the pathology department to accommodate operations during renovations; (2) constraints for renovation (e.g., break room and restrooms); (3) other laboratories that recently underwent renovation/major construction; (4) a checklist to help organize planning and preparation; (5) working relationships and expectations (pathology, health care facility planners, contractors, and management); and (6) agendas for discussion for the follow-up, preconstruction, management meeting.

You Can Afford the Practice of Your Dreams

2007-10-31T00:44:00.000-07:00

The book on how one optometrist got to the closing table for $750 or less... twice!

DOTS owning your own private practice seem like a dream that's out of reach? Considering the expense and risk of purchasing a practice, it's not surprising that a large percentage of new grads opt for commercial practice or employment.

Yet at age 31,1 own two private practices with my wife, Dr. Annamarie Milburn. She is 30. We have one practice in Medina, Ohio and another in Wooster, Ohio. Let me assure you, if we can do it - you can, too!

At times, it was a struggle to get our businesses running as smoothly as they should. Everyday presents a new challenge, but the benefits of owning our practices are huge. The tax breaks, the freedom to work and vacation when we like, the equity that we will build in the businesses and the real estate, the ability to practice as we choose - these are just a few of the benefits.

In this article, I'll share how we made it to the closing table on a shoestring budget - twice in the first five years of our careers. We relied on creativity, determination, and a little bit of luck to structure the deals, which in no way stressed our personal finances. We did not incur costs above and beyond $750 until after we signed on the dotted line, and those costs were immediately repaid by our new practice. Hopefully, this story will spark ideas, inspire grads and motivate colleagues to find and purchase the practice of their dreams.

Soon after graduation, at age 26,1 stumbled on to our first practice opportunity - a senior doc who was ready to retire and willing to finance. I located this practice through a classified ad placed with the Ohio Optometric Association. The seller was semi-retired and working only oneand-a-half days per week. The practice was barely making any money, but the location was outstanding.

The practice was a small, but modern, well-equipped office located in an area with healthy growth. Annamarie and I decided to go against conventional wisdom. We bought a dying practice, but we did so in a calculated fashion. The price was right and the financing was in place. It was a classic diamond in the rough scenario.

The new practice was on life-support, so we had no choice but to moonlight for another doctor while we attempted to turn things around. The new practice grew steadily and doubled in size after about four years. Still, the practice could not support two doctors full-time. We became impatient having to work part-time outside our practice. We decided last year that the next logical evolution for our practice was a satellite office.

We looked for a strong, healthy practice. With four years of business experience, we felt confident that we could handle a busier office this time around, but the search proved challenging. It's easy to find a dying practice. It's much tougher to find a doctor who is willing to part with a healthy, profitable private practice.

We searched for about six months and had no luck with classified ads, placement services or practice brokers. Our criteria were too specific: a busy, modern private practice within 45 minutes of our first location. It seemed we might have to wait years.

Finally, I tried a Hail Mary pass. During the first week of December 2004,1 mailed a letter to every optometrist in Northeast Ohio asking if they might be ready to sell. Out of more than 200 inquiries, I received 13 replies. Three were contenders, but only one deserved serious attention. We signed a contract on February 15th, and took control of our second practice on April 1st, 2005.

If you think there are no practices for sale in your area, then I strongly recommend a mailing. State your intentions in a letter to every doctor within 30 miles of your home. Often times, a doctor may consider selling, but would never place a classified ad in a publication. Your letter may convert a hesitant seller into a new retiree!

Negotiating price

Once negotiations started in earnest, talk with the seller quickly turned to the most sensitive issue, price. The seller has poured his heart and soul into a practice and there is a lot of pride at stake. A seller could be greatly offended by a young doctor offering a low-ball price. Not to mention that many sellers expect the sale to fund a large chunk of their retirement.

On the other hand, sellers seldom consider the younger doctor's problems, such as the enormous debt burden that graduates face. The ensuing tug-ofwar will usually determine a fair price. If not, you must be prepared to walk away. Do not get emotionally attached during the early stages of a negotiation.

Some words of advice: the purchase price is not the most important part of a deal. You must consider the big picture. Will the senior doc stay involved in the practice? Will the senior doc sign a work agreement? Will the non-compete clause be tough enough? Is the senior doc going to finance? How much are the down payment, monthly payments and rent? Can you purchase the building, or at least get a purchase option on the building?

Key spyware call: Where to protect?

2007-10-27T05:52:00.001-07:00

With spyware threatening corporate networks, whether it be adware hogging bandwidth or malicious code logging personal data, network executives are being forced to define their defensive strategies.

Lots of tools and software have hit the market recently, and network executives are left to decide which weapon works best - typically less-expensive gateway-based filters or more-expensive but possibly more-effective desktop software or, even more costly a combination of the two.

The Network World Clear Choice Test of enterprise spyware (page 52) suggests the gateway approach might be the best starting point for IT managers wanting to shore up defense quickly.

A gateway can filter out spyware at least as well as desktop software, based on the test of 18 products. Tester Barry Nance found gateways easier to administer than desktop machines. Plus, "users can't fool with it," as they might with their desktop software, Nance says.

Analysts weighing the pros and cons of the basic strategies also point out that the cost to install a gateway in many instances is going to be low in comparison with installing anti-spyware software on the desktop.

"The cateway alternative works reasonably well to reduce the impact of spyware, is less expensive to operate and maintain than desktop mitigation, consumes fewer overall resources and is readily controlled," says a security report titled "Enterprise Strategies for Defending Against Spyware" from Burton Group.

But Burton Group's stance toward anti-spyware gateways comes with several provisos. One is that organizations might want to deploy anti-spyware software on desktops if they have a substantial number of mobile desktops that can become infected. Burton Group urges IT managers buying for desktops to make sure anti-spyware products integrate with other technologies, such as network admission controls and anti-virus defense.

Using both gateway and desktop software anti-spyware will increase protection but clearly adds costs that could be hard to justify under a tight budget, a Burton Group report notes. "The added cost and inconvenience of running redundant systems may not be justifiable for the low-risk systems associated with spyware," the report says.

In all, Burton Group says any organization that considers its network environment "low-risk" may want to forgo buying anti-spyware protection at all (see graphic). That's because the anti-spyware market is still young. Industry consolidation is expected to occur quickly

There are an estimated 35,000 species of spyware, with more spawned every day But security vendors don't have the same name or classification systems. At Symantec, whose traditional strength has been anti-virus, the Trojans, bots and worms are classified as "malicious code." But "spyware" is simply "any program you probably don't want on your machine," whether it be dialers or adware, says Symantec's director of security response, David Cole.

He notes this definition is different from that accepted by the "pure play" anti-spyware product vendors without the antivirus background, which classify bots, Trojans and keyloggers as spyware.

In any case, detection mechanisms for these thousands of disputed spyware types can be expected to improve. The Network World test, for example, found a top detection and eradication rate to be at 90%, achieved by the McAfee Secure Web Gateway

Few expect demand for spyware products to stay small for long. Radicati Group, a consultancy estimates the market is at about $100 million today and will rise to more than $1 billion in the next four years.

Users agree they'll be spending more whatever strategy they choose. Although his budget is strained by other IT expenditures, including an e-commerce overhaul, Erik Goldof, IT systems manager at HoneyBaked Ham, says the spyware threat is big enough that he's trying to determine which protection would be best for his company

"Spyware steals CPU, and multiple adware products on the desktop bring it to a halt," at the specialty foods supplier in Norcross, Ga., Goldof says. "What gives them the right to do this!"

Even public schools now feel an urgency about combating spyware.

The Northern Buckeye Educational Council, in Archbold, Ohio, provides technology support and Internet services to 37 K-12 public-school districts in the state. Duane Baker, CTO for the group, says IT administrators found it appalling to discover that schoolchildren's laptops were infested with spyware, which relayed children's Web activity to unknown sources. "These kids click on things and they get it," Baker says.

Student laptops were becoming so clogged with spyware they downloaded - Claria's adware Gator is well-known to Ohio officials - the state's network saw bandwidth congestion, while officials felt growing concern that children's personal data might be stolen by some spyware code.

"We just don't think this is even legal under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act," Baker says. Because students are minors, it's doubtful the law would recognize a legal right to consent to download adware anyway, he says.

The Top 50: The Most Influential Minorities in Cable

2007-10-27T05:51:00.001-07:00

Cable diversity is not where it should be, but it's getting better. That's the consensus we got from cable executives when we asked them about workplace diversity.

That viewpoint is reflected in our Top 50 Most Influential Minorities in Cable list, which is dominated by programming executives. By all accounts, programmers have more people of color in higher positions than operators. Take a look at the top 10, and you'll see people of color who run companies (Dick Parsons and Al Liggins), networks (Christina Norman, Johnathan Rodgers, Debra Lee, Laureen Ong and Ray Rodriguez) and head up important divisions (Manish Jha, Herb Scannell and Albert Cheng).

Still, judging by the high quality of MSO executives in the top 20, senior operator ranks are becoming more diverse, as well.

We've done a few things differently with this list. For the first time, we ranked the executives, from 1 to 50. We also included an unranked list of 50 more executives who are knocking at the door.

1. Richard Parsons

chairman and CEO, Time Warner

Earlier this year Institutional Investor magazine named Parsons the top CEO in the entertainment industry, and for good reason. The jazz-loving, vineyard-owning Parsons is a highly regarded consensus builder who has streamlined and revived Time Warner.

2. Christina Norman

president, MTV

The top programmer on our list, Norman was promoted in May to president of the most powerful youth-oriented brand on the planet. This followed her stellar run overseeing VH1. She's also increasing diversity by spearheading MTV World's stable of ethnic-targeted networks.

3. Manish Jha

SVP, ESPN Mobile, president, NAMIC

Jha's soft-spoken demeanor belies a razor-sharp business acumen. He'll rely on both as he leads NAMIC and the content and operations sides of Bristol's worldwide wireless business, which next year plans to launch the first U.S. wireless phone service targeted at sports fans.

4. Johnathan Rodgers

president/CEO,TV One

Al Liggins

chairman, TV One

One of the most respected executives in cable, Rodgers' long track record is a key reason this duo is so high on the list. Add in that TV One gained so many subs this year (it's in 21-plus million homes) and its deals with Time Warner Cable and DirecTV, and you see why these two will remain on the list for years to come.

5. Debra Lee

president/COO, BET

As BET marks 25 years, the channel's leadership is passing from founder/chairman Bob Johnson to Lee, who recruited highly regarded filmmaker Reginald Hudlin to be programming chief last month. Now the network is ready to produce more ambitious content and generate a higher industry profile.

6. Laureen Ong

president, National Geographic Channel

One of cable's funniest execs, the indefatigable Ong is leading a ratings and growth success story. National Geographic's reach is 55 million homes as it readies an HD launch on its fifth birthday in January. Its reputation for hard- hitting storytelling was enhanced by its four-part review of 9/11 in August.

7. Herb Scannell

president, MTV Networks Group

Scannell broke a racial barrier years ago--not just at Viacom but within cable when he took the helm of Nickelodeon in 1996. Diversity on camera and behind the scenes has increased at MTVN on his watch, during which the Hispanic- themed Dora the Explorer cartoon became a household name.

8. Albert Cheng

SVP, bus. strategy and devel., ESPN

Disney doesn't just value ESPN Networks Affiliate Sales and Marketing's Cheng as its highest ranked minority (which he is) but also for his "televisionary" insights into the direction of its content across platforms and emerging media. As such, he has the ear (and respect) of Anne Sweeney and George Bodenheimer.

9. Ray Rodriguez

president/COO, Univision Comm.

With more contenders than ever in the Spanish-language-channel universe, Univision remains the medium's kingpin under Rodriguez. Galavision, which turned 25 last year, continues to be the top-rated Spanish cable net, and is bringing back domestically produced programming this fall, led by interactive hour Access Maximo (All Access).

10. Henry Ahn

SVP, affiliate sales, NBC Universal Cable

A few years back, then-NBC Cable chief and grad school professor David Zaslav was so impressed with student Henry Ahn that he offered him a job. Good choice. Recently promoted, Ahn's one of Zaslav's top lieutenants, overseeing the field sales team and handling Olympics distribution deals, among other things.

11. Doug Gaston

SVP/general counsel, Comcast

Called the "cream of the minorities in the cable legal brain trust" by D.C. cable veteran Frank Lloyd, Gaston has become known mostly for his behind- the-scenes work. As the principal legal counsel to Comcast's senior management (and the only African-American general counsel at an MSO), he has emerged as one of the highest-ranked minorities among all the MSOs.

A Debt Consolidation Company Is A Boon For You

2007-10-25T03:18:00.001-07:00

Have you ever considered how much interest you are paying every month for all your loans? Moreover at times it becomes impossible to keep track of all the monthly payments you are suppose to make. The result is accumulation of further charges and interest on the already high rate of interest. You credit score also keep reducing in the market in the process. This is all the more true for people, who are having multiple debts, in the market from credit cards, banks, other financial lending companies and private lenders. If this is the case with you as well, a debt consolidation program of any trustworthy debt consolidation company can be your savior.

To benefit significantly from the debt consolidation, you need to find out a professional debt consolidation company who offers the service at lower interest and in easy terms and conditions. There are so many debt management companies operating in the market and you need to choose one according to your convenience. There are basically two common practices in the debt consolidating market. You can opt service that basically a loan that let’s you recover all your previous loans and pay for the single debt. But the rate of interest in these type of loans can be more than hat you are paying at present. So be sure to check for the details of the rate of interest as well as the terms and conditions.

There is another type of debt consolidating process in which the debt consolidation company pays all your existing loans and you have to pay for the single loan of that company. This is basically a debt consolidation and management solution in which you gain in the long run. This type of debt management provides you with accountability as well as you need to pay less interest if compared with all other loans that you are having. Moreover most of these debt consolidation companies provide you with debt management counseling that will help you to compare between different possibilities and determine the best option for you. With this type of consolidation service your credit score also increases in the market.

All said and done, the basic question remains. You have to select the best possible debt consolidation company to benefit from all these options. It is better to select a company based on recommendation of someone who have dealt with a debt consolidation company.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Arvind_Singh

Credit Card Debt Consolidation - What Non-profits Can Offer

2007-10-25T03:17:00.000-07:00

Getting into debt is easy. In fact, sometimes it's even enjoyable. It's paying off your debts that is very hard -- and not a pleasant thing to do. For this reason, some people choose extreme measures -- including bankruptcy -- to ease their financial worries. Before you seriously consider doing something this drastic, consider all your options.

Non-Profit Credit Card Debt Consolidation Agencies

These companies offer free help to anyone who has an unusual amount of credit card debt. And although their services are free, you do get a lot of value in return for working with them. In short, you can reduce and eliminate your debts while restoring your credit rating.

Why Consolidate Debts?

You gain several things when you consolidate your debts:

* Lower payments

* Reduced balances

* Lower interest rates

* One payment per month instead of many

* No more phone calls at home

How it works

Unlike when you secure a home mortgage refinancing, a home equity loan and/or a personal loan, debt consolidation agencies will not give you any money in return for collateral. Instead, the agency will negotiate on your behalf with creditors for lower interest rates, payments, and/or balances on your debt. For this reason alone, these agencies are a good option for non-homeowners.

Benefits of Using a Non-Profit Debt Consolidation Agency

In general, non-profit debt consolidation agencies will not charge you any kind of enrollment fee upfront. They may charge you a monthly service fee but it is usually pretty small. They can do this because they do not have to show a fat bottom line to their shareholders. In fact there are no shareholders -- that is what is meant by "non-profit." As a result, they pass the savings on to you, their client.

This means that all (or nearly all) the money you give them goes toward paying off your credit card balances as quickly as possible. On average, repayment plans for debt consolidation last two to seven years. However, larger debt amounts may require a longer payoff period.

How Do You Choose a Debt Consolidation Agency?

There are lots of different kinds of agencies. So do your research before contacting them. Each non-profit debt consolidation agency has its own requirements. For example, some prefer clients with larger debts, whereas others will accept persons with debts under $2,000.

The best way to make an informed decision is to talk to a counselor, either on the phone or in person. You'll be asked to provide the agency with accurate information about your income, expenses and the level of your debt. After that, a credit counselor will work up a realistic and affordable payment plan.

Conclusion

Don't wait until your debts are handed over to a collection agency. Once that happens you have very few options. Instead, contact a non-profit credit card debt consolidation agency today. You'll be glad you did.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ara_Rubyan

Smart retirement planning: solid planning and the right safety net will ensure that you enjoy your golden years

2007-10-15T03:37:00.001-07:00

MERICANS HAVE TO CHANGE THEIR ATTITUDES ABOUT retirement planning. Many think they can take their time, but that kind of thinking will not leave much of a nest egg. In years past, Americans would hold one for 25 years then retire with a pension that could carry them through their golden years. That rarely happens these days. The rules of retirement planning have changed.

* RULE NO. 1: You Must Start Now. The earlier you begin planning for your retirement the better off you'll be. If you consistently save and invest, over the 40 years most of us can expect to work, the results can be tremendously favorable. The small sums you save in your early 20s will have the full 40 years to work for you in the stock market. Remember, if you invested $1,000 in Microsoft stock in January 1985, with stock splits and dividends, your money would have grown to more than $334,000 by August 2005. That is after the big 1987 crash and the tech wreck of 2000. The key is finding companies you can grow with over 20 years.

* RULE NO. 2: We're Living Longer, So You'll Need More Money When You Retire. People are living beyond 80 and 90, and chances are, you'll be one of them. Living longer means dealing with an increasing cost of living after you stop working. This means that your retirement planning must ensure that you don't run out of money in your golden years.

* RULE NO. 3: Don't Count On Social Security. With all the talk about privatizing Social Security, it's almost certain that there will be some changes to the system before you are ready to retire. Whatever you receive from Social Security will most likely not be enough to pay your expenses. Your retirement planning must ensure that you are not dependent on it for survival.

* RULE NO. 4: Manage Your Retirement Like You Manage Your Career. Without a career, where would you be? Without retirement savings, where will you be 20 or 30 years from now? Just as you must invest in your career and make the right moves daily to keep it on track, you must do the same with your retirement planning.

The following package is designed to help you start planning for your retirement, no matter what stage of life you are in. No one else will take on this responsibility for you. Turn the page and commit to taking action today. You owe it to yourself, your family, and your future.

20s

Budgeting Is Everything

SAVING FOR RETIREMENT STARTS WITH STRICT SPENDING IN YOUR YOUTH

KIYON SPENCER IS WIDE-EYED AND ready to take on life. The 22-year-old, who received his bachelor's in entertainment production through an individualized study program at New York University last year, has been working at Fox cable television network. As a sales assistant in the advertising sales department, Spencer earns a base salary of $30,000 and lives in New York City with two roommates. He contributes 8% of his base pay to his 401(k) and his employer matches 50 cents of each dollar up to 6%.

Spencer got a good start, but his college years came with a price. He owes about $19,000 in student loans and, after consolidating them, he's paying them back at the rate of about $108 a month. He didn't work while he was in NYU and relied on credit cards to cover some of his school expenses. Consequently, he has about $4,000 in credit card debt. Spencer also admits to having a "bad shopping habit." He's got a thing for clothes but says he's a smart shopper. "I know quality and I get good deals," says Spencer. His other fetish is movies--he has more than 200 DVDs and his collection is growing.

Spencer the Spender will have to turn into Spencer the Saver if he is to reach his goals. He would like to go to graduate school in a couple of years and, in the not-too-distant future, explore job opportunities in film or television. He will likely take a pay cut if he gets a more creative job, and he will need to be sure he can afford to do that and keep his debt under control.

He's already looking down the line to the day he can kiss the 9-to-5 goodbye. "I don't know that I would want to ever fully retire, but I would like to be financially secure by age 55," says Spencer, who defines financial security as having the ability to travel and not worry about how to pay the bills. "Right now, I wonder if the dollars I'm saving will go far enough in the future. My grandparents saved and made good decisions about money so they are alright in retirement. My room is approaching retirement age and, while she has some things in place on her own, she may be looking to me to help take care of her. It's tough because when you think you're somewhat prepared, there's always the unexpected." He adds, "I think retirement is harder than it appears. I want to be in good shape when I get there."

Consolidate student loans before July 1

2007-10-15T03:36:00.000-07:00

Consolidate student loan before time runs out

2007-10-11T00:52:00.001-07:00

UB: annual finance buyer's guide: an easy-to-use guide on finance information for higher education

2007-10-11T00:50:00.000-07:00

Student Debt Consolidation - Finding the Student Consolidation Loan That's Right For You

2007-10-10T04:34:00.000-07:00

Nearly every college student has loans taken out to cover their tuition and expenses. It is a great investment to make and can be expensive. As soon as college is over, it takes a couple of months for repayment bills to come in the mail. Don’t be caught off guard when the high payments, rising interests, and multiple bills start cramming into your mailbox.

With student loan consolidation you will get your interest rates fixed for the entire duration of the loan payback period. Never worry about your loan amount getting out of control, be able to make long term plans on how to pay your loans back and get to plan your life’s expenses with the confidence that your loan payments will be at the same amount.

Also when you enroll with a student loan consolidation program you will be able to lower your monthly payments significantly. Your lender will work with your loan officials to spread out your loan period so that your monthly payments are lower. You could possibly get your payments down considerably to where you won’t even blink to pay them. Sometimes a monthly payment can be less than your monthly cable or satellite bill.

Your student loans usually come from different lending institutions. Each of them will send you their own bills separately at their own interest rates and required monthly payments. When you choose to consolidate your student loans, the consolidation loan lender will contact all of your lending institutions for management access, put all of your payments into one easy to pay bill and send it to you monthly. It is that simple and convenient for you to pay your loan back. No stacks of loan bills that you can you have to go through and no chance of you forgetting to pay a bill that you misplaced from the pile with our one simple payment per month.

There are more benefits for you including everything just mentioned when you consolidate your student loans. One of the best things that you best is an improvement on your credit score. For those that don’t know about credit scores you need to have a good balanced credit score in order to qualify for purchases like cars, homes, boats and other things. Think of it like this, a financial institution wants to give you money but wants to make sure that you are a good person to investment their time and money with, so they check your credit score which measures how good you are with managing the money you get and need to pay back. Your financial decisions are directly reflected in your credit score, and nothing makes a greater statement than keeping your debts organized and payed on time.

Student Loan Consolidation Information - Where To Look for Help

2007-10-10T04:33:00.000-07:00

As part of any research when looking at your student loan consolidation information alternatives you need to examine where you are able to research information, despite the high education costs and the cost of borrowing to meet these, students and parents have some advantages today that did not exist even ten years ago, the Internet has changed in many ways for ever the way financial aid is researched and granted.

Today it is a simple task to be able to quickly access and review an enormous amount of information, qualifying criteria, rates, loan limits and much more is easily available, however that also suggests one of the difficulties of easy facts, the possibility of too much data, the old saying in the information technology industry sums it up best, it is like a person drinking from a fire hose, having so much information flooding into their head, especially given the variety and complexity of loan schemes today, this can make examining the information all that much harder, to overcome this difficulty, one element of the old-fashioned methods is still very useful, that is looking for personal advice and guidance.

For many students still in high school, planning a college education and looking at ways to pay for it starts with their school counselor these counselors are there to assist students analyze through the bewildering array of choices, and to point out many of the potential rewards or pitfalls of different options, but alas the quality of that instruction can vary quite considerably.

Professional loan counselors as well as being up on the latest information are required to attend regular courses each year to keep up-to-date and maintain his or her qualified standing, however the downside is that they commonly charge for their services, a few minutes of advice on the telephone or in person is usually free, however any detailed advice or program is always at a cost, this is understandable since that is how they make a living.

The online variants of qualified loan counselors additionally have similar good points and bad points, since there is so much variety on the web today, finding a trustworthy source can be hard, the advantage of a personal strategy, which enables judging their reliability through hearing their voice or viewing their face is missing, nonetheless with social networks and blogs growing in recent years that drawback has largely been outweighed.

It is possible today to view hundreds of reliable recommendations from people you interact with consistently online, when reading comments posted by new forum members it is often hard to judge the potential worth of his or her opinion, nonetheless over a period of time, you can recognize who is providing objective and meaningful information and before long you are able to locate professionals to get more in-depth guidance.

Be certain to allocate at least one year to examine the available options, two years or more would be better, saving for and planning your education should start much earlier, nevertheless getting information that is likely to be effective requires not putting too much weight on situations that will exist a number years from now, interest rates, qualifying criteria and available programs do change over time and who knows, the Internet innovators might come up with something even better in the future, it is essential to keep this information at hand when looking at any student loan consolidation information.

Online Student Loan Consolidation

2007-10-10T04:32:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder what you are going to do with all of the student loans after you are finished with college? You have to pay $30,000-$70,000 or even more depending on which Colleges/Universities you went to. Knowing that you could be paying back these debt for decades to come is enough to make your skin crawl. But if you find the right student loan consolidation program, getting through those payments could be a lot easier, and faster, than you ever thought possible.

The greatest part about student loan consolidation is getting all of your bills and payment bundled up into one easy, low interest payment. You won’t have to re-order new checks every couple of months and you won’t go blind from reading all the bills in the mail. However, don’t think that because your bills are now all in one payment a month, that it will be one enormous bill. With a student loan consolidation service, your can make that one monthly payment into something you can manage to pay. Your payments will turn into a regular expense that is easy to pay each month, like an internet or cable bill.

There are tons of different plans available to students and grads, you have the option for low monthly payments each month or quick repayment of your loan so you can get into using your money for different things. Either way both plans will be significantly lower and easier to pay that without student loan consolidation.

Don’t forget that you also get your interest rates locked in place with some student consolidation loans. By doing this you can actually calculate the exact amount you need to fully re-pay towards your student loan each month. This is great if you are a long time goal planner and want to know exactly what your payment amount will be in the future. You credit score also benefits from a student loan consolidation service because it show that you are making smart financial decisions.

There are so many reasons to get your student loans consolidated. Have your payments down to a manageable amount each month, it could be even lower than your monthly cell phone bill, imagine that!

Mitigating the Risks of Messaging

2007-10-05T02:19:00.000-07:00

Recognizing and addressing the dangers of the casual nature of electronic messaging will minimize organizational risk. Putting an electronic communications plan in place is vital to protecting a company's reputation, its business interests, and its compliance success.

In any single day, millions of e-mail messages are sent and received by organizations - and nearly every day the media breaks the details about the latest scandal to be uncovered through evidence in those messages.

Protecting the organization by ensuring regulatory compliance is paramount in today's business environment, and many organizations start by securing e-mail. This is a necessary step - but a tactical one - that pursues only the "e-mail-as-evidence" pain point. Forward-thinking organizations are only at the cusp of realizing the magnitude of this quandary. The risks are not married solely to business regulations or to e-mail as a messaging medium.

Compliance

Stringent securities and Exchange Commission and National Association of Securities Dealers regulations on managing e-mail and instant messages have forced U.S. financial service providers to the forefront of adopting compliance practices. Other vertical industries have been equally affected. For example, within the U.S. healthcare community, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act set the standards for securing the privacy of patient information.

A dynamic influx of U.S. and non-U.S. regulations and legislation - vertical and horizontal - has paralyzed business activities. For example, according to a June 16, 2005, Wall Street Journal article, the cost of complying with the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was then ranging from $1.6 million to $4.4 million per company each year. As a graduate student at the University of Rochester in 2005, Ivy Xiying Zhang gained global media coverage of her event analysis of the July 2002 House and Senate debates over competing versions of the bill. Zhang postulated that the debates led to investor uncertainty resulting in falling stock prices and market losses of $1.4 trillion.

However, the total cost of compliance for any mandate will differ wildly based on the type of analysis used. Undisputable, though, is the potential financial drain to become compliant, as well as the financial drain should an audit reveal areas of noncompliance.

Many argue that although the cost of becoming compliant is high, the upside is well-structured accountability, improved organizational creditability, and customer protection. Capitalizing on that premise, vendors across-the-board have declared that they have the solution. In the case of e-mail and instant messaging management, the solution may take the form of policy-based filtering, categorizing, indexing, archiving, document management, or record management software - which turns the unstructured message body into a "record." Outsourcers can host all or part of the solution. Professional services firms can design the implementation of the technical and business processes. The e-mail and instant messaging compliance market is undergoing tremendous consolidation; however, no vendor today can provide a holistic, integrated solution.

Privacy

Federal and regional privacy legislation dictates the degree of privacy required for customer- and employee-sensitive information. For example, student-record information is protected in many school districts. Communications held between an attorney and a client are protected as privileged information. Federal and local Freedom of Information Acts control the processes by which citizens can obtain government-held information about themselves. Organizations that wish to do business globally must understand how to get through the maze of complex and changing privacy mandates.

Civil Actions

Amid confusion about best practices to manage messaging for compliance, organizations must also mitigate the risks of civil lawsuits and corporate embarrassment - often initiated by employees exhibiting poor judgment. The following examples indicate the types of risk e-mail can pose to an individual or business.

Love on the Internet. In December 2000, Claire Swire sent a sexually explicit e-mail message to her boyfriend, Bradley Chait. Chait, a lawyer with the London-based law firm Norton Rose, forwarded the e-mail message to several friends, who forwarded it to several of their friends, and so on. What Swire intended as a private message found its way, according to the media, to 10 million mailboxes across the Internet. Swire suffered personal embarrassment, to be sure, but beyond that, Norton Rose's reputation was victimized by global ridicule because Chait forwarded the original message from his Norton Rose e-mail account. (Chait was suspended temporarily and his year-end bonus, along with those of nine of his friends, was revoked.)

Love Leads to Federal Indictment. The case of the United States v. Kammersell, 196 F.3d 1137 (10th Cir. 1999) examines an incorrect method for dating. Utah resident Matthew Kammersell wanted to spend some time with his girlfriend, who also lived in Utah. So Kammersell used America Online (AOL) Instant Messenger (AIM) to send a bogus bomb threat to his girlfriend's AIM account. His goal was to cause her office to close for the day so they could enjoy some time together. Kammersell never imagined that he would be in violation of U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) regulations, but his instant message traveled the Internet through AOL's servers in Virginia. Kammersell was indicted and found guilty of violating of ICC 18 U.S.C. § 875(c), which makes it a crime to transmit a threatening communication through interstate commerce.

Pioneer Spirit

2007-10-05T02:16:00.000-07:00

As small schools across the Northern Plains consolidate, a town fights to preserve its rural, two-room schoolhouse.

The spelling and grammar lesson in Steven Podoll's classroom is a little like the changing of the guard. "Fifth-graders, please come up," Podoll calls. Two students push back their chairs and rise to meet him at a table in the front of the room, passing two fourth-graders on their way back to their seats with their assignment. Half an hour later, two sixthgraders replace the fifth-graders. Finally, the seventh-grader is called up. And so it goes for math, science, reading, and the rest of the subjects the fourth- through eighth-graders in Podoll's class study at this two-classroom rural school in Baldwin, North Dakota.
The Baldwin School sits on a small hill in the center of "town"-just behind the hand-printed "Welcome to Baldwin" sign and across the railroad tracks from a white clapboard post office the size of a toolshed. It overlooks the wide northern plains that roll on for miles before meeting the sky.

The town itself lies on a country road east of Highway 83, about 15 miles into the sloping grasslands of the open prairie north of Bismarck. The population hovers around 54 or 55, according to the local postmaster. A community of farmers and ranchers, the people of Baldwin have for generations worked the land through storms, drought, grassfires, and blizzards. Like fluctuating crops of grain, the town has grown and flourished, withered and shrunk. But it's always endured, thanks in large part to the town school that first opened its doors in 1908.

For those who live in Baldwin and other small towns across the country's Great Plains, the prairie isn't just a place, it's a way of life-and one that may be drawing to a close as farmers sell off land and livestock, urban areas sprawl, and small towns dwindle. With them go the country schoolhouses that once dotted the landscape. North Dakota alone had more than 4,700 one-room schools in the early 1900s. Now only a handful remain, and as is the case elsewhere in the Midwest, state laws and declining populations are prompting many small schools to either consolidate or close.

Often, a town's school is its last foothold. When the school closes, the town dies. And that's exactly what the people of Baldwin hope to prevent. "If the school closed, it would be as if Baldwin suffered a stroke," says Podoll. "It might survive, but barely."

THIS YEAR, THERE ARE NO EIGHTH-GRADERS IN Podoll's class, which has just seven students-two each in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, and one seventh-grader, a tall, blonde girl named Tori, who often helps the younger students, including her sixth-grade brother, Travis. Next door in the K-3 classroom, fellow teacher Beth Duey has eight students-a few of them with siblings in Podoll's class.

Over the years, the population of the school has reflected the prosperity of the town. When it first opened in 1908, eight years after Baldwin was founded, teacher W.E. Yeater (gender not recorded) had 26 students and earned $50 a month. The population held steady through the teens and twenties, growing to 37 students in 1934-a class that, according to the records, included six "farm boys," six "farm girls," 12 "town boys," and 13 "town girls." Then the Dust Bowl spread northward and depression gripped the country. By 1937, just 11 students were enrolled in the Baldwin School.

Slowly, the town population rebounded. By the 1950s school enrollment was back in the 30s and 40s, but Baldwin was never the same. In its heyday, the town boomed with banks, hotels, grain elevators, a lumber yard, newspaper, train depot-even a dance hall. A series of fires razed many businesses, others simply closed their doors. Today, the center of town consists of a post office, a railroad track crossing, a handful of houses, and the Baldwin School.

That list might get shorter if North Dakota's state legislature passes a bill that would retire elementary schools with fewer than 100 students to consolidate with a district that has a high school. After the eighth grade, Baldwin students currently have a choice between high schools in Bismarck to the south or the "bigger small town" of Wilton to the north.

Although the Baldwin school wouldn't immediately close-the town must vote whether to keep it open-residents feel the passage of S.B. 2333 would make it inevitable. "It's taxation without representation," says Podoll. "It would take local control of the school away from Baldwin, and it would divert property taxes to the [consolidated] district. Nobody in Baldwin wants this to happen. Everyone realizes that when you stop funding schools, towns suffer."

According to Marty Strange, policy director at the Rural Schools and Community Trust, a national nonprofit addressing the relationship between schools and communities, consolidation is "hot in areas with depressed rural economies and where urban areas are growing fast." Both descriptions fit Baldwin. A prolonged three-year drought has sapped local farmers, and the edge of Bismarck is creeping closer, with Baldwin sitting in the shadow of Bismarck's new Super Wal-Mart, a short 15-minute drive down the highway.

The argument for consolidation. Strange says, is that it lowers taxes for the citizens of rural towns and provides children with access to a wider array of classes and services. "But people know their local schools work," he says. "And rural America has paid through the nose for the privilege of having good schools in their communities. They've shown time and again that they're willing to sacrifice to keep them."

That's been the case in Baldwin, where town residents have repeatedly voted to raise their mill levies to keep the school open, according to Gerry Ann Small, an aide at the Baldwin School. Her husband and three children attended the school, and she's quick to point out that all of her kids remained on the honor roll in high school after graduating from Baldwin. "Our kids get a solid education here," she says. "A Bismarck teacher once told me she could always pick out the country kids-they were ready to study, polite, and always willing to help their neighbor," she says.

The legislation is coming up for a vote again this year, and "they're in for another fight," says Small. "This school is the heart and soul of our community."

On the first day of school, the local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter visits the Baldwin School for the first flag-raising of the year (the flag pole was donated by the VFW in honor of five Baldwin soldiers killed in the Vietnam War). In December, the town gathers at the school for its holiday program, and the students go caroling from farmhouse to farmhouse, where they're greeted with warm cookies or cider. For Valentine's Day, grandparents are invited to school for breakfast. The students even organized a Youth Citizen's League so they could volunteer within the community. They raised money to help a newlywed couple whose home burned down, for a local firefighter badly injured on the job, and to buy clothing and winter gear for needy children.

And then there are the basketball games. Two coed teams-fourth through eighth grade, and second through third, compete against four other rural schools in Burleigh County. The first-graders are the cheerleaders, complete with uniforms and pom-poms. "When the Baldwin Bullets play, that gym is plum full with folks from town," Small says.

One of their most loyal fans is the postmaster, Gail Gordon, who was born in Baldwin in 1942 and has lived there ever since. Gordon believes the school, like the post office, is central to Baldwin's small-town character. "When a small town loses its school or its post office, it loses its identity," she says.

Gordon's father was the postmaster when she started out as a clerk in 1958. Before the building was converted into a post office, it was St. John's Lutheran Church (the pulpit is still intact). Before it became a church, it was a "rolling schoolhouse" that sat perched atop timbers and was pulled by horses from field to field where farm children could take a break for their lessons. When Gordon stands at her counter, she looks out at the present-day school yard, where she can watch the kids play during recess. "I went to school there, my dad went to school there, and my daughter went to school there," she says. "It's always been a fine school."

Funding education beyond high school

2007-10-05T02:11:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Department of Education recently released a comprehensive guide to federal student aid for students and their families looking to fund a college education.

Published by the Department's Office of Federal Student Aid, Funding Education Beyond High School provides an overview of the process for applying for federal student aid as well as detailed steps for taking action during each phase. With illustrative charts, the 41-page guide addresses such topics as:

* Basic eligibility requirements

* Three types of federal student aid--grants, work-study and loans--and other student aid resources

* Completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for new and renewal applicants

* Grace period and payment schedule for repaying loans

* Options for postponement: deferment and forbearance

* Loan consolidation and cancellation

The guide concludes with a glossary clarifying financial aid terminology and a complete list of state higher education agencies.

Last year, federal student aid helped approximately 10 million students meet the cost of higher education.

Grade-Span configurations: Where 6th and 7th grades are assigned may influence student achievement, research suggests

2007-09-21T02:54:00.000-07:00

The relative benefit of one particular grade configuration over another has been the subject of debate for years. Which configuration for a school is most cost effective? Which yields higher student achievement? How does grade configuration affect the community?

There are no easy answers to these questions nor is there any conclusive evidence that one grade configuration is better than another. School districts poised on the brink of making these decisions must take into account factors beyond simply what is best for the students. They also must consider projected enrollments, transportation costs, number of transitions to be made by students, size of the school and overall school goals.

These discussions and their ultimate outcomes are not without controversy, especially in rural areas where reconfiguration is often the first step toward closing small schools. This can have farreaching effects on not only the staff and students but on the community itself.

School Consolidation

Prior to 1948, the majority of schools in the United States were one-teacher schools typically serving a small rural community and enrolling about 30 children in the elementary grades. However, beginning in 1915, when Teachers College professor Ellwood Cubberley proposed that large schools in central locations could provide more and better education and resources, administrators accelerated the merging of one-teacher schools into larger graded schools. As a result, the K-8 configuration became a popular plan.

As roads improved after World War I to accommodate automobiles, better transportation, rural economic decline and a focus on efficiency of educational management drove consolidation across larger geographic areas. As a result, smaller schools closed and many K-12 schools began to close as well. The result was districts and schools that had larger enrollments than ever before.

One result of today's schools' narrower grade-span configuration is that the number of students per grade is higher than it has ever been. A K-2 school enrolling 360 students doesn't seem large compared to all those hefty suburban high schools enrolling 2,000 or more students, but with 120 5- to 8-year-olds per grade it's a very large school (and that's become our standard). K-2 schools are among the largest schools in the nation with regard to enrollment and, surprisingly, they are most common in rural areas and small towns.

The popularity of K-2 schools might be the result of excessive concern with developmentally appropriate expertise for early childhood instruction. Large size is the price of expertise. In rural areas, this price might be higher because of centralized school locations and poor funding for capital outlay.

We've addressed the consolidation of schools, especially in rural areas, based on suggestions that larger, more centrally located schools provide more and better services to students. What direct effect, if any, does grade-span configuration have on student achievement, our ultimate outcome?

At the ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools, we are often asked questions like "What research shows that K-2 schools are superior to K-3 schools?" The answer is easy: none. Research surrounding the benefits of specific grade-span configurations is seriously wanting. On the other hand, a large amount of prescriptive literature exists around that particular topic, especially with regard to middle schools.

Six recent studies, however, have addressed the issue of configuration and student achievement, and their conclusions, combined with the research on school size, suggest the need to re-examine the popular notion that fewer grades per school is better.

Education, Identity, and Citizenship in Early Modern Canada

2007-09-21T02:46:00.000-07:00

This study of the debates in Canada about a national education bureau offers an opportunity to explore how various participants grounded their position in constitutional, regional, and cultural identities to construct a definition of citizenship, and to align new or existing educational institutions in such a way as to configure "schooled subjectivities." Parliamentary members and educational and public associations relied heavily on notions of patriotism, progress, and nationalism to legitimize claims for national educational objectives, while opponents frequently cited constitutional, cultural, and regional differences in rebutting their arguments. How these reformers cast the role of education in society, and, more precisely, the role of the state in shaping national identity/identities through education underpins the central analysis of this study. Moreover, this study offers insights into why Canada is one of only two western industrial countries that do not have either a national ministry of education or a federal office of education.

L'étude des débats au Canada sur un bureau national de l'éducation permet d'examiner comment les divers participants ont basé leur position sur des identités constitutionnelles, régionales et culturelles pour formuler une définition de la citoyenneté et pour aligner les établissements d'enseignement nouveaux ou existants de façon à obtenir des « subjectivités scolarisées ». Les membres parlementaires ainsi que les associations du milieu de l'éducation et du milieu public ont compté énormément sur les notions de patriotisme, de progrès et de nationalisme pour sanctionner les demandes d'objectifs éducatifs nationaux tandis que les opposants ont cité fréquemment les différences constitutionnelles, culturelles et régionales pour critiquer leurs arguments. Cette étude porte sur la façon dont ces réformeurs ont établi le rôle de l'éducation dans la société et, plus précisément, le rôle de l'État pour former l'identité ou les identités nationale(s) par l'éducation. De plus, cette étude aide à comprendre pourquoi le Canada est un des deux seuls pays industrialisés de l'ouest à ne pas avoir un ministère national de l'éducation ou un bureau fédéral de l'éducation.

In 1919, the Ontario minister of Education boldly asserted that "the world today looks to the schools more than any other agency to heal and guard the past and to direct and stabilize progress in the future" (cited in Stamp 1982, 97). One year later, a member of the Canadian federal government declared in the House of Commons, "The task of Canadianizing the foreign-born is fundamentally and solely a question of education" (Meighen 1920). Given that, under the Canadian constitution, education falls within provincial jurisdiction, we might have expected the provincial minister of Education to trumpet calls for educational reform, but the second quotation-the ringing endorsement of the role of education in the "Canadianizing" of citizens, by a federal cabinet minister-signals a salient moment in Canadian educational, political, and cultural history.

This study of the debates in Canada about a national education bureau1 offers an opportunity to explore how various participants grounded their position in constitutional, regional, and cultural identities to construct a definition of what education was and to align new or existing institutions in such a way as to configure "schooled subjectivities."2 As we shall see, parliamentary members and educational and public associations relied heavily on notions of patriotism, progress, and nationalism to legitimize claims for national educational objectives; opponents frequently cited constitutional, cultural, and regional differences in rebutting their arguments. How these reformers cast the role of education in society, and, more precisely, the role of the state in shaping national identity/identities through education, underpins the central analysis of this study. Moreover, this study offers insights into why Canada is one of only two western industrial countries that do not have either a national ministry of education or a federal office of education.

By analyzing the debates over education, we can observe how political structures were subject to contestation and held multiple meanings. As American historian Carroll Smith-Rosenberg has claimed in her study of post-revolutionary debates over citizenship, to understand the links between politics and culture, scholars need to study not only the formal constitutions, but also "the constitution of new political subjects"; they "must move from political theory to cultural theory, from the history of political ideas to the history of political rhetoric" (1992, 848). As we shall see, a particular conflation of interests came together in the early twentieth century to promote a national identity in citizenship education programs across the country through the establishment of a National Bureau of Education.

Senator Rufus Pope, a Conservative, Protestant member of Parliament who represented the rural riding of Compton, Quebec (Parliamentary Guide 1919), set the tone of the debate when he introduced the first resolution on 30 April 1919, proposing "That there should be established in Canada a National Free Compulsory School System." Anticipating an adverse response, Pope attempted to mediate any counterattacks by issuing the proviso that he did not intend to trample "upon or affect the sensibilities of any particular people, class, nationality, religion or minority," despite the fact that he was "absolutely opposed to the recognition of minorities in any shape or form." Instead, in his prolonged speech, he explicitly claimed authority to speak for the entire nation. He characterized the lack of unity in the country by barkening to the divisive effect of the war when Quebec opposed the conscription of soldiers: "No man can travel throughout Canada without realizing that, in the first fifty years of our confederated life, we have failed to a great degree in creating that strong unanimity of sentiment which is so essential to the development of a country...." After 50 years, he declared, a great national cleavage existed and it was time to "consider the reasons why we have not succeeded in creating a more united Canada than we have at the present moment." In advancing his argument-which amounted to a blistering critique of education in Quebec-Pope sought to counteract his opponents' arguments by restructuring for himself a subject position as a native of Quebec, which he claimed allowed him the right to view things "without narrowness or prejudice one way or the other".

Not surprisingly Pope's nation-building enthusiasm was seen by French-Canadian members from Quebec as a ruse for anglophone Canadians to use schools to build a Canadian nation that threatened Quebec's distinctiveness. As Marcel Martel asserts in his study of French Canada, "A whole series of events caused the defining elites to question the foundations of the constitutional compromise that underlay the birth of the country." In Manitoba, for example, political authorities had ceased supporting denominational schools, and in 1890, discontinued the use of French in the courts and the legislature. As well, in 1905, the federal government did little to guarantee the rights of the Catholic minority in the constitutions of the newly created provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Managing your district's bus contractor - Student Transportation - schools

2007-09-11T05:29:00.000-07:00

Outsourcing student transportation can be successful when the relationship between the school district and contractor is given sufficient attention and understanding.

The shortage of qualified school bus drivers has strained contractual relationships, and has forced school administrators to spend more time actively involved in the transportation system. In addition, consolidation in the student transportation industry has fueled the perception that school districts have fewer contracting options.

The terms and conditions of a contract determine the level, style and quality of service. Transportation contracts should be based on thorough specifications, detailing expectations and needs.

When a school district becomes frustrated by the level of service, often the contractor is simply providing the services spelled out contractually. If necessary, contract terms can be modified through negotiation or rebidding. Any changes must be documented as an addendum to the agreement and consistently enforced.

Reporting Requirements

No one likes surprises in a contract. School districts should require ongoing communication through a combination of monthly written reports and periodic meetings between school district staff and company representatives.

Written reports should not substitute for personal contact. Periodic meetings should be used to discuss performance issues, future requirements and contract issues. The contractor should be required to make an annual presentation to the school board to provide an update on transportation issues, identify planned changes in operations and answer questions.

Although multiyear contracts between bus contractors and school systems are preferable for several reasons, both parties should look at the contract as being only one year in duration. This elevates the level of service and keeps all parties focused on ensuring that contract performance warrants a recommitment.

Ever-changing program demands, fluid demographics, modified regulations and cost pressures make transportation a dynamic function. Both parties must communicate their needs and interests and work cooperatively.

When relationships deteriorate to a point of bitter frustration, it typically results from unrealistic and unexplained expectations or insufficient or nonexistent communications.

Administrators have many other demands, meaning student transportation typically is out of sight and out of mind. The bus terminal is probably located elsewhere in the district, the employees work for someone else, and an existing contract is supposed to cover all events. The district's transportation operation may be the largest in the community, and the yellow buses are rolling billboards for the educational system. When problems arise, the administrator assumes the contractor can and will fix the problem.

Unfortunately, not all problems are easily solved. Nationally, a shortage of qualified bus drivers challenges almost every transportation system. Contractors have tried creative approaches to find and train drivers, but the supply of drivers does not meet the demand. As in any basic economic model, the equilibrium point between supply and demand is determined by price--or, in this case, the cost of labor.

As contractors run short of drivers, districts continue to demand a consistent level of service. However, unless the wage and benefit levels can increase to the point of bringing the supply and demand into balance, the contractor will not be able to continue to meet the district's expectations. To provide required services, contractors will incur labor cost increases that may exceed the amount of the contract with the district.

These issues do not develop overnight, but the effects can be surprising if the level of service is not discussed between the parties and if both parties do not attempt to understand the other's requirements.

The first day of school should not start with the contractor missing runs due to a "surprise" driver shortage, while service interruptions should not occur due to a labor stoppage that was unforeseen by the district.

At times, changes must be made in student transportation. This could be precipitated by the district determining that a new bid is required or by the contractor deciding that a new contract is necessary to meet operating or financial needs.

Regardless of the reasons, the key element to the decision process is a timely determination that a bid is necessary. To generate effective competition and to allow firms to properly begin a new contract, a bid must be issued five to seven months prior to the expiration of the contract, depending on the size of the transportation program.

Sometimes situations arise that significantly affect the ability of the school to offer and operate the programs they desire. For example, a driver shortage may mean that the contractor cannot offer extracurricular buses during the afternoon school-to-home runs. On a more severe note, a labor stoppage by the contractor s employees could have an impact on the operation of the entire school program.

Lowdown on loans: loans can be a practical, low-cost way to pay for college, but to stay financially afloat you can't afford to get in debt over your

2007-09-11T05:26:00.000-07:00

Waiting tables and working summers for a surveying firm gave David Hilmer a nice nest egg for college at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Although the money he saved was a good start, it was not enough. "After about a year and a half, I was scrambling--thinking how I was going to cover my dorm expenses and tuition," he recalls. Now working as the director of business development at Little Tornadoes, an Internet consulting firm in New York City, Hilmer looks back and says that student loans (a federal Perkins, Stafford, and a university loan) enabled him to graduate.

With the high cost of a college education today, it is no wonder students are relying more on loans than ever before to help them make ends meet, according to the College Board. The good news is that interest rates are currently at record lows of less than 3 percent on the Stafford.

To make smart decisions about borrowing, you still need to plan ahead now and understand your options when it comes time for repayment. Here are some simple guidelines that apply to the major federal loan programs--the Perkins, the Stafford, the PLUS--as well as independent bank loans.

Keep in mind that every dollar you borrow must be repaid, with interest, which can really add up over a 10-year (or longer) repayment term.

"It's easy to think a $200-a-month payment is not a big deal, says Hilmer "but those payments can take a big chunk out of your monthly income, and you're going to need to pay your bills."

To get some idea of how much is too much, you need to estimate how much you'll be able to pay back once you graduate. That involves estimating your future salary and expenses.

If you do wind up borrowing more than you can afford, you run the risk of defaulting, or failing to pay back your loan according to agreed-upon terms. These terms are specified in a promissory note, a legal document that binds you to make regular payments.

Default usually results after you miss payments for 180 days. Many defaulted loans are sent to collection agencies that may charge costly late fees and take money from your wages. Worst of all, a defaulted loan can haunt you later because it will be recorded as part of your credit history for seven years. Lenders refer to your credit history when you apply for any major loan.

"Credit bureaus keep close tabs on delinquencies," says Tom Lustig, vice president and director of marketing at PNC Bank. If lenders see you have a defaulted loan, they may deny you a mortgage, car loan, credit card, or personal loan, or charge a higher interest rate.

Most lenders provide students with charts to help track repayments. Keep in mind: If you can't make a monthly installment, immediately contact your lender or servicer (the company that owns your loan) to discuss the problem. Plus paying on time has further advantages--many lenders will give about a 1 percent discount to students who make.

Knowing the terms of your loan--the conditions by which you have borrowed and are obligated to repay the money--can help you avoid default. But first you should start by understanding some basic loan terms:

Grace period. A period of time--usually lasting six months after you leave college--when many student loans don't require repayment. After the grace period, a deferment or forbearance can temporarily suspend repayment.

Deferment. A period when a borrower who meets certain criteria may temporarily stop loan payments. Depending on your type of loan, the federal government may pay the interest on it during your deferment period. New borrowers might be eligible for a deferment if they are still enrolled in school half-time or full-time; unemployed; studying in an approved graduate fellowship or rehabilitation program for the disabled; or experiencing economic hardship.

Forbearance. The temporary suspension of repayment in cases of hardship. Anyone with student loans may claim forbearance for six months at a time, for up to a total of three years, but interest still accrues.

Loan consolidation. Combining several loans into one bigger loan from a single lender, which is then used to pay off the balances on the other loans. Consolidation can lower the monthly payments and extend the repayment period to a max of 30 years, but you'll pay more interest.

Opportunities in New MEDIA and Mass COMMUNICATIONS

2007-09-11T05:22:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, a radio-talk show host contacted me with a request to book a couple of student writers on his show, which often addresses issues related to colleges and universities. He hoped to interview students who had written controversial articles for my website, BlackCollegeWire.org. We complied eagerly. There was just one catch: The program isn't broadcast on terrestrial radio" as we know it, or even on satellite radio. It's broadcast online at PSiradio.com or downloaded via podcast.

This is just one example of how "new media" technologies, such as the Internet and portable digital or wireless devices, have changed the landscape of mass media and the field of mass communications as a whole.

A Google search turns up eight distinct definitions for "new media," ranging from "artworks that use multimedia... and computer technology," to "emerging digital/electronic communications forms." In any case, today's students preparing for any career in media should assume they will be working in a multimedia environment - and a rapidly changing one at that.

Remember when you purchased your first laptop with all latest bells and whistles only to find, a year or so later, that it was obsolete? Similarly, if you entered journalism or media programs four years ago, you may have thought you wanted to be a TV reporter or producer, or perhaps a newspaper or magazine editor or columnist, or a radio announcer. Maybe you were interested in graphic design, illustration, photography or video engineering for a mass medium. Four years later, those professions have metamorphosed into new forms, and you need to be educated and trained as a multimedia communicator.

"What happens," asks the website for the New Media Program at the University of California at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, "when distinctions between print and broadcast media fade away and a single reporter must combine video, audio, text and images to tell the story?"

TV reporters and newspaper columnists are now more likely to have blogs on their employers' websites, complete with video and audio clips. Print communicators also blog and now often carry digital cameras that shoot still and video images. Their stories are posted online within hours (or sometimes minutes) of being produced along with photos and video clips. Content may be produced, edited, distributed and "consumed" simultaneously in multiple formats as varied as audio podcasts, email or newsreader feeds, interactive forums, and live or on-demand streams delivered to computers, PDAs or even cellphones, as well as in newsprint and broadcast.

This doesn't mean that the bedrock skills imparted by traditional journalism and communications training are out of date. A strong command of language both spoken and written, the ability to research, digest and communicate information clearly and economically on a fast turn-around, and a familiarity with principles of publishing ethics and copyright may all be more relevant and in-demand than ever. However, finding gainful employment in media increasingly demands that candidates be able to marry traditional skills with some cross-disciplinary training and multimedia work experience.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the overall employment outlook for media-related occupations is a good news-bad news story. Consolidation and convergence among the large and more traditional organizations in the media and publishing industry has slowed job growth for such occupations as news analysts, reporters, and correspondents, and caused a decline for some, such as non-online broadcast announcers.

Nonetheless, for most media and mass communications majors armed with good training and updated skills needed for the shifting media landscape and its new digital tools, the underlying picture is less bleak.

If your goal was to become a graphic designer four years ago, you are now headed for a field that has become wholly digitized, so that designers with website design and digital animation experience will have the best opportunities and likely the highest salaries in the profession, according to the 2004 BLS analysis.

For print communicators, the BLS offered a similar outlook: "Online publications and services are growing in number and sophistication, spurring the demand for writers and editors, especially those with Web experience" and backgrounds in specialized areas such as science or business. Also proliferating are corporate and nonprofit vehicles outside the "traditional media" industries where communications majors can use their skills. Nearly every major corporation, for example, from pharmaceuticals to automotive, maintains a newsletter, brochures and annual reports, multimedia web channels, and online PR campaigns - often produced in-house and more or less professionally. Similarly, easier, cheaper publishing technologies have allowed small, highly targeted niche publications to flower, from multicultural and non-English outlets, to trade and hobby magazines, to "alternative" newswire and syndication services. Even as representation of African Americans has been spotty or sparse in mainstream news and entertainment media - in employment and community coverage - Black-owned and Blackoriented media companies have grown in number in recent years, with new media players like Black Planet and BlackAmericaWeb joining the more traditional BETs, Ebonys, or Black Collegians of the world.

Physiology Is a Stronger Predictor of Survival than Pathology in Fibrotic Interstitial Pneumonia

2007-09-07T04:52:00.002-07:00

The histopathologic pattern provides the most important prognostic marker for idiopathic interstitial pneumonia; however, studies have suggested that short-term changes in lung function may be more important. We investigated the prognostic factors for fibrotic interstitial pneumonia. The clinical features and follow-up course of 179 patients (131 with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and 48 with nonspecific interstitial pneumonia; 41 fibrotic types and 7 cellular) were analyzed retrospectively. The lung function indices improved or stabilized in most patients with fibrotic nonspecific interstitial pneumonia in contrast to the deterioration or stable condition of most patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The 5-year survival of patients with fibrotic nonspecific interstitial pneumonia (76.2%) was better than for those with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (43.8%) (p = 0.007). Multivariate analysis at the time of presentation revealed that pathologic pattern, age, and diffusion capacity had important prognostic implications. However, after 6 months of follow-up, changes in FVC, initial diffusion capacity, and sex were the only independent prognostic factors, with no additional prognostic information conferred by the histologic diagnosis. Our data confirmed the importance of physiological parameters including short-term change in FVC. However, at the time of diagnosis, histopathology was important for the prediction of prognosis and future change in lung function.

In 1994, Katzenstein and Fiorelli proposed the term "nonspecific interstitial pneumonia" (NSIP) to describe a subset of idiopathic interstitial pneumonia (IIP) that could not be classified into any of the other types of interstitial pneumonia. They subcategorized the disease into three subgroups depending on the relative amounts of interstitial fibrosis and inflammation (1). Subsequently a number of other studies showed that an NSIP pattern in a surgical lung biopsy provided important prognostic information compared with other IIPs (2-7). However, there was considerable overlap in outcome, especially between patients with fibrotic NSIP and those with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) (2, 3, 8). Nicholson and coworkers showed that the prognosis of patients with fibrotic NSIP was less favorable than previously thought (3). They reported that the 5-year survival rate of patients with fibrotic NSIP was about 45%, which was worse than that reported by Travis and coworkers (2), although it was better than IPF (3). Therefore, Latsi and coworkers combined the fibrotic type NSIP and usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP) into fibrotic IIP (8). Several reports, including that of Latsi and co-workers, suggested that physiological parameters, especially short-term changes, were important in determining the prognosis for patients with IIP (8-12). These data may raise questions about the necessity for a pathologic diagnosis by surgical lung biopsy in the case of fibrotic IIP. However, accurate clinico-radiologic-pathologic diagnosis is crucial, especially at the time of diagnosis for initial management of patients with IIP. We therefore compared the importance of pathologic patterns in the prognosis for patients with fibrotic IIP (fibrotic NSIP pattern and UIP pattern) with physiological parameters including short-term change of lung function. We also compared the prognosis for those patients with IIP, especially fibrotic NSIP, with those for patients with IPF. Some of the results of this study have been previously reported in the form of an abstract (13).

METHODS

Subjects

Subjects included 179 patients with idiopathic NSIP or IPF diagnosed by surgical lung biopsy from January 1990 to September 2002 at Asan Medical Center, a 2,000-bed university-affiliated tertiary referral center in Seoul, South Korea. Two lung pathologists (M.K. and T.V.C.) reviewed the specimens independently. If the opinions of the two pathologists were different (coefficient of agreement k = 0.59), a third opinion was sought and the final diagnosis was made in the context of clinicoradiologic findings. There were 207 patients with IIP who had had surgical lung biopsies. Twenty-eight cases were excluded because of a failure to obtain consensus between the pathologists (9 cases) or because the patients were diagnosed as having other diseases (19 cases). NSIP was subclassified into cellular and fibrotic types, according to the level of fibrosis and inflammation (1).

Methods Used

Clinical data were obtained from medical records and survival status was obtained from telephone interviews and/or medical records. The minimal amount of smoking for a smoker was 1 pack-year, and an exsmoker was defined as a subject who had not smoked for at least 3 months (3). Patients were excluded if they had taken drugs, experienced occupational or other environmental exposures, or presented evidence of collagen vascular diseases on the basis of a thorough history, physical examination, and serologic tests.

Cyber-democracy or cyber-hegemony? Exploring the political and economic structures of the Internet as an alternative source of information

2007-09-07T04:52:00.001-07:00

Although government regulation of the Internet has been decried as undercutting free speech, the control of Internet content through capitalist gateways--namely, profit-driven software companies--has gone largely uncriticized. The author argues that this discursive trend manufactures consent through a hegemonic force neglecting to confront the invasion of online advertising or marketing strategies directed at children. This study suggests that "inappropriate content" (that is, nudity, pornography, obscenities) constitutes a cultural currency through which concerns and responses to the Internet have been articulated within the mainstream. By examining the rhetorical and financial investments of the telecommunications business sector, the author contends that the rhetorical elements creating "cyber-safety" concerns within the mainstream attempt to reach the consent of parents and educators by asking them to see some Internet content as value laden (sexuality, trigger words, or adult content), while disguising the interests and authority of profitable computer software and hardware industries (advertising and marketing). Although most online "safety measures" neglect to confront the emerging invasion of advertising/marketing directed at children and youth, the author argues that media literacy in cyberspace demands such scrutiny. Unlike measures to block or filter online information, students need an empowerment approach that will enable them to analyze, evaluate, and judge the information they receive.

**********

According to figures provided by the U.S. Census Bureau (2001), more than half of school-age children (6 to 17 years) had access to computers both in school and at home in the year 2000 (57 percent). With some 17 million children using the Internet in some capacity, including email, the Web, chat rooms, and instant messaging (Silver and Garland, 2004, p. 158), the Census Bureau estimates that 21 percent use the Internet to perform school-related tasks, such as research for assignments or taking courses online.

While these statistics underscore the growth and popularity of the Internet, particularly in schools and educational institutions, concerns have grown about the "safety" of using computer-mediated communication technology. Since the Internet became a mass medium in 1995, parents and schools have approached online content with reservation. As such, politicians, educators, child advocacy groups, and, most importantly, the computer industry, have been vocal advocates for patrolling the Internet and censoring certain kinds of illicit or objectionable content. Beginning in the late 1990s, Federal Trade Commission member Christine Varney summarized the emerging concerns about online safety:

All of us agree that children's online safety concerns are real and
pressing and that we must support the involvement of parents
raising children in this new, digital age. We understand that we
must all work together--industry, law enforcement, educators,
advocates--if American families are to realize the potential of this
new medium for enriching the lives of our children and fostering
their future success. (Rubin and Lamb, 1997)

Starting in 1997, an Internet/Online Summit was held in Washington, D.C., to enhance the safety and benefits of cyberspace for children and families. Key political figures, such as former vice president Al Gore and former attorney general Janet Reno, joined parents, as well as politicians, law enforcement officials, and educational administrators, to launch a national public education campaign, "America Links Up: An Internet Teach-In," designed to help Americans understand how to guide kids online (Rubin & Lamb, 1997).

On October 21, 1998, former president Bill Clinton signed into law the "Children's Online Privacy Protection Act" (COPPA). This measure was enacted by Congress on April 21, 2000, to "prohibit unfair or deceptive acts or practices in connection with the collection, use, or disclosure of personally identifiable information from and about children on the Internet" under the age of thirteen (Grossman, 2000). Along this trajectory, Congress passed the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) and the Neighborhood Internet Protection Act (NCIPA) in December 2000, which required schools and libraries that receive federal money for Internet connections to adopt Internet safety policies in 2001. The proposed safety measures include usage agreements for proper student use of this medium, audit-tracking devices to supervise student Internet perusal, and software filtration devices designed to block inappropriate sites in schools (Trotter, 2001).

In 2002 the Bush administration proposed a "National Strategy to Secure Cyber Space," offering security recommendations for U.S. citizens, businesses, and organizations using computers (Carlson, 2002). Since then the Federal Trade Commission has offered testimony before special committees and the House of Representatives about online pornography through a series of "law enforcement actions against fraud artists whose deceptive or unfair practices involve exposing consumers, including children, to unwanted pornography on the Internet" (Federal Trade Commission, 2004, p. 1).

Student Loan Network Announces New Monthly Scholarship Opportunities

2007-09-06T05:49:00.000-07:00

ScholarshipPoints.com, a free service from the Student Loan Network, announces changes to the Scholarship program. ScholarshipPoints.com will continue to award a $1,000 scholarship every quarter -- but has replaced quarterly second and third place scholarships with a new monthly drawing for a $250 scholarship.

Students who sign up at ScholarshipPoints.com can start earning points toward the scholarship drawings. "Each month we offer opportunities to keep earning points -- through refer-a-friend programs, surveys and other promotions," said Joe Cronin, president of the Student Loan Network. "And, we've gotten such positive feedback from students and financial aid offices alike. It made sense to start doing monthly drawings in addition to a quarterly drawing."

In mid-July, ScholarshipPoints.com awarded the quarterly $1,000 scholarship to Brianna Morris, who is attending Community College of Beaver County. The scholarship will help her in reaching her goal of completing the Professional Pilot Program. July's scholarship winner will be announced later this month.

About Student Loan Network

Student Loan Network is one of the nation's fastest growing providers of student loans and related information. Since 1998 we have connected 25 million students and parents with over $1 billion in scholarships, grants and federal, private and consolidation loan funding. To help make the confusing and stressful financial aid process easier, the Student Loan Network also delivers helpful information, including the award-winning Financial Aid Podcast, a multitude of financial aid-related blogs and the monthly Financial Aid Newsletter.

Back to the drawing board: Congress tries to tackle reauthorization of the Higher Education Act … again

2007-09-06T05:34:00.000-07:00

Beware: reauthorization approaches. Institutions have heard this repeatedly for the past couple of years, but major systemic changes have yet to take place in higher education. What exactly is the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act? When will it really take place? And what will this mean for the financial aid programs that help your institution's students attend college?

Federal Law requires that the act be renewed--or "reauthorized"--every six years. The most recent reauthorization cycle was supposed to culminate in 2004, but Congress failed to pass legislation before it adjourned.

"Since we did not pass a bill last year, we had to start all over again. That means everything has to be " reintroduced and re-passed," said National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators President Dallas Martin in March at NASFAA's annual Leadership Conference. House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Boehner (R-Ohio) has promised completion by the end of the current 109th Congress in 2006.

GOP LAWMAKERS SUPPORT "REVENUE NEUTRAL" MEASURES

The Republican majority of the House education committee introduced in February the College Access and Opportunity Act (H.R. 609), a reauthorization bill intended to expand college access for low- and middle-income students. A similar bill was introduced last year; hearings were held, but it never came to a vote in the House.

This time around, Congress is focusing on several issues, including college costs and prices, access and affordability, and accountability. Changes proposed by Republicans include expanding Federal Pelt Grants for high-achieving, low-income first- and second-year students; providing year-round Pell Grant aid; and removing an incentive for colleges to raise tuition by repeating a federal rule that limits the amount of Pelt Grant aid low-cost institutions can receive.

However, Chairman Boehner has stated repeatedly that the committee intends to pass "revenue-neutral" legislation, with strategic, if small, program increases that are paid for through cuts to other programs, restructuring, and reforms. "Essentially there is no flexibility, and they will pay for any increases by cannibalizing good programs," Martin said.

The bill would also ease several restrictions currently placed on for-profit institutions. Specifically, it would eliminate both the 90/10 rule (which requires that institutions derive at least 10 percent of their revenue from funds other than Title IV aid), and the 50 percent rule (which mandates that schools deliver 50 percent of their instruction through non-distance learning methods). It also would allow for-profit institutions to compete with traditional institutions for campus-based aid, and specify that transfer-of-credit not be denied solely based on a school's accreditation.

The proposed GOP measure would permanently end a statutory provision under which nonprofit lenders that finance their loans using tax-exempt bonds receive a guaranteed return rate of 9.5 percent, although the bill does not totally close that loophole.

Moreover, it would also expand student loan relief for K-12 teachers of key subjects such as math, science, and special education, and expand opportunities for graduate study in these subjects.

NASFAA's Martin noted that this bill is essentially the same as the GOP-backed measure introduced in the House last year. "Looking at this bill, the same concerns we had last year are stilt there," Martin commented. "We in higher education are not looking for a Christmas tree to hang things on, but we do need legislation that meets the educational needs of students and the long-term needs of our country."

PRESIDENT'S BUDGET WOULD INCREASE PELL, SCUTTLE PERKINS

President Bush unveiled in February his discretionary budget request for fiscal year 2006, which would cut several longstanding aid programs in order to reallocate funds elsewhere in higher education.

The most controversial is a proposal to help pay for an increase to the need-based Federal Pelt Grant program by recalling the revolving loan funds used to finance the Federal Perkins loan program, essentially terminating the program.

The President's proposed fiscal year 2006 budget would also:

* Retire the $4.3 billion Pell shortfall, increase the Pell maximum by $100 annually over five years to $4,550, and add funding for minority-serving institutions.

* Create a $50 million Presidential Math and Science Scholars program, a $33 million enhanced Pell Grants for State Scholars program, and a $125 million Community College Access Grants program to foster dual enrollment for low-income and minority high schoolers who wish to take college courses.

* Provide funding at the current levels for Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (FSEOG), and Federal Work-Study.

* Terminate funding for Byrd Honors Scholarships, the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership (LEAP) program, GEAR UP early awareness programs, and portions of TRIO.

Money: WEALTH CHECK: The student life is over, but the pounds 28,500

2007-08-29T04:39:00.000-07:00

'I am frightened by how much I owe'

Although she is now 29, Ailsa Macfarlane still carries a hefty financial burden from her long-gone student days: debts of nearly pounds 30,000.

On top of undergraduate debts of around pounds 9,000, Ailsa, who lives in south London, ran up pounds 7,000 on a credit card, pounds 1,500 on an overdraft and took out a pounds 10,000 bank loan.

'I'm deeply in debt: as a student in London, the capital was very expensive to live in.'

But Ailsa, who earns pounds 25,000 a year as a business account manager, is trying to get a grip on her finances. Three months, ago, she consolidated her credit card debt, overdraft and bank loan into one larger pounds 19,500 loan with Lloyds TSB " repayable over eight years with an annual percentage rate (APR) of 7.5.

Ailsa pays back pounds 250 a month on her bank loan. Add to this the pounds 180 a month for her student loans, and she spends pounds 430 a month servicing her debt.

'I am frightened by how much money I owe to Lloyds TSB,' she says. 'Over eight years, I know I have to pay pounds 7,000 in interest alone " but this loan seems to be the only way I can manage my debts and still be able to afford to live and pay my bills each month.'

Her debt mountain has made it impossible for Ailsa to build up any savings or make any investments. She has no pension savings either, and her employer, a small firm, doesn't offer an occupational scheme.

Since moving to London as a student nine years ago, Ailsa has rented accommodation. For the past nine months, she has been living with her boyfriend, Alistair. They rent a flat, each paying pounds 475 a month plus bills.

'We've discussed buying together in the next couple of years, but I'm not sure how feasible this is,' says Ailsa.

She has no protection policies.

The cure:

Try to shorten the life of your loan

Ailsa's finances are ruled by her debt, says Philippa Gee of independent financial adviser (IFA) Torquil Clark. 'All [her] spare resources need to be ploughed into repaying this, especially as she has so many plans such as buying a house and starting a pension.'

Despite her position, Ailsa should try to find cash to fund a personal pension, says Ben Yearsley from IFA Hargreaves Lansdown. 'Even if it's only pounds 50 a month, the sooner she starts this, the sooner she can get tax relief and build a pension pot.'

DEBTS

Eight years is too long, and expensive, a repayment plan on the consolidation loan, says Ms Gee. She suggests that Ailsa think about repaying these debts more quickly.

To do this would involve trying to renegotiate her loan " shortening its life and paying higher premiums " either with Lloyds TSB or another lender.

But there are caveats, warns Simon Webster from IFA Facts & Figures.

Ailsa could make enquiries at other lenders and find a better APR " some internet deals offer rates as low as 5.6 " and cheaper monthly repayments, he explains. But before transferring the debt, she would need to check the size of the penalty at Lloyds TSB for repaying her loan ahead of schedule.

Mr Webster also warns her to watch out for offers of payment- protection insurance from the lender. This can add thousands of pounds to the cost of a new loan " as well as carrying exclusions that may leave Ailsa unprotected.

Since her pounds 9,000 student loans are not too expensive " with interest charged at 3.2 per cent - she doesn't need to worry much about these for now, he adds.

PROPERTY

Ailsa should forget about buying a home for the moment, says Mr Yearsley. 'As she has large debts and no savings, I think it would be a struggle.'

Ms Gee feels the same, although she suggests one option could be to go for a cheaper property outside London.

However, Mr Webster is more upbeat about the couple buying their own home " especially if family members can help with cash, a loan or a guarantee.

If they could afford pounds 1,000 a month " roughly what Ailsa and Alistair are paying in rent today " that would cover the interest on a loan of more than pounds 200,000, explains Mr Webster.

Several factors need to be considered first, though, he adds. 'Whether Ailsa would be allowed to borrow that much " and whether it would be a good idea " would depend on their joint credit rating, how stable she feels her relationship is, her boyfriend's earnings and her own attitude to risk.'

SAVINGS

Mr Webster says that while Ailsa needs to concentrate on getting rid of her debts, a small 'emergency fund' in a mini cash individual savings account (ISA) would be a 'wise move'.

He recommends she pay pounds 50 a month into a Halifax ISA paying 5 per cent.

RETIREMENT

Pension provision should be one of Ailsa's priorities, urges Mr Yearsley. 'As a rule of thumb, you should put half your age in as a percentage of your salary.'

He continues: 'At the present time I don't think she could afford this, as that would be almost pounds 300 a month. But she should look at putting something in " even if it is only pounds 50 or pounds 100 a month.'

Embrace the Peer Factor

2007-08-29T04:36:00.000-07:00

The AOA can ease your transition from student to practicing O.D. Be sure to get your member rewards.

Graduation is Just arour|d tne corner for the class of 2005. No more lectures, tests or late nights in preclinic labs preparing for practical examinations. But it's also time to start taking control of your finances for this next stage of your life, which may include repaying student loans. How could you possibly have enough money left to join the American Optometric Association (AOA)? My answer is: You can't afford not to.

When you join the AOA, you're contributing to the advancement of optometry in a tangible way. The dollars you invest support optometric advocacy at the federal and state levels. Legislators willingly listen to - and act on the recommendations of - the practicing O.D.s who make up the majority of the AOA. Whether it's lobbying for expanded prescribing authority in a single state or promoting the optometrist as the primary eyecare provider to consumers, industry and the media, the AOA is your voice to the government and the public.

MEMBERSHIP PERKS

You may be thinking, "What can AOA membership do for me?"

When you join the AOA1 you'll have access to Optometrys Career Center, an online matching service with detailed information about practice opportunities. You'll also be eligible for the AOAAdvantage student debt consolidation program, which allows you, your spouse and employees to lock in fixed interest rates and take advantage of attractive borrower benefit programs.

As a member, you'll receive free registration to Optometry's Meeting, the joint AOA Congress and American Optometric Student Association (AOSA) Conference. While there, you'll have the opportunity to attend continuing education courses, visit the expansive exhibit hall and network with O.D.s from around the country.

MAKE YOUR MOVE

How do you join the AOA? As an AOSA member, you receive complimentary AOA membership until the end of the calendar year in which you're licensed, not to exceed 18 months after graduation. As soon as you're licensed, contact the AOA at (800) 365-2219, ext. 238, or MemberServices@aoa.org. Include your home and business addresses and indicate the state in which you're practicing. The AOA will notify your state association, which will send you a membership packet. As a recent graduate, you qualify for reduced dues, but submit your information quickly to change your status from new graduate member to licensed O.D.

SAFE INVESTMENT

Becoming an AOA member is like starting an investment plan. The most difficult part is getting started. However, once you begin, you'll realize the true value of an AOA membership. You're not only helping advance the profession - you're also gaining access to a wealth of resources that can help your career grow and prosper. Good luck in your career... and join the AOA today!