One diploma and a whole lot of loans

In 1992, Congress increased the amount of money a student can borrow from the federal loan program with the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. The act also enabled students defined as "in need" easier access to funding. Now we see student loans dominating the higher-education industry and accounting for 50% of all financial-aid packages.

According to FinAid.org, the average range of tuition inflation is normally 8% annually, and prices have not fallen or stabilized once since 1977, regardless of economic climate. In 2004, the Census Bureau released a report saying private university and college tuition are "up 93 percent from 1990." This symptom may be attributed to cheap and accessible money, and it is becoming an issue now because tuition is still rising but wages have been flat for a decade.

The Department of Education reports having a $63.7 billion budget in appropriations for 2010. It has also received $96.8 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The department's website states that "department programs also provide grant, loan, and work-study assistance to more than 14 million post-secondary students." That is roughly 4 million short of every college student in the country. Does this mean that only 22% of students in the United States have adequate means to pay for college? Based on America's economic model, this statistic should theoretically be impossible. This means that over 3/4 of Americans attending higher-education institutions are "in need."

A small, for-profit college in DeLand

Angley College, a small, for-profit college in DeLand, has been unable to pay some employees for work as far back as February, and the college's owner is blaming the former president for the financial problems.

About half of the school's work force of 100 at the start of the year has left. New student recruiting is down about 80 percent, Joseph Angley says, claiming many of the college's problems date to the hiring of Raymond Nunziata Jr. as president and chief executive officer in June 2008.

Nunziata, who was fired in October 2009, is the defendant in a civil lawsuit filed last month by Angley College in circuit court. In the suit, Angley alleges Nunziata spent more than $500,000 on raises and bonuses for himself and other workers, unauthorized car and mortgage payments, worthless computer purchases from a company he co-owned and deficient construction work he awarded to a friend and business partner.

As a consequence, college vendors are owed more than $400,000. Nunziata had assured the board those bills had been paid, the lawsuit contends. Nunziata could not be reached for comment.

Additionally.

Debate increasing on student aid

Today, he has that degree, but it came at a cost of more than $80,000 in student loans. Graduating last year into a down economy, the job he has now doesn’t have much to do with what he studied.

Pontiff’s predicament is one faced by a growing number of students, according to new research from the College Board, the organization that runs the SAT and other college-prep tests. About 17 percent of students nationally are taking on student-loan debt of more than $30,500, more than they may be able to repay in full.

Pontiff, who expects to be paying his loans for as long as 30 years, says he wants to share his story so others can learn from it.

“I just assumed that because it was a school loan everything was going to be OK, the payments were going to be reasonable,” said Pontiff, 28, who now lives in Baton Rouge and works as a salesman for a computer company. “I went to school to better myself, and I feel like I’m not in a better position.”

Financial aid night

Chipola College will hold a Financial Aid Evening Workshop on Tuesday, May 11, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Financial Aid Office, in the Student Services Building.

The workshop is scheduled to give those individuals who can’t leave work during the day an opportunity to seek assistance with their financial aid paperwork. Efforts will focus on new students enrolling at Chipola and helping students and parents complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

Applicants need to bring copies of the parent and applicant’s 2009 tax forms, W-2 forms, and other un-taxable 2009 income documentation such as child support received and paid out. Other helpful items to bring include driver’s license and social security card for student and parent. Staff members will provide each person with individualized assistance.

Dr. Jayne Roberts, Dean of Enrollment Services, says, “This event is designed to help students with their college finances for Fall 2010 so they will be ready to learn instead of being preoccupied with how to cover college costs.”

For more information, contact the Financial Aid Office at (850) 718-2366 or visit them online athttp://www.chipola.edu/financialaid/.

You can open above above URL for chipola college financial aid or you can open

Chipola College will hold a Financial Aid Evening Workshop on Tuesday, May 11, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Financial Aid Office, in the Student Services Building.

The workshop is scheduled to give those individuals who can’t leave work during the day an opportunity to seek assistance with their financial aid paperwork. Efforts will focus on new students enrolling at Chipola and helping students and parents complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

Applicants need to bring copies of the parent and applicant’s 2009 tax forms, W-2 forms, and other un-taxable 2009 income documentation such as child support received and paid out. Other helpful items to bring include driver’s license and social security card for student and parent. Staff members will provide each person with individualized assistance.

Dr. Jayne Roberts, Dean of Enrollment Services, says, “This event is designed to help students with their college finances for Fall 2010 so they will be ready to learn instead of being preoccupied with how to cover college costs.”

For more information, contact the Financial Aid Office at (850) 718-2366 or visit them online athttp://www.chipola.edu/financialaid/.

For more information: http://www.estudentaid.com/

Financial Aid 101

Millions of high-school seniors should hear in the next few weeks about college admissions.

With tuition, room and board and other fees topping $50,000 annually at some private schools, many families are just as worried about that second letter—the one that tells the student how much financial aid they will receive.

We recently spoke with Anna M. Griswold, assistant vice president for undergraduate education and the executive director for student aid at Penn State University, about financing a college education. Here are excerpts from that conversation.

Q: What happens when students receive a college acceptance letter or email?

A:Typically at public universities, the aid package and the acceptance letter don't come together. Someone might be accepted before they have completed the FAFSA [Free Application for Federal Student Aid] and applied for aid.

Q: What should students and their families do after they've received notification from colleges about their aid packages?

A:Find out the process to apply for scholarships at this school and others. Some schools say they will meet full need, others don't.

Families need to get a sense of what to expect and get a real estimate of what they'll be paying out of pocket.

House Passes Final Health Care And Student Loan Bill

The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday put the finishing touches on a sweeping $940 billion health-care overhaul, passing important tax and Medicare changes to a broader measure that became law earlier this week.

By a 220-207, the House passed the supplemental bill, which rewrites several provisions of a wider health-care bill signed into law by President Barack Obama on Tuesday.

The legislation also includes a drastic shake-up of the student loan industry, which bans private lenders from originating student loans. The move had been fiercely opposed by banks and other student lenders.

The bill of fixes was already approved Sunday in the House, but it required another House vote because Senate Republicans successfully argued that two minor student-loan provisions should be struck from the measure.

Senate rules attach special requirements to bills considered under budget reconciliation--a fast-track legislative tactic that was deployed by Democrats to pass the bill.

Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin ruled early Thursday that the two provisions must be stripped from the bill, after Republicans pointed out that they would have minimal revenue effect and were therefore extraneous.

Because the bill was changed in the Senate, it had to bounce back to the House for the second vote. The bill, removed of the two provisions, was passed in the Senate earlier Thursday by a 56-43 vote.

The votes culminate a precarious, but ultimately successful strategy put into motion after Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate with the January election of Sen. Scott Brown (R., Mass.).

While the larger health-care bill had already been approved in the Senate before Brown's victory, the second, smaller bill was devised to accommodate changes sought by House Democrats to the original bill.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that, together, the bills will extend insurance coverage to 32 million Americans.

Perhaps most notably, the bill passed Thursday would scale back an excise tax on high-cost health insurance plans and delay its effect until 2018. Another provision would make the legislation's subsidies to purchase private insurance more generous.

With the loss of a Senate seat in the Massachusetts special election, Democrats currently hold a 59-41 majority in the Senate, while 60 votes are needed to break a filibuster. So they hatched a plan to pass the second bill under budget reconciliation, which allowed them to bypass a filibuster and pass the measure by a simple majority of 51 votes.

The reconciliation bill closes a politically unpopular gap in prescription drug coverage under Medicare, the federal health insurance program for seniors.

College aid more student-friendly

Starting this fall Pell Grants for middle- and lower-income college students may increase by $200 to a maximum of $5,550, and up to almost $6,000 in 10 years, if the U.S. Senate passes the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act this week.

The government is expected to use an estimated $36 billion in savings to increase the Pell Grant amount so students will rely less on loans they have to pay back.

Margo Wagner, a Purdue University senior who receives a Pell Grant, said additional funds are always appreciated by cash-strapped students but she questions if the overall cost is worth it.

"I definitely think $200 for everyone does not help," said the forestry and natural resources major. "Some of my books have cost more than that. I'd rather they put more effort into providing bigger grants for needier students. Spreading all this money around just makes it thin."

Nonetheless, financial aid directors at Purdue and Ivy Tech Community College say the increased funding will lessen the burden of working students and those in need of loans.

"We do have some students who can get the Pell Grant and not need to take out a loan," said Beverly Cooper, financial aid director for Ivy Tech's Lafayette region. "The $200 increase will mean they will need less loans."