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."

Lockheed Teams with IRS, Dept. of Education to Aid Students

Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] software developers are helping the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Education make life a whole lot easier for students and their families applying for Federal Student Aid.

Every year millions of prospective college students complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form in their pursuit of funding assistance. The form requires personal financial data that is only available through the IRS. In the past, an applicant had to apply to the IRS, obtain the information, and then submit it along with the application. This took time and additional effort.

To simplify this process, Lockheed Martin worked with the IRS to create a link on the DoEd FAFSA Web page. The developers used Web services to build, test and deploy a shared data system that makes available the data transfer of 14 key pieces of information needed by Department officials to make a determination. To ensure privacy, the process includes the requirement for complete authentication before the data can be transferred. The new process has reduced application time from days or weeks to minutes.

“This project is a perfect example of how our partnership with two government agencies is helping them provide complete citizen service,” said Rocky Thurston, director of financial services. “The result of this initiative has been a faster, easier process for the applicant, the transfer of data that has clarity and is completely accurate, and a demonstration of the possibilities that exist through data sharing.”

Financial-Aid form for Education Loan

For high school seniors applying to college — and students already in college — the time is now to fill out financial-aid applications. The FAFSA, the most important part of the application, is due in California on Tuesday.
It stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The FAFSA is the most important document for anyone seeking scholarships, grants or loans to help pay for college. It looks complicated. Why should I fill it out?
A completed FAFSA is required to receive almost every type of financial aid. It's required for federal aid such as Pell Grants, state aid such as Cal Grants and aid that comes directly from colleges and universities.
And you have to fill one out each year that you want financial aid. What's different about the FAFSA this year?
The online application has been shortened so that if you answer "no" to one question, you don't have to answer any related questions because it skips ahead to the next section.
"It's going to be a great deal easier for students to use," said Carol Mills, a counselor at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento. "It doesn't take as long."

Shorter College To Host Community-Wide Financial Aid Workshops

The Shorter College Office of Financial Aid will offer free community-wide financial aid workshops during the months of February, March and April.

All parents and students are welcome, including high school seniors and students already enrolled in college, including those attending Shorter College and other colleges or universities.

The sessions will take place on Feb. 18, March 30 and April 13 from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. and will be held on the main campus of Shorter College in the Sheffield-Thompson computer lab located on the second floor.

Financial aid advisors will be on-hand to help students and parents file 2010-2011 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms and offer financial aid advice.

Those wishing to attend should bring a completed 2009 income tax return for both the student and parent, along with an assigned FAFSA PIN.

To reserve a seat for a session, please send an email to financialaid@shorter.edu.

Reservations are appreciated but not required.

Founded in 1873, Shorter College is a Christian college committed to excellence in education.

Shorter will transition to university status on June 1, 2010.

Shorter College’s first free financial student aid workshop will be held on Thursday, Feb. 18, from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m.

For more information, visit www.shorter.edu.