The Student Loan Network will be a sponsor at PodCamp NYC, and I’re going to have a table on the Mezzanine. Our goal for the table is to make it useful to the community, so here’s what’s happening in our little six foot patch of land.

8:30 AM – 12:00 PM: Mashboard! I’re going to leave a whole bunch of Post-It Notes and markers on the table. Leave notes about impromptu “Lightning Talks”, meetups, need a ride/give a ride, etc. on our table, along with the appropriate contact information.
8:30 AM – …

FAP501: Free Stuff Friday, Mortgage fallout, Harvard, Golden Brick, Jessica Mellott
Student Financial Aid News
+ Inside Higher Ed: Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee, on Thursday followed in the heels of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) in sending sweeping requests to student loan providers, seeking information about their financial relationships with colleges. Miller sent his letters to Sallie Mae, Citibank/the Student Loan Corporation, Bank of America, Wells Fargo & Company, and JP Morgan Chase & Company.
+ …

FAP500: Celebrating Episode 500, Lender Call Centers, Prepaid Plans, Full Tuition Scholarship, Matthew Ebel
Student Financial Aid News
+ It’s episode 500!
+ From BankNet 360: Student debt has reached $6.4 billion in New Zealand and is growing by $771 million a year, according to the country’s Union of Students’ Associations.
+ A co-president of the union, Joey Randall, is now calling for the government to provide living allowances for students. The government, which stopped charging interest on student loans last year, has done nothing to address high tuition fees and costs of living, …

FAP499: How to set up your own scholarship fund, preferred lender lists under fire, Nita Whitaker
Student Financial Aid News
+ Quiet day on the wires
+ More on preferred lender lists from Minnesota
+ From NASFAA: Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson announced Friday a series of inquiries exploring the factors an institution considers when creating a preferred lender list.
+ Swanson expressed concern that “a ‘preferred lender’ list implies that the college has negotiated the best terms from these lenders on behalf of their students,” but “this may not always be the case.”
+ Swanson …

I can see why people might be intimidated by the process of setting up a scholarship. As soon as you Google it, you find entries talking about needing $25,000 or more to endow a chair or fund or something like that. Colleges have pages posted about donations that are in the five and six figure range, but the reality is that they don’t want to administer smaller awards.
The reality is much simpler: just about anyone can create a private scholarship for any dollar amount.
The reason a lot of scholarship companies, …

FAP498: 5 steps to get more financial aid from your school, EFP lawsuit, Hitachi grant, Emelee
Student Financial Aid News
+ From Inside Higher Ed: Education Finance Partners, which offers private student loans and is facing a planned lawsuit from New York State Attorney General Andew Cuomo, on Monday announced changes in its program for reimbursing colleges for a small share of the loan volume the company receives. Cuomo has charged that these payments — which he calls “kickbacks” — violate students’ rights, something the company and the colleges involved have denied. …

FAP497: Birth control, EFP lawsuit, differential tuition, disabled student scholarships, Mail Bag, Jessica Mellott
Student Financial Aid News
+ Shooting some new video today – got a ton of video to do this week
+ From NASFAA: Last week, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo released preliminary results of his office’s nationwide investigation into alleged abuses of preferred lender lists. Yesterday he held another press conference announcing his office’s intent to file a lawsuit against Education Finance Partners (EFP), a company offering private student loans that are not subsidized or guaranteed by the …

Pretty spectacular results!
US Rock #11
Canada Rock #10
#53 Canada Overall
US #99 Overall
Netherlands Rock # 2!
Sweden Rock #7!
Germany Rock #12
Germany #73 Overall
Holland #15 Overall
Norway #55 Overall
Norway #10 Rock
Switzerland #66 Rock
Sweden #95 Overall
Portugal #31 Rock
Italy #52 Rock (Was Higher Yesterday)
Finland #83 Rock (Higher Yesterday?)
Denmark #83 Rock
Austria #15 Rock

Here are the final statistics, web-based, from yesterday. From Feedburner’s metrics of the Bum Rush web site:

Here are the final Urchin-based statistics of the Buy Now page:

That number up top is 13,877.
Overall, not bad. As mentioned earlier, we should have some initial numbers from IODA soon; final purchase data (including people who bought directly from iTunes without using the affiliate link) could take some time.
Also, if you’re a researcher interested in crunching the data yourself, here’s a ZIP file of the clickthrough tracker statistics. It’s 817 KB, so make sure …

FAP496: Free Stuff Friday on personal finance, Cuomo sues EFP, BRTC followup, Andy McKee
Student Financial Aid News
+ How did BRTC go? Not #1, but in top 10 in a few places around the world.
+ After all is said and done, probably 10,000 purchases or so
+ Scholarship yield $4,500 – about a year of community college or in state tuition for a public 4 year college
+ May be up to a month before we get full purchase data details
+ There is money on the table – make sure you’re signed up …