FAP617: Free stuff Friday, Spring Break, end of summer, party photo tips, Audiopharm
Student Financial Aid News
+ Inside Higher Ed: Connecticut’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, on Monday announced that three colleges had agreed to settlements over possible conflicts of interest and consumer protection laws in receiving payments from a lender in return for being listed as a “preferred lender” to students and parents. While the colleges — Fairfield and Sacred Heart Universities and Trinity College — denied wrongdoing, they agreed to the settlements. The lender in question was the College Board.
+ …

FAP616: Expert Interview with Dr. Paul Wrubel of TuitionCoach
Today’s show features an expert interview with Dr. Paul Wrubel, cofounder of TuitionCoach.com. Paul has spent his entire career in education. Throughout his professional life, Paul has valued education and the family. He often describes college as a “celebration of the family.”
For the past two decades, Paul has provided college admissions and funding advice to over 4,000 students and families. A former Principal of Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California, Paul has also served as President of Cabrillo Unified School District …

FAP615: Two Years After Hurricane Katrina
Two years ago, on August 29, 2005 at 6:10 AM, the costliest attack on American soil in history occurred, killing 1,836 Americans and costing over $80 billion in damages. It was not an act of war, nor an act of terrorism. It was a hurricane named Katrina.
Katrina began a new chapter in American history, and regardless of your political beliefs, no one can deny that the storm made an impact that America will deal with for decades to come.
Rather than look at a retrospective, today …

FAP614: Top 10 Back to School Financial Tips, Emma scholarship, mail bag, David Ippolito
Student Financial Aid News
Top 10 (+1) Back to school financial tips
1. You don’t need a credit card on campus.
2. Make a budget BEFORE the semester begins. Figure out what kind of money you’ll be able to earn and what you’ll be spending – and stick to it.
3. Team up with a roommate, dormmate, or friends to enforce each others’ budgets. The power of the group works.
4. Go for a lot of walks on campus. You’ll meet a …

FAP613: Preparing for an economic downturn, Wisconsin budget, National Security Scholarship, Becca Loebe
Student Financial Aid News
+ NASFAA: “The wide gaps in educational attainment between people from low-income backgrounds and wealthier ones tend to lead policy makers to a logical conclusion: It’s about the money,” according to Inside Higher Ed. “But a new study questions that thinking. The study, conducted by researchers at Berea College and the University of Western Ontario and available (for $5) through the National Bureau of Economic Research, examines the extent to which ‘credit constraints’ – a …

Economic Armageddon: The Housing Bubble Bursts
What scares me? Well, white papers like the one written by the Center for Economic Policy and Research’s co-founder Dean Baker: Prospects for the Stock and Housing Markets. In this chilling paper, which reads like an economics horror story, Baker details the impact of the housing bubble’s bursting, along with the subsequent liquidity squeeze and credit crunch.
Executive summary: expect GDP to take a hit, expect TRILLIONS of dollars on paper to vanish, expect a recession, possibly a severe one, and expect everyone in America to …

FAP612: Student Loan Radio 40: Inspiration
Tonight’s theme is inspiration, songs to help you get motivated, songs to help push away the negative and reach out to everything that’s good around you.
Listen live:
[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/financialaidpodcast/20070826.mp3″>MP3 file
+ Catie McKinney, Waiting for the Light (Unplugged)
+ Audiopharm, The Groove
+ Beatrice Ericsson, Put a Little Love
+ Black Lab, See the Sun
+ Kevin Reeves, Shine
+ “Daichi” (mp3)
from “Domo 10th Anniversary Collection”
by Kitaro
(Domo Records) More On This Album
Promo
+ Becca Loebe CD release party 9/15 at the Lizard Lounge, Cambridge
Reminders
+ Private student loans
+ Stafford loans | Other federal student …

FAP611: Free stuff Friday, weather scholarship, death and loans, Jeriko
Student Financial Aid News
+ BusinessWeek profile is out!
+ TIME Magazine: Teresa Huber co-signed a Sallie Mae loan with her daughter, Sheena, to finance an education at Spencerian College in Louisville, Ken. Last January, Sheena, 22, died of lung disease just one semester before completing her degree. After sending her daughter’s death certificate to the loan company, Huber received a one-sentence letter in response, which stated that the loan must still be re-paid. Though she has taken her case to bankruptcy court, …

FAP610: What to do if you lose your job, beer and fish scholarship, Anji Bee
Student Financial Aid News
+ BankNet360: Mortgage lender First Magnus Financial Corp. filed for bankruptcy Tuesday, the 14th mortgage operation since December to fall prey to the deepening credit crisis.
+ Once the nation’s 16th largest mortgage company, Tucson, Ariz.-based First Magnus originated more than $17 billion in home loans from January to June.
+ NASFAA: One out of five undergraduate private loan borrowers did not take advantage of federal student loans that offer lower interest rates and more …

How many SL’ers have been following the tale of Ginko Financial’s collapse? The short version: Ginko Financial was an investment bank in the unregulated economy of Second Life. Depositors could deposit money with Ginko and receive returns on their deposits that vastly outpaced returns in real life. On or about August 2, Linden Labs ordered a closing of all casinos that used Lindens as a currency for gambling, effectively outlawing gambling in world. This, combined with trading problems on the World Stock Exchange, led to a depositor run on Ginko …