FAP787: Using LinkedIn To Build Your Personal Network
News You Can Use
+ A session I did about LinkedIn, from PodCamp NYC.
+ Find me at http://www.linkedin.com/in/cspenn
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+ Financial Aid Podcast Show Notes at FinancialAidNews.com.
+ Free scholarship search secrets eBook at StudentScholarshipSearch.com/ebook
+ Private student loans
+ Student …

FAP786: How much student loan debt is too much?
Click here to download the MP3 file
Student Financial Aid News
+ Chronicle: If Congress wants more low-income students to enroll in college, it should provide larger Pell Grants to the poorest of them, says a new report out today.
+ The report, “Window of Opportunity: Targeting Federal Grant Aid to Students With the Lowest Incomes,” asks lawmakers to give up to $750 in additional aid to students whose families are so needy that their expected contribution to tuition is a negative number. Under current …

FAP785: The Missing Free Stuff, Student loan troubles
Listen now [audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/financialaidpodcast/20080428.mp3″>MP3 file
Student Financial Aid News
+ Back from PodCamp NYC
+ Chronicle: Rarely does a president devote a national address to a higher-education issue; several experts could not remember one since a televised speech on student aid by President Nixon. But on Saturday, Mr. Bush reaffirmed recent comments by other administration officials on the need to protect student loans from the national credit crunch. And the president even more strongly supported a bill the House of Representatives passed this month.
+ That bill (HR …

On April 1, I posted up a meditation session as the April Fool’s Joke, and I wanted to repost it as a serious show. Give it a try – and please let me know how it works for you.
Direct link to the MP3 file

FAP784: Local Scholarships, PLUS Loan Borrower Protection Act
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Student Financial Aid News
+ Inside Higher Ed: Momentum has been building for the federal government to take increasingly aggressive steps to wade into the student loan markets, even amid continuing disagreement about whether and/or how serious a crisis there really is. At the urging of lenders, lawmakers have moved from merely seeking to ensure that there are alternative providers of student loans, so that students do not lose access to college, to calling for outright financial assistance …

NCHELP just published this gem:
Yesterday, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), senior member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, along with a group of Senators introduced S. 2985, the “PLUS Loan Borrower Protection Act,” to ensure that parents can still qualify for federal PLUS loans in the event that they have had trouble making mortgage payments. When applying for a PLUS loan, borrowers must submit financial information required for a credit check. Under current law, a borrower can be deemed ineligible for a PLUS loan if they have …

FAP783: Special Episode – Earth Day
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It’s Earth Day, a celebration of all things environmental. Here at the Financial Aid Podcast, we celebrate TWO kinds of green – green living, and the green color of money. Environmentalism is profitable and cost reducing, and today’s show features ways that you can be environmentally sound AND put more money in your pocket.
I’ll be mentioning a lot of products you can buy today. In the spirit of transparency and full disclosure, products will be linked up to Amazon …

FAP782: What to do if your financial aid check bounces
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Student Financial Aid News
+ From the Boston Globe: Checks issued by private student loan guarantee agency are bouncing.
+ Teri spokeswoman Beth Bresnahan called the glitch “regrettable,” explaining that the group’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization had frozen its assets, including money earmarked for checks already in the mail. Teri is still in the process of contacting students; it said it will make good on the bounced checks and cover any fees or interest penalties students incurred …

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The recent announcements by some major lenders that companies are withdrawing student loans from colleges based on low graduation rates is likely to impact community colleges the most. Community colleges tend to have lower graduation rates than 4 year institutions. This is an incredibly dangerous and harmful long term precedent.
A personal story about this that may be worth considering, especially for admissions counselors. I’ve been practicing the martial arts for 18 years now, and as …

Last night, I made a brief appearance on WCVB 5 about the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority story that’s been all over the Boston media.
[youtube”>MP3 filehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWoNMC87yk8&fmt=18[/youtube”>MP3 file
Tune into today’s Financial Aid Podcast episode to learn what you should be doing if your lender discontinues service.