FAP897: Finding a new job, financial aid after job loss, free stuff
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Weekly Financial Aid Roundup
Massachusetts College Goal Sunday in review.
Sunday Night Financial Aid event.
Scholarship Update
The 11th Annual National High School Poetry Contest is now accepting submissions. This year’s scholarship prizes (12) range from $100 to $1000. We also name up to 100 Honorable Mentions and hundreds …

Daily Aid 73: Student loan industry news
Student Financial Aid News
There’s been a lot of talk about education dollars in the stimulus package, from additions to the Pell Grant to changes in subsidies for student loan companies. From the New York Times:
One provision, which was sought by the student lending industry and went unmentioned in early Congressional summaries of the stimulus package, would temporarily increase subsidies to banks in the guaranteed student loan program by tying them to a new index, partly because recent federal intervention in the credit markets has …

Daily Aid 72: Saving money with commodities
Student Financial Aid News
From NASFAA:
“After a year of riding high, educational endowment investments began a downward spiral in the 2008 fiscal year, and the first half of 2009 was particularly brutal, according to two new reports released Tuesday,” Inside Higher Ed reports. “In a joint survey, the Commonfund Institute and the National Association of College and University Business Officers found that college endowment returns dropped by 22.5 percent in the first six months of the 2009 fiscal year, which began July 1 at most …

Daily Aid 71: How to find a job in a tough economy
Student Financial Aid News
In a sign of how dire things are becoming in higher education, Forbes magazine comes out swinging against college education being worth it and Brandeis University announces its intent to shutter its art museum and selling off its 6,000 piece art collection to raise funds, the institutional equivalent of a yard sale, I suppose.
This is both stunning and also a vitally important lesson in finance for everyone, not just universities. My opinion? Brandeis’ move is a …

Daily Aid 70: How to change your financial aid in event of job loss
Focus on Financial Aid
I’m tempted to stop doing the news, primarily because it seems to be re-runs. Scholarships depleting funding, student loans hard to get, economy headed south. So instead of rehashing the same news with different names and locations, I thought I’d focus on a question that came up often during yesterday’s College Goal Sunday event.
Let’s say you had a decent paying job for most of 2008 but lost your job late in the year or …

Massachusetts College Goal Sunday 2009 Early Report
Another College Goal Sunday has come and gone in Massachusetts, and each year brings its surprises and changes. With a longer FAFSA and a more uncertain economy, we’d anticipated a larger crowd at the Framingham site, and we weren’t disappointed. A full complement of parents, students, and families all showed up on a brisk, cold Sunday afternoon for financial aid form help.
Some differences from years past – more people showed up for the full presentation, but very few of them went to the computer …

FAP896: Credit cards, jobcast, mail bag, TONS of free stuff
Click here to download the MP3 file
Weekly Financial Aid Roundup
Major changes to credit cards including student credit cards coming as soon as 90 days away.
The usual roundup of diminishing funds.
Also, W-2s and 1099s should be in, so get your taxes done and get your FAFSA filed.
Oh yeah, and new President of the United States.
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Jobcast
Doing something different with your resume.
News You Can Use
Go grab our old meditation episode if you missed it last …

Daily Aid 69: Jobcast, student loans, micro-resume
Student Financial Aid News
From Inside Higher Ed:
This year’s freshmen are about as likely to rely on family resources as first-years did in 2001, but they’re also turning to self-sufficiency: 49.4 percent of freshmen say they plan on getting a job to meet their college expenses, another all-time high.
In other words, “It’s more, and,” says Sylvia Hurtado, professor and director of the University of California at Los Angeles’s Higher Education Research Institute, which administers the survey. “They’re using everything they can. They’re using loans and …

Daily Aid 68: Student credit card changes coming up
Student Financial Aid News
The Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) revealed recently that it anticipates a 1.7% drop in giving to higher education, some of which funds scholarships, a significant change from a trend of 7% annual increases.
Again – if you’re not already submitting scholarship applications by the bucketload, you risk being left out in the cold as increased demand and decreased supply will deplete scholarship funds this year.
Also, I note that all of my W-2s and other tax documents …

Daily Aid 67: Dealing with economic stress
News You Can Use
In tough times, pressure can get so tough that you start to make bad choices, choices that under different circumstances you’d never consider. This might be falling for a scam (most scams rely on desperation to make outrageous claims seem rational), becoming addicted to something as an escape from pressure, even doing something insane like violence towards someone you care about.
So how do you deal with economic stress? You deal with it in the same way you deal with being lost …