Daily Aid 62: Tuition rising, Buying a MacBook Pro

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Daily Aid 62: Tuition rising, Buying a MacBook Pro

8 January 2009 1 views No Comment

Daily Aid 62: Tuition rising, Buying a MacBook Pro

Student Financial Aid News

Students at private schools like Wilson could have greater difficulty affording college than public college students, according to Christopher Penn, chief media officer for Student Loan Network, which offers Stafford, Plus and private loans.

Across the country, eligibility requirements for private loans are very high, he said. They will eventually become easier to get, but not for the foreseeable future.

Private loans are almost mandatory for private school students, because the tuition is too high to be covered by a Stafford loan.

In-state public college students are in a much better position, because they should be able to rely mostly on federal and state aid, Penn said.

Commentary

Private student loans aren’t exactly mandatory, but certainly if a college costs $57,000 per year and the maximum amount of a Stafford loan that a first year student can get is $5,500, there’s a bit of a gap to fill. Right now, scholarships, parent PLUS loans, and private student loans can all contribute to filling that gap. Even some public, in-state schools can challenge wallets – here in Massachusetts, tuition for the state university is $10,232 plus room and board of $8,500 for a total of $18,732 per year sticker price – at in-state rates, no less.

The reality is that college is getting more expensive despite plenty of talk about making it more affordable and accessible.

What should you be doing? Filing your FAFSA. Getting scholarships. Working as you can.

Thanks to Rob Luff at the Public Opinion for giving me a call about financial aid issues.

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Buying a MacBook Pro – New Blog Series

On Tuesday at MacWorld, Apple debuted the new MacBook Pro 17″ laptop. This thing is massive, gorgeous, and fully decked out, obscenely expensive. I want one. Obviously, in this kind of economy, that sort of purchase would be incredibly frivolous, especially since the 15″ MacBook Pro I have now works just fine. That said, I still want one.

Here’s where things will get interesting for both you and I – I’m going to start a series right here on the Financial Aid Podcast about how I’m going to earn the $5,766 for the machine (yes, it’s that expensive) and lay out the steps I’m taking as I do them so that you can follow along and raise your own funding, whether it’s for beer money, tuition, to pay off loans, or perhaps even buy your own MacBook Pro aircraft carrier-sized laptop.

To get started, I’ll be using the affiliate programs from Shareasale [disclosure: paid link”>MP3 file. To follow the exact steps in this series, you or a friend will need some skills in PHP, MySQL, search engine optimization, and a few other things we’ll do as we go along.

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