With no show last Friday due to travel, I wanted to take some time to answer the mailbag rather than make people wait.
Carol writes:
I just read your e-book on finding scholarships. My son is finishing his sophomore year in HS. Is it really appropriate to be applying for scholarships now, when he hasn’t even applied yet to college and doesn’t know where he is going? I didn’t realize they awarded scholarships to younger students. Carol in NH
Even if the scholarships aren’t necessarily open, it’s a great idea to identify ones …

FAP912: National sales tax, student loan consequences, Rich Palmer
Click here to download the MP3 file
Weekly Financial Aid Roundup
Last Friday, the credit card bill was signed into law by President Obama. Farewell, student credit cards as we know them.
California’s kind of imploding, budgetarily-speaking.
Consequences of CCRAA and anti-FFEL legislation surfacing now.
Figuring out that you can’t spend what you don’t have, Congress looks at a national sales tax to make every part of your life 10% more expensive.
Scholarship Update
We’re nearing the end of the month. Make sure you’re a participating member of Scholarship …

Daily Aid 115: How much to borrow in student loans, selective service question
Student Financial Aid News
From the New York Times:
They bought into the notion that if they went to college — never mind the debt — their degree would lead to a lucrative job. And repaying their student loans would never be a problem. But the economic crisis has turned those assumptions on their ear as thousands of recent graduates have been unable to find jobs or are earning too little to cover the payments for loans that are sometimes …

Daily Aid 114: Sallie Mae Federal Student Loan Proposal
Student Financial Aid News
From InsideHigherEd:
Sallie Mae (ticker: SLM), which as the country’s largest student loan provider has a lot to lose from the Obama administration’s proposal to eliminate the Family Federal Education Loan Program, is floating an alternative that would save the program but cut its costs significantly. In a letter to sent to its college customers, the lender outlined a plan that would entail permanently extending the emergency programs that Congress put in place in 2007 to ensure the continued availability …

Daily Aid 112: Comparing private student loans and student credit cards
Student Financial Aid News
From the Chronicle:
College students are using credit cards more than ever before, according to a survey of private-student-loan applicants released today by Sallie Mae, the giant student-loan company. Students with credit cards have an average of 4.6 of them, the report says, and half have four or more cards. The median credit-card debt is $1,645.
Ninety-two percent of respondents with credit cards said they had used them to pay for some kind of college expense. Thirty percent said …

Daily Aid 111: How to increase your education tax refund
Student Financial Aid News
From NASFAA and the Seattle PI:
“In the wake of the governor’s proposal to raise college tuition by 30 percent over two years, University of Washington students and administrators are trying to find ways to blunt the financial impact on families,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports. “One possible solution is federal money. The economic stimulus plan President Obama signed in February expanded tax credits to low- and middle-class families who are paying for higher education. ‘That’s the magical one,’ UW spokesman …

FAP905: Free healthcare, appealing for even more financial aid
Click here to download the MP3 file
Weekly Financial Aid Roundup
Breaking: updated rules for appealing for financial aid.
Scholarship Update
We gave away $10,000 this week. Jonathan J. Olson – University of Iowa was drawn. Here’s the catch: Members of Scholarship Points have to confirm that they’ve won. If you don’t respond in 3 days, we move to the next runner up.
Also this week, a Hispanic MBA scholarship.
Scholarship Points Instructions
Are you a Scholarship Points member? In today’s show, get a Points code for 20 Scholarship …

Daily Aid 104: Student loan default rate secret
Student Financial Aid News
From Inside Higher Ed:
As Congress prepares to take up their 2010 budget blueprints, supporters and critics of President Obama’s proposal to eliminate the Family Federal Education Loan program are ramping up their arguments for and against the plan. The Consumer Bankers Association has attracted more than 4,000 college financial aid administrators, parents and loan industry officials as signers of a petition asking lawmakers to sustain the competition between the lender-based guaranteed loan and the competing direct loan programs. The heads …

FAP904: FFEL, student credit cards, making money with Amazon, free stuff
Click here to download the MP3 file
Weekly Financial Aid Roundup
The consequences of eliminating FFEL – some predictions.
Eliminating FFEL – more commentary.
Scholarship Update
Our $10,000 scholarship… next week!
Scholarship Points Instructions
Are you a Scholarship Points member? In today’s show, get a Points code for 20 Scholarship Points by subscribing to the podcast and listening to the episode. Subscribing is fast, easy, and free.
If you have iTunes:
http://www.financialaidnews.com/itunes
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http://www.financialaidnews.com/googlereader
If you subscribe by email:
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Remember, the points code is in the show itself, so …

Daily Aid 102: Repaying student loans, mortgage rates, mail bag
Student Financial Aid News
From NASFAA and BusinessWeek:
“Applebaum, a 35-year-old attorney in New York, started a Facebook group in January called ‘Cancel Student Loan Debt to Stimulate the Economy,’ fed up with news reports about bank executives spending millions to redecorate their offices and receiving hefty bonuses,” BusinessWeek reports. “By the end of the second week 2,500 people had joined, and the group now has more than 138,500 members, many of whom are pressing their representatives in Congress for legislation that would …