The cost of a college education is rising every year. This year the average cost of a private four-year school was $26,273, up 4.4% from last year, and the average cost of a public school was $7,020, up 6.5% from last year. For most families, paying for college is a struggle. If you feel like you do not have all the pieces of the financial aid puzzle, you are not alone.

FAP906: Parent loans, tax refunds, free stuff, Black Lab
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Weekly Financial Aid Roundup
Breaking – the Department of Education has canceled PLUS loan auctions.
Through a notice in the Federal Register of March 3, 2009, the Department established an April 1, 2009 deadline for the submission of pre-qualification requests under the Competitive Loan Auction Pilot Program for Parent PLUS Loans, relating to loans to be made for loan periods beginning on or after July 1, 2009 and ending on or before June 30, 2011. In order for …

FAP849: MEFA Private Student Loan troubles, dwindling scholarships
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Student Financial Aid News
+ MEFA shuts down lending for the fall semester – see the video from WGBH, MEFA Student Loan Troubles
+ 40,000 students, parents, and families, over $500M
+ If you had MEFA student loans in the past, or were planning to take out a MEFA private student loan, the Student Loan Network may be able to help – visit www.StudentLoanNetwork.com
+ A disturbing trend I don’t have metrics for yet – the number of scholarships that are …

FAP848: How to shop around for student loans
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Student Financial Aid News
+ NY Times: Banks struggling to recover from multibillion-dollar losses on real estate are curtailing loans to American businesses, depriving even healthy companies of money for expansion and hiring.
+ Two vital forms of credit used by companies — commercial and industrial loans from banks, and short-term “commercial paper” not backed by collateral — collectively dropped almost 3 percent over the last year, to $3.27 trillion from $3.36 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data. That …

FAP829: GI Bill expansion, pirated textbooks, mail bag
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Student Financial Aid News
+ Chronicle: College students are increasingly downloading illegal copies of textbooks online, employing the same file-trading technologies used to steal music and movies. Feeling threatened, book publishers are stepping up efforts to stop the online piracy.
+ One Web site, called Textbook Torrents, promises more than 5,000 textbooks for download in PDF format, complete with the original textbook layout and full-color illustrations. Users must simply set up a free account and download a free software …

FAP805: Selling names, FAFSA EFC, MN SELF Loans
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Student Financial Aid News
+ Two blog posts over the weekend for you to check out
+ Yesterday we presented the Veterans Administration list of educational benefits for surviving dependents of active duty service members killed in action
+ Also had a blog post on staycationing, some tips on how to do it right
+ Inside Higher Ed: The College Board is experimenting with allowing admissions offices to obtain the names of potential students from low-income backgrounds in a program that …

FAP791: Skyrocketing meal plans, PLUS loans, loan indexes
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Student Financial Aid News
+ Chronicle: Students are likely to see a sharp increase in the cost of on-campus meal plans this fall, as rising food prices have sent some college food-service operations into deficits and have forced many to get creative with their fixed budgets. As the cost of food has soared, many dining halls have focused more on reducing portions and less on eliminating popular dishes.
+ Rich Neumann, director of dining services at Ohio University, said …

FAP789: PLUS Loan Moral Hazards, Free Stuff Friday
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Student Financial Aid News
+ NASFAA: HR 5715 approved – going through final phases now
+ Increase Annual and Aggregate Stafford Loan Limits
+ The bill would increase the following loan amounts for loans first disbursed on or after July 1, 2008:
+ Increases the additional unsubsidized Stafford annual limits by $2,000 for independent undergraduate students, and for dependent undergraduate students whose parents cannot borrow PLUS, but appears to reduce the additional unsubsidized limit for teacher certification to $6,000 for “undergraduate” …

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 …

FAP777: Birthday, Sallie Mae Student Loan Consolidation, HELOC
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Student Financial Aid News
+ Happy Student Loan Network anniversary Monique Leonard!
+ The Financial Aid Podcast celebrates 3 years on the air!
+ Hat tips to Mitch Joel, Erik & Diana, and pretty much my entire address book for this story:
+ Chronicle: Sallie Mae (ticker: SLM) announced today in a letter to colleges that it would no longer offer student loan consolidation under the federally guaranteed loan program. Students typically consolidate their loans after they graduate, combining loans from …