FAP476: Social media and new media resume, Stanford in the news, Mellon Mays Fellowship, Matthew Ebel

Student Financial Aid News
+ On Wednesday, Stanford University announced changes in the way they treat the home equity of students’ families, and while they have not gone public until now, leaders of a group of elite private colleges confirmed that they too had recently changed the way they consider home equity. In both cases, middle class families could find themselves paying several thousand dollars less than they do now to have their children attend some of the most prestigious colleges in the country.
+ Officials who are making these changes say that they represent much-needed relief for middle class families, especially those who bought homes 15 or more years ago and have seen their values skyrocket to make them millionaires on paper, but not necessarily with incomes or bank accounts to match.
+ At Stanford, the change concerns the ceiling placed on the home equity that counts as family wealth. Up until now, home equity went into the formula up to two times family income. That ceiling will drop to 1.5 times family income — a change that by itself will probably mean that most families will have to pay about $2,000 less to send their children to Stanford. Additions to scholarships will further cut the family cost.
+ Colleges and universities took in $28 billion in charitable contributions in 2006, up 9.4 percent from the year before and yet another record high, the Council for Aid to Education reported in its annual survey.
+ Gifts from alumni and other individuals propelled the increase, rising by more than 18 percent and 14 percent, to $8.4 billion and $5.7 billion, respectively. Taken together, giving by alumni and other individuals accounted for just over half of the total contributions to higher education, according to the survey, “Voluntary Support of Education.”
+ The surprisingly large increase in giving this year was driven in large part by huge fund raising campaigns at the wealthiest institutions; half of the overall growth in donations was accounted for by the gains for the top 10 institutions. Stanford University, which finished a major campaign for undergraduate education and began a $4.3 billion campaign that would be the largest ever in higher education, easily outdistanced all other colleges and universities with its $911.2 million take.
+ It appears those “I’m a Mac/I’m a PC” commercials have struck a chord with someone at Wilkes University. The Pennsylvania institution announced today that it plans to get rid of all its Windows-based computers in the next three years and replace them with Macs.

Scholarship Update
+ Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship
+ College juniors
+ For increasing diversity in underrepresented fields
+ US Citizen
+ In pursuit of PhD
+ Repayment of up to $20,200 in student loans
+ 2,500 MMUF fellows around the country
+ $50,500,000
+ Preference given to students working on honors projects
+ Details at our free college student scholarship search site

Jobcast
+ Resume 2.0 example
+ Guided tour of the social media resume
+ Why an SMR?
+ Much bigger, broader picture of who you are than a sheet of paper
+ You don’t need to be an expert – I did this in Google Pages

Podsafe Music
+ No PMN today, so something from the archives
+ Matthew Ebel, Drive Away Live

Reminders

+ Private student loans
+ Stafford loans | Other federal student loans
+ Student loan consolidation at StudentLoanConsolidator.com
+ FAFSA form online filing at FAFSAonline.com
+ Financial Aid Podcast Show Notes at FinancialAidNews.com.
+ The Financial Aid Podcast is a publication of the Student Loan Network.

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