FAP636: Today is not my birthday, UBS, Grace Potter

Student Financial Aid News
+ NASFAA: “The $85-billion student loan industry is looking toward its next battle in the U.S. Congress – one that could be for its very survival – as President George W. Bush on Thursday signed legislation slashing federal subsidies to the troubled sector. As important as the bill-signing ceremony was to lenders and to their critics, what comes next could be even bigger,” according to Reuters. “Should Democrats make major gains at the polls next year, they are likely to mount a direct challenge to the federally guaranteed student loan program that is central to the business models of most lenders, say some industry analysts.”
+ Parent PLUS loans
+ Federal student loan consolidation
+ UBS announced the departure of its investment bank head as it warned that it has written off billions of dollars on fixed-income assets, making the Swiss banking group the biggest casualty so far of the turmoil in the global financial markets. (ticker: UBS)
+ The bank said it had written down its fixed-income portfolio by SFr4bn ($3.4bn), mainly because of losses on US subprime mortgage-related securities, triggering a third-quarter loss of SFr600m-SFr800m.
+ The losses far exceed those reported so far by other investment banks. UBS said Huw Jenkins, who runs the investment banking business, would step down and that Clive Standish, group chief financial officer, would retire.
+ What does this mean for you? Continued downward pressure in world financial markets will continue to mean tougher financing for housing-related stuff – and that means that home equity and other forms of education financing may continue to be tougher to acquire
+ Consider Parent PLUS Loans
+ Brown Daily Herald: $160,000 …so as to end up flaccid, immobile, alone on the carpet of a dorm room, shirtless, wheezing, intellectually menopausal, cutting lines on an iBook with a pre-paid Discover card, watching consecutive hours of user-gen- erated porn, in the dark, in a hoodie, apolitical, remorseless, eating salt-and-vinegar potato chips from a bag without a napkin: like some hero, pretending to be otherwise, on a Wednesday, during discussion section.
+ What is the value of a college education? Listen to other interview subjects talk about this topic in our Financial Aid Expert Interviews.

Scholarship Update
+ Daniel Kovach Foundation Minority Student Scholarship
+ We’re giving away $1,000 this year to a minority college student this year. Eligibility Requirements: Candidates for our minority student scholarship must meet the following criteria
+ U.S. citizen;
+ 3.0 GPA;
+ Currently attending full-time in post-secondary education (undergraduate or graduate); and For this scholarship, we define ‘minority’ as someone of one of the following ethnicities:
+ Black
+ Hispanic
+ Native American
+ Pacific Islander
+ December 1, 2007 deadline
+ Details on our free college scholarship search site

Cover Your Assets
+ More than a few people were posting birthday wishes this morning as soon as I logged on. That’s very kind of everyone, and I appreciate it… but it’s not my birthday.
+ October 1, 1975 is relatively close to my birthday, but not in fact my birthday. I use it online in lots of places because it’s convenient, easy to remember, and most importantly, it allows me to know which companies online have compromised my privacy.
+ Date of birth is one of the holy trinity of identity fraud. Name, date of birth, and social security number will get you VERY far as an identity thief. Combine it with an address, and you’ve got just about everything you need. It’s also a highly-prized piece of marketing data.
+ Do you trust social networking companies like MySpace and Facebook to not resell your information? I certainly don’t. I wholly expect them to compromise my privacy and then cite some obscure clause buried deep in the terms of service that allows them to do so. I trade with them. You can compromise my online privacy and resell my data, and in return, I’ll give you bad data. We’re both happy that way, and chances are your marketing partners won’t know the difference anyway.
+ Is it my intent to deceive my online friends? Not at all. It’s to deceive the companies that aggregate personal data online – including the major social networking services. Hence, thanks to everyone for the UnBirthday wishes.
+ What are YOU telling data aggregators?

Podsafe Music
+ Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Ain’t No Time

Reminders

+ Private student loans
+ Stafford loans | Other federal student loans
+ Student loan consolidation at StudentLoanConsolidator.com
+ FAFSA tutorials and free help
+ Financial Aid Podcast Show Notes at FinancialAidNews.com.
+ The Financial Aid Podcast is a publication of the Student Loan Network.

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