FAP360: Building your personal brand with GMail and LinkedIn, Princeton, Fulbright Scholars, Scholarship Points, Uncle Seth

Student Financial Aid News
+ Princeton ends early decision
+ Seven Congressmen have proposed amendments to New York’s student financial aid program.
+ The group, all democrats, has made three proposals. One calls for a $1,050 increase in the maximum Pell Grant amount, to $5,100. A second would lower interest rates by half, to 3.4%. Nationwide, the interest rate on federal Stafford loans was raised to 6.8% from 5.3% in July.
+ The final proposal would make college tuition partially tax-deductible.
+ Columbia University plans to replace loans with grants for all undergraduates with family incomes of up to $50,000, Bloomberg reported. Columbia’s move follows similar announcements from other top universities.
+ State universities produce far more corporate CEOs than do Ivy League institutions, according to an analysis published in The Wall Street Journal.
+ Wal-Mart Stores CEO H. Lee Scott, for example, went to Pittsburg State University in Kansas, Intel CEO Paul Otellini to University of San Francisco and Costco Wholesale CEO James Sinegal to San Diego City College.
+ This information should help allay the anxieties of many parents and their college-bound children who believe admission to a top-ranked school with a powerful alumni network is a prerequisite to success in the upper echelons of business management. Today’s crop of chief executives are, of course, at least a generation older than current college students, but they are in the position to hire and say they don’t favor job candidates with certain degrees.
+ A former U.S. Education Department researcher climbed out of the shadows Monday and identified himself as the whistle blower behind revelations in 2004 that some providers of student loans were taking advantage of a loophole in federal law that allowed them to continue to make loans for which they were guaranteed an interest rate return of 9.5 percent. At a news event Monday at the New America Foundation, Jon H. Oberg, a former chief fiscal officer for the State of Nebraska, aide to former Sen. J. James Exon (R-Neb.), and staff member at the Institute of Education Sciences, said he had done research on the practice before his superiors at the department reassigned him; he continued the work on his own time, providing information to Congress and to the department’s inspector general. The event came as the inspector general prepares to release an audit that is expected to show that Nelnet, a Nebraska-based lender, received many millions of dollars in overpayments of federal funds, charges that Nelnet disputes.

Scholarship Update
+ Scholarship Points is open – only 12 days left until the first drawing
+ Fulbright Scholars Program
+ Sponsored by the US Department of State
+ 6,000 scholarships for study abroad
+ Worth over $250M
+ Paid for with your tax dollars
+ Deadline is September 26
+ Apply through your school
+ Details at our free scholarship search site

Jobcast
+ Building your brand – lessons I’m learning
+ Go listen to CC Chapman and Mitch Joel present at PodCamp – it’s not just for podcasters
+ Develop your personal network
+ I’ve become a HUGE fan of LinkedIn
+ Use GMail – it tracks who you send messages to
+ It’s a boring version of MySpace
+ Gather testimonials – nice things to have
+ Position yourself as an expert in something – doesn’t matter what – yes, even porn
+ Laura Allen talked about developing your personal 15 second pitch

Podsafe Music
+ Uncle Seth, To Be An Angel
+ Music via the Podsafe Music Network

Reminders
+ Private student loans
+ Federal student loans at StaffordLoan.com
+ Consolidate your student loans at StudentLoanConsolidator.com
+ Financial Aid Podcast Show Notes at FinancialAidNews.com.
+ The Financial Aid Podcast is a publication of the Student Loan Network.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Email me at financialaidpodcast {at} gmail {dot} com, visit http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com. Add me to your iTunes by visiting http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com/subscribe/

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