FAP842: Illegal downloads of textbooks, Free Stuff Friday

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FAP842: Illegal downloads of textbooks, Free Stuff Friday

18 July 2008 1 views No Comment

FAP842: Illegal downloads of textbooks, Free Stuff Friday

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Student Financial Aid News
+ Boston Globe: Faced with soaring prices for textbooks, cash-strapped students have discovered a tempting, effective, but illicit alternative – pirated electronic books, available for free over the Internet.
+ It’s not just textbooks that are being downloaded improperly. Ed McCoyd, director of digital policy at the Association of American Publishers in New York, said a survey in May located about 1,100 titles available illegally online, including novels and books on current events.
+ But textbook piracy is particularly seductive, McCoyd said, because students are often hard-pressed to pay for academic books that can cost more than $100, three times the price of most other books.
+ Well duh. College is more expensive than ever, the economy’s in the toilet, and every other expense is through the roof. What did you expect?
+ The Student Loan Network does not condone infringement of intellectual property, but stay tuned in August for our cheap textbooks eBook
+ Inside Higher Ed: Undersecretary of Education Sara Tucker’s plan, students would find out almost immediately after submitting their much shorter federal student aid application — truncated to just 9 questions from the current 102 — exactly how much federal grant, subsidized and unsubsidized loan and tax break funds they would qualify for, based on their adjusted gross income and number of family members. (Right now students find out at that stage, usually in January or February, only how much their family is expected to contribute, which may discourage rather than encourage students to go to college, Tucker said.) The awards would be indexed based on an as-yet-undetermined formula — something like the average cost of attendance at a four-year public institution, for instance — that would essentially set a maximum amount of federal aid for which a student could qualify.
+ The sources of federal aid would be greatly streamlined. Federal grant aid, which now flows through about a dozen programs (and rising), would be consolidated into just the Pell Grant Program, providing an additional $1.7 billion that would increase the maximum grant by $370, Tucker said. (No Perkins Loans, no Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, no SMART Grants.) What the student loan program would look like is unclear, Tucker said, given the recent turmoil in that sphere. Work study and education tax breaks would continue to be part of aid packages, the latter particularly for upper-income students.
+ Still some work to be done, but that’s some progress

Scholarship Update
+ Show Us Your Art Scholarship
+ Submit a picture of a drawing, painting or other mixed media project of your original work for a chance to win $1,000 scholarship. Deadling is July 23, 2008. No purchase necessary. Open to anyone who is a resident of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia or Canada (excluding Quebec) has access to the Internet, and is 13 or older at the time of entry.
+ Details at our free college scholarship search site
+ Plus, embarrass yourself for $1,000 with our Scholarship Idol contest

Free Stuff Friday
+ Borders free 12 oz beverage with cafe purchase
+ Pill pockets for pets
+ Degree for men
+ Clorox for colors
+ Free sample stuff like this is ideal for dorm rooms
+ YouTorrent legal torrents
+ My favorite iPod Touch and iPhone apps
+ Facebook, Tap Tap Revenge, Mocha VNC, MyStreets, Shakespeare, Instapaper, Last.fm, Pandora, MySpace, Twitterific, Epocrates, and REMOTE. zOMG.
+ Google Elections Video Search gadget
+ 20 healthy foods under $1

Free Song of the Week
+ A tribute to Heath Ledger’s Joker
+ Madsumo, There’s So Many Ways I Can Kill You

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