Tag: financial aid


“College isn’t for us”

Posted on October 23rd, 2013

"As a 13-year-old he had already accepted the idea that higher education simply wasn’t for low-income blacks and Latinos of South Central Los Angeles. That struck me as weird. At my school the goal of receiving a college education was the norm. " -- Skylar Myers

For wealthy students who attend quality high schools where attending college is the norm, their only struggle is choosing which college to go to. But for poor students, college isn’t even in the picture. Why don’t low-income students go to college? Despite steps that have been made to increase access to higher education for low-income students, […]

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How to manage your financial aid award

Posted on October 9th, 2013

If you’re a college student on financial aid, it’s not easy to stay within a budget.

Most colleges put college students’ financial aid awards toward tuition and fees first and then give the remaining money to the student as a financial aid refund in one or two installments a semester. This makes it difficult for students to manage their money and avoid blowing it all before the semester is over.

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Plan for college early to maximize financial aid

Posted on September 30th, 2013

This video from Reuters TV offers a year-by-year plan for high school students and their parents to help them prepare for college. It includes some great tips on saving for college and how to get the most financial aid possible.

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8 tips for taking out student loans

Posted on September 26th, 2013

Are you planning on taking out student loans to pay for college? It’s important to have a plan in place before taking on too much student debt. Remember, unlike other forms of debt, student loans can’t be discharged if you declare bankruptcy.

When choosing a college, it’s important to keep future student debt in mind. Forbes advises that students should keep college debt below their expected first year’s salary. While this may seem impossible given the rising cost of college, it demonstrates the need to be diligent in your college search to find a school that offers significant financial aid while providing a quality education.

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Score high on your SAT, apply to college for free

Posted on September 25th, 2013

Want to apply to college, but worried about all those application fees adding up? The College Board wants to help you.

If you got a high score on your SAT or PSAT, you may soon be receiving a package that will make it free to apply to 6 colleges of your choice, the New York Times reports. The College Board is sending fee waivers to about 28,000 seniors who scored in the top 15 percent of test takers and whose family is in the bottom quarter of income distribution.

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Public universities giving wealthy more financial aid at expense of poor students

Posted on September 12th, 2013

"The whole system is constantly moving up, going upstream to get better and better students, and get students who can pay. It all looks great for the press release. But you’re systematically leaving people behind." -- Anthony Carnevale

A new investigation from ProPublica has found that public colleges and universities are increasingly giving less financial aid to poor students in favor of wealthier ones. Even through the economic recession, public schools continued to favor high-income students in favor of students who need the money the most. The chart below shows that from 1996 through 2012, […]

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American higher education’s “dirty little secret”

Posted on September 4th, 2013

"The dirty secret of American higher education is that student-loan interest rates are almost irrelevant. It’s not the cost of the loan that’s the problem, it’s the principal — the appallingly high tuition costs that have been soaring at two to three times the rate of inflation, an irrational upward trajectory eerily reminiscent of skyrocketing housing prices in the years before 2008." -- Matt Taibbi

President Obama’s recent signing of the bill to keep student loan interest rates low is a move in the right direction toward helping students afford college. But as we’ve discussed, it’s not enough. In the video below from Democracy Now, Rolling Stone editor Matt Taibbi discusses how the high price of U.S. college tuition is the real […]

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2013 Best Bang for the Buck Colleges

Posted on August 26th, 2013

We sometimes hear from students and parents asking if college is even worth attending in today’s era of astronomical costs and a still sluggish-economy. For many, college is a great investment that pays off in the long run by giving students opportunities to enter certain career field and make more money over their lifetimes. But for some people, it’s not worth the cost because they choose the wrong school, never finish their degree, or end up paying too much.

Instead of asking whether college is worth it, Washington Monthly argues that students and families should be asking themselves, “What colleges will charge people like me the least and give me the highest chance of graduating with a degree that means something in the marketplace?” So they created a formula to help college students and families figure it out.

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President Obama’s College Affordability Plan

Posted on August 24th, 2013

In his recent trip to nearby Buffalo, Syracuse, and Binghamton, President Obama revealed his new plan to make college more affordable.

This handy infographic from the White House explains the major reforms and initiatives the President hopes to advance in order to hold colleges accountable for providing a quality education, encourage schools to use technology to cut costs, and make it easier for borrowers to repay their student loans.

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President Obama unveils plan on college affordability

Posted on August 22nd, 2013

"Whether we're talking about a 2-year program, a 4-year program, a technical certificate, the bottom line is that higher education cannot be a luxury. It's an economic imperative. Every American family should be able to afford to get it." -- President Obama

In his visit to Western New York today, President Obama unveiled a series of higher education reforms aimed at making college more affordable. A new way of ranking colleges His ideas include creating a new rating system for colleges that would judge schools on measures like tuition, graduation rates, debt and earnings of graduates, and […]

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