Posted by admin on September 19th, 2008
Legislation that seeks to protect college students from lending abuses while boosting student aid was approved by Congress on Thursday.
The bill, which would require lenders and colleges to adopt strict codes of conduct, passed the Senate 83-8 after the House voted 380-49 for the measure.
Once signed into law by President George W. Bush, the bill would ban lenders and colleges from offering or accepting payments or gifts in exchange for making loans, a response to scandals uncovered last year involving kickback schemes and conflicts of interest between lenders and school officials.
“We got rid of cronyism, kick backs and sweetheart deals,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat who took over leadership on the bill after education committee chairman Sen. Edward Kennedy was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Other features of the bill include increased funding for graduate study at institutions that primarily serve minorities and new scholarship programs and support centers for military veterans.
Pell grants that go to low-income students, would increase to $6,000 from $4,800 for 2009, and to $8,000 for 2014.
The bill follows other legislation passed during the last 10 months aimed at overhauling the student loan industry.
Posted by admin on September 15th, 2008
It was announced recently that 8 of the top student loan organizations would adopt a code of conduct when qualifying and funding college students for student loans.
Seven direct-to-student lenders, Nelnet Inc., Campus Door Inc., GMAC Bank, NextStudent Inc., Xanthus Financial Services Inc., EduCap Inc. and Graduate Loan Associates are donating an estimated $1.4mm to help educate students and their families on loan practices helping to eliminate the bait-and-switch tactics, higher-interest private loans and marketed products that appear to be federal loans.
The new code of conduct bans practices including:
* Using logos that make mailings appear to be from the federal government.
* Paying students to get their friends to take out loans.
* Offering prizes such as iPods and gift cards to induce students to take out loans with a particular lender.
* Advertising interest rates that are not available to a majority of borrowers.
We hope that these codes of conduct will be adopted across the board at all student loan providers and help college students and their parents understand and make good student loan decisions.
Posted by shonjohns on July 28th, 2008
Each year, thousands of high school graduates aspire to continue their education at the college level. There are a number of students who have clear goals as to what their studies will be at their upcoming universities. Most of those who’ve acheived academic prominance and extra curricular activities will receive large sums of money to attend the college of their choice. Although this free education seems wonderful, sadly this is not the case for most college wanna b’s.
Fear not young ones, there is money out there, you just have to know how to dig for it. None of the generous companies that give away money, advertise it. The one with the biggest shovel wins the free money game. Finding your money needs to be like another part time job (1-2 hours week). There are other tactics as well to shorten the college price tag:
* Always show them you have less money than they thought. They need to know about shorter work hours, or the need to care for a sick relative.
* Take the loans. Most of them don’t charge until months after graduation, and the Grandmothers of college funding already expect a nice long relationship with each and every lendee.
*Get a four year deal from your school. Some schools will boost prices after Freshman year once you’ve already committed mind, body, and soul.
For every ten students who can’t get a penny for school, there’s one student out there putting time in EVERY week taking here and there until it all adds up. There are hundreds of companies who want to give money away. So get your road maps, and shovels and start looking. If you make finding the money a priority over everything else, you will find it!
Two hours on the computer, can turn into a $3,000 education loan……….just for asking.
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