The Cheese Numero Uno: Bringing you up to speed on student finance news with an old fashioned the good, the bad, and the ugly.
To get you up to date on student finance in the news lately we turned to a little old-fashioned The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
The Good: Earlier this month, for the first time in a decade, the House and the Senate (see video for a refresher) reauthorized the Higher Education Act HR+ 4137.
This is good news for you. Why, you ask? Here it is:
1. Easier FAFSA form—big win
2. Greater transparency into college expenses
3. States forced increase education spending
4. Colleges required to give info on the cost of textbooks
5. And the big money… Pell Grants are to be raised from $4,800 to $6000 in 2009 and up to $8000 by 2014 students can receive Pell Grants yearly, as opposed to just for the current term.
The Bad:
As the Zinch Class of ’08 gets ready to hit campuses nationwide this month they will be met by about the same number of college kids as last year—18.0M students in 2007 and now 18.3M students in 2008. However… the number of kids fighting over the financial aid blew through the roof this year—jumping by almost 1.3 million, or nearly 17 percent. The competition is steep.
Also in the news, the sixth largest provider of student loans, Wachovia Education Finance, has announced that they will no longer be issuing student loans. Big blow.
The Ugly: US News reports that increasingly students are getting in line—the bread line. With the all the belt tightening happening in the economy and especially the world of higher education, more and more students are finding themselves turning to the food pantries to get them through. What might you ask can you do about the student finance crisis?
Stay tuned to The Cheese…
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Posted on August 12, 2008 under |
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Comments (4)
Hey David!
I guess I'm not the new kid on the blogs anymore :)
Right now, I'm awfully clueless about financial aid so I'm really glad you'll be blogging about it!
I have a question -- how did you get the Youtube video to appear on the blog? I've been trying to do it for about a week now but it seems I might be doing something wrong. Oh, you young kids today knowing everything about technology!
Posted on August 12, 2008 9:45 PM
Aaaahhh thank you for this information. So useful. So specific. So useful. I'm pretty psyched to keep hearing (reading) from you.
The article linked in The Ugly is startling, and strange for me because I currently live near one of the colleges mentioned (CCD) and will be starting college this year at another school in Seattle (i.e., close to U-Dub). I volunteer in a soup kitchen and homeless day shelter in Denver, and I remember one of the things that first struck me was the dichotomy of how many elderly people were there but also how many college students were there. It was sobering to think that that could soon be my reality.
PS, On a lighter note, Schoolhouse Rock...owns.
Posted on August 13, 2008 5:56 PM
Thanks Nancy & Pauline for being the first comment'rs!
Posted on August 14, 2008 8:51 AM
Hi David, again!
I have a question about financial aid -- I really, really want to apply ED to my dream school but I'm worried I might not get the sufficient financial aid that I need and then I would be in a tough pickel. What would be your advice? To apply ED to that one college or apply to various colleges through regular decision and wait to see what I get offered?
Posted on August 15, 2008 8:27 PM