The Student Loan Network will be a sponsor at PodCamp NYC, and I’re going to have a table on the Mezzanine. Our goal for the table is to make it useful to the community, so here’s what’s happening in our little six foot patch of land.
8:30 AM - 12:00 PM: Mashboard! I’re going to leave a whole bunch of Post-It Notes and markers on the table. Leave notes about impromptu “Lightning Talks”, meetups, need a ride/give a ride, etc. on our table, along with the appropriate contact information.
8:30 AM - 12:00 PM: DIY Business Cards. Forgot to bring yours? Grab a pen and a few blanks, and get creative!
8:30 AM - 12:00 PM: Networking bowl. I’ll have a large bowl on the table. Toss in a business card or two, and sift through the other cards for ones that catch your eye. Silly fun, like bobbing for apples, only without water or fruit.
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM: Jingle fest. Jay and Tara from Uncle Seth and Natalie Gelman, two great podsafe bands, will have their CDs for sale at our table. Here’s the twist: buy a CD, and one or the other will record you a quick 3-5 second jingle/promo for your podcast or company.
1:00 PM - 6:00 PM: Mashboard! I’re going to leave a whole bunch of Post-It Notes and markers on the table. Leave notes about impromptu “Lightning Talks”, meetups, need a ride/give a ride, etc. on our table, along with the appropriate contact information.
1:00 PM - 6:00 PM: Networking bowl. I’ll have a large bowl on the table. Toss in a business card or two, and sift through the other cards for ones that catch your eye. Silly fun, like bobbing for apples, only without water or fruit.
6:00 PM - 9:00 PM: Party at Slate!
10:00 PM - midnight: I’ll be at Brother Love’s CD release party.
I just got word that the table will be approximately 6′ x 3′, so I’ll be economical with space, but it’s going to be fun!
Student Financial Aid News
+ Inside Higher Ed: Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee, on Thursday followed in the heels of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) in sending sweeping requests to student loan providers, seeking information about their financial relationships with colleges. Miller sent his letters to Sallie Mae, Citibank/the Student Loan Corporation, Bank of America, Wells Fargo & Company, and JP Morgan Chase & Company.
+ From CNN: Getting into Harvard University got tougher in 2007 as more students than ever applied to the Ivy League school’s undergraduate program, many drawn by an attractive financial aid offer.
+ Harvard, the world’s richest university, said Thursday a record 22,955 students applied for a spot in the Class of 2011. Of those, just 2,058 were accepted — an admission rate of 9 percent, the lowest in school history.
+ More than two-thirds of Harvard’s entering class receives financial aid, including scholarships and loans, while more than half qualify for scholarship assistance and an average total aid package of close to $34,000.
+ Many badly need the help. Annual undergraduate tuition will rise 3.9 percent next year to $31,456, increasing at a pace nearly double the U.S. rate of inflation, a Harvard statement showed this month.
+ Throw in room, board and services fees and the cost jumps to $45,620, almost double the average at a private college in the United States.
+ More shakeouts in the mortgage industry. From The Financial Times: Credit Suisse has filed lawsuits against at least three US subprime mortgage lenders, marking an escalation of efforts by Wall Street banks to use legal action to purge themselves of bad housing loans. DLJ Mortgage Capital, a unit of Credit Suisse, is separately suing the three mortgage companies for more than $30m, claiming the lenders failed to honour obligations relating to loans that it purchased from them.
+ From the LA Times: As mortgage delinquencies soar, many consumer advocates and political leaders are calling on government to help what may ultimately be millions of homeowners facing foreclosure.
+ The Bush administration has ruled out a blanket program to help homeowners stave off foreclosure, reasoning that it’s “not an appropriate role for the federal government,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.
+ By one estimate, as many as 460,000 people in California — and 2.4 million nationwide — could lose their homes because they are unable to make payments on high-cost sub-prime loans or to refinance them to more favorable terms.
+ BankNet360: Declining house prices could in fact be a boon to at least one industry: student lending. The second biggest use for home equity loans and lines of credit is education finance, said Standard & Poor’s Chief Economist David Wyss. And with access to less funding, look for that to translate into more student loans.
+ Roughly 20% of people who take out equity on their homes use the funds to pay for college, Wyss said. About 35% use a home equity loan or line to remodel. Wyss made the remarks during the Q&A portion of a teleconference today discussing the potential implications for the economy regarding the subprime mortgage market.
+ The loan that will probably replace equity - the Parent PLUS Loan - 8.5% fixed rate, no collateral
+ Other loan options at the Student Loan Network
Scholarship Update
+ Golden Brick Awards
+ 12 awards of $10,000
+ 4 awards of $15,000
+ For projects on social change and social good
+ Deadline December 1
+ Details at our free college scholarship search site
FAP500: Celebrating Episode 500, Lender Call Centers, Prepaid Plans, Full Tuition Scholarship, Matthew Ebel
Student Financial Aid News
+ It’s episode 500!
+ From BankNet 360: Student debt has reached $6.4 billion in New Zealand and is growing by $771 million a year, according to the country’s Union of Students’ Associations.
+ A co-president of the union, Joey Randall, is now calling for the government to provide living allowances for students. The government, which stopped charging interest on student loans last year, has done nothing to address high tuition fees and costs of living, Randall said.
+ From Inside Higher Ed: Some colleges are using lenders to staff call centers for students with questions about financial aid, The New York Times reported. The growing investigation into lender-college ties by the New York State attorney general’s office has found that some contracts for such services require the people working in the call center to identify themselves as being part of the college or university, the Times reported.
+ Students call college financial aid offices with a variety of questions, such as explanations of bills received or updates on loan applications. But they also call with questions about how to pay for college — putting them in the position of unknowingly getting advice from a representative of a particular company.
+ From the Columbia Spectator: Ten Columbia students lobbied in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday in a joint effort with students from Cornell University to encourage lawmakers to support financial aid. Small groups of students met throughout the day with legislative staffers who research policy for members of Congress, as well as with legislators themselves, to express concern about the fiscal year 2008 budget proposed in February by U.S. President George W. Bush. A major concern was that the elimination of SEOG and the Perkins Loans would hurt more students than it would help, meaning that their removal would not be justified by an increase in Pell Grants. According to the Association of American Universities, the budget proposals would cause approximately one million students to receive less aid than they currently do.
+ From NASFAA: “High school students are getting discouraged about their futures because they aren’t getting enough information about paying for college,” reports The Monitor on a recently released study by Texas A&M University in College Station. “The research, entitled ‘Studies on Barriers to Higher Education in Texas,’ found personal finances did not factor as much into why some high school graduates aren’t going to college. ‘It’s not just about what a family makes. It’s about having the information being given to make informed decisions whether a student can afford to go to college,’ said Christopher Teran, the study’s author and a management analyst for Texas A&M’s student financial aid department.”
+ Also from NASFAA: “Worried about a looming funding shortfall in their state’s prepaid-college-tuition plan, South Carolina lawmakers are weighing whether to close the plan to new participants, a course some other states already have taken,” Education Week reports. “Like those in some other states, South Carolina’s 10-year-old plan is on shaky financial footing because growth in the fund has failed to keep up with rising tuition. At least five states, including Colorado, Kentucky, Ohio, Texas, and West Virginia, have closed their plans - some temporarily - to new enrollees, to avoid worsening the funds’ financial problems. Texas alone is projecting a deficit that could total billions of dollars in the next two decades.”
+ The story behind the story on this one is this: the mortgage industry may spill over to these plans, too
+ Check out all the financial aid options at StudentLoanNetwork.com
Scholarship Update
+ The Albright College Warren L. Davis Scholarships are full-tuition scholarships, worth $26,620 for the 2006-2007 academic year and approximately $110,000 over four years.
+ The College invites about 75 of its top applicants to apply for these scholarships and awards two Davis Scholarships each year. The Davis scholarship is renewable as long as the student maintains a 3.3 grade point average.
+ Deadline March 1 of each year
+ Part of college application process
+ Details at our free college scholarship search site
+ Scholarship Points drawing on Monday!
FAP499: How to set up your own scholarship fund, preferred lender lists under fire, Nita Whitaker
Student Financial Aid News
+ Quiet day on the wires
+ More on preferred lender lists from Minnesota
+ From NASFAA: Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson announced Friday a series of inquiries exploring the factors an institution considers when creating a preferred lender list.
+ Swanson expressed concern that “a ‘preferred lender’ list implies that the college has negotiated the best terms from these lenders on behalf of their students,” but “this may not always be the case.”
+ Swanson sent a letter to Minnesota colleges and universities asking the presidents to evaluate their “… school’s student loan practices and disclosures. All material information that a student needs to make an informed decision that is in a student’s best interest should be disclosed.
+ Some practices Swanson’s office is concerned about, include the following:
+ Failing to disclose financial incentives between schools and lenders, where schools may receive payments from or share revenue with a financial institution for steering a student to certain lenders;
+ Recommending a preferred lender without disclosing that the advertised repayment benefits may not travel with a loan if the loan is subsequently sold on the secondary market or that the rates may not be the best rates available;
+ Failing to disclose why lenders were selected to be included on a “preferred lender list,” including failing to disclose that the school may have solicited lenders and received payment from lenders to be included on the list; and
+ Misrepresenting the delays a student may experience if the student obtains a loan from a non-preferred lender.
+ Lenders like Stafford federal student loans from the Student Loan Network!
+ Listener Leah Lage is doing a podcast study and would like your help
Scholarship Update
+ Winston Churchill Scholars Program
+ $50,000 x 12 awards
+ For graduate work in engineering, mathematics and science at Churchill College, Cambridge University. Must be a U.S. citizen. Award covers all Cambridge University fees & tuition, plus a living allowance and travel expenses, with a total value between $48,000 and $50,000
+ Deadline November of each year
+ Details at our free college scholarship search site
News You Can Use
+ Based on a question from CC Chapman
+ How to set up your own scholarship fund
+ Contributions not tax deductible unless done through a foundation or made to a college without a specific student being named
+ Private scholarships just paid out directly
+ List it in directories like Student Scholarship Search
+ For larger awards, consider a foundation like the Edvisors Foundation
+ Check out Mark Kantrowitz’s page on FinAid.org about setting up a scholarship
I can see why people might be intimidated by the process of setting up a scholarship. As soon as you Google it, you find entries talking about needing $25,000 or more to endow a chair or fund or something like that. Colleges have pages posted about donations that are in the five and six figure range, but the reality is that they don’t want to administer smaller awards.
The reality is much simpler: just about anyone can create a private scholarship for any dollar amount.
The reason a lot of scholarship companies, foundations, and funds don’t accept smaller scholarships is that the administrative overhead to manage applications for a small dollar amount isn’t worth it to them. These foundations and stuff are by and large businesses, and so their concern is maximum bang for the buck. Nothing wrong with that, but it does tend to exclude people who want to be charitable.
So how do you set up a scholarship fund? Well, there are two ways to do it. If you want to create a fund that you’ll be endowing by yourself, all you really need to do is draft up the requirements for it, publish it, manage the applications that come in, and award it based on the requirements you set. You can make a scholarship for any dollar amount (obviously, the more it’s worth, the more attention it will gather), set any deadline, and award it to whomever you choose. The application process can be a formal review and set of procedures, or it can be as simple as “Hey, send me an email telling me why you think you should get this award”.
One thing we do recommend is that you specify any money will be paid directly to the financial aid office at an accredited school - that way you know the money will be used for its intended purpose, defraying the cost of education.
To publicize your scholarship, publish it like any other product or service - put up a web page, submit it to scholarship directories like StudentScholarshipSearch.com, tell your local high school about it, tell any colleges that you support about it. Marketing a scholarship is relatively straightforward - free money tends to “sell” easily.
If you want to create a fund that will be endowed by you and other people, you’ll probably want to work through a foundation or charity so that others’ contributions (and yours) are tax deductible, such as the Edvisors Foundation. At this point, you’re probably talking more than a casual dollar amount, so it’d be worthwhile shopping around for foundations and charities to administer the scholarship on your behalf. (more than casual == five digits and up)
FAP498: 5 steps to get more financial aid from your school, EFP lawsuit, Hitachi grant, Emelee
Student Financial Aid News
+ From Inside Higher Ed: Education Finance Partners, which offers private student loans and is facing a planned lawsuit from New York State Attorney General Andew Cuomo, on Monday announced changes in its program for reimbursing colleges for a small share of the loan volume the company receives. Cuomo has charged that these payments — which he calls “kickbacks” — violate students’ rights, something the company and the colleges involved have denied. But the company announced that it would require all such payments to be more fully reported, and that all funds from the payments be used to help students. A spokesman for Cuomo told Reuters that the changes did not go far enough and that the litigation would proceed.
+ From NASFAA: President Dallas Martin on AG Cuomo’s lawsuit: the actions undermine trust in the counseling and advice given by financial aid administrators, so that students and their families and high school guidance counselors will have doubts about the guidance they receive. I have already seen this in the reports and reactions by the media to the inflammatory rhetoric coming out of the Attorney General’s office. Many of these media stories are adding fuel to the fire encouraging this mistrust. A week ago, a Chicago TV reporter told the station’s viewers not to trust financial aid administrators; rather, they recommended that viewers could get unbiased advice from mortgage brokers.
+ To dispute any federal student loan issue, you’ll probably get the best results from the FSA Ombudsman’s office, which is sort of like the Department of Education’s version of the Better Business Bureau. You can contact them at:
+ U.S. Department of Education
FSA Ombudsman
830 First Street, NE
Fourth Floor
Washington, DC 20202-5144
Phone: 1-877-557-2575
Fax: 202-275-0549
Online: http://www.ombudsman.ed.gov/about/contactus.html
Scholarship Update
+ Hitachi Foundation Yoshiyama Community Service Awards
+ April 2 deadline
+ For graduating high school seniors
+ US citizens
+ Grant is unrestricted
+ Nomination required
+ No GPA or academic requirements
+ Details at our free college scholarship search site
News You Can Use
+ 5 steps to get additional financial aid from your school
+ 1. Do your budget down to the penny, and document everything
+ Budget history plus cash flow
+ Document family financial situation
+ Document financial aid history
+ 2. Demonstrate good faith efforts to reduce expenses
+ 3. Document scholarship search efforts - and make sure you have a lot of them - 2/week
+ 4. Present a persuasive case to your financial aid office
+ Ask for advice on the FAFSA, on aid you’ve already received
+ Appeal to aid administrators’ genuine desire to help students
+ Include options you’ve explored like private student loans and consumer debt
+ 5. Persist in presenting your case in a polite, courteous, pleasant, and never ending manner
+ You may be on a first name basis with your school’s financial aid office, and that’s okay as long as you’re polite, courteous, and and pleasant
+ Document everything, but meet in person
+ Demonstrate and document additional steps, and every time there’s an update of significance, go for a visit
+ Most people give up after rejection once or twice
Student Financial Aid News
+ Shooting some new video today - got a ton of video to do this week
+ From NASFAA: Last week, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo released preliminary results of his office’s nationwide investigation into alleged abuses of preferred lender lists. Yesterday he held another press conference announcing his office’s intent to file a lawsuit against Education Finance Partners (EFP), a company offering private student loans that are not subsidized or guaranteed by the federal government. His office claims “…Education Finance Partners has repeatedly paid schools in exchange for steering loans to EFP and for putting EFP on ‘preferred lender’ lists.”
+ EFP Chief Executive Tamera Briones responded with a press release defending their practices stating, “We at Education Finance Partners are firm believers in transparency and we disclose to all of our borrowers that their school may have a revenue share arrangement with Education Finance Partners.”
+ Check out Act Education Loans from the Student Loan Network - 100% free of revenue sharing and so-called “kickbacks”
+ From Inside Higher Ed: As state support lags, tuition rises. It’s a well established phenomenon. But what’s less discussed is the effect that flat state support might be having on the traditional undergraduate tuition model itself. The one-student, one-rate model is somewhat silently slipping away at many public universities nationwide, as institutions increasingly turn toward differential tuition rates for students pursuing specific majors, often those with higher costs of operation.
+ At UIUC, tuition is $834 more a year for fine arts students, plus $500 extra in books and supplies – and $3,462 extra per year for students studying biology, business, chemistry, engineering (including agricultural engineering), math and computer science, and physics. That means an Illinois resident pursuing one of those fields would be paying $13,428 for tuition annually, compared to the $9,966 paid by a political science major.
+ Other countries already do this - Australia, for example
+ IHE: Students who are admitted to college because of their status as alumni children (legacies) or athletes are more likely than other students to drop out of college, according to research published in the journal Social Problems. The analysis also found that minority students admitted at institutions with significant affirmative action programs may be less likely than other students to drop out, but report lower grades.
+ From CNN: Millions of college students are suddenly facing sharply higher prices for birth control, prompting concerns among health officials that some will shift to less preferred contraceptives or stop using them altogether.
+ Prices for oral contraceptives, or birth control pills, are doubling and tripling at student health centers, the result of a complex change in the Medicaid rebate law that essentially ends an incentive for drug companies to provide deep discounts to colleges.
+ I thought I’d point out that at fraternity parties, after a night of revelry, you’re likely to not even be able to find your elbows, much less correctly use most spur of the moment contraceptives
Scholarship Update
+ Alan writes in: HELP Please, I am a 38 yr old disabled student that is PAYING my own way for school with FAFSA and students loans. I am looking for any scholarships, grants, internships and so on to help me pay for school. I have been disabled for about 11years now and I am still searching for anything that will be of real help for me with school. I am a I.T. and Homeland Security Major in New Orleans La. Can you let me know of anything I can use I get little to no help from the school I go to. I am searching on my own for some time now and finding next to nothing I can use.
+ University of Washington has a great six page guide including scholarships by disability
+ Detailed information at our free college scholarship search site
Mail Bag
+ I filed my FAFSA and already have my SAR back. On the FAFSA, I checked that I was going to file any taxes because I had not received anything. Later, I received my 1099 MISC. What can I do to fix this? - Fernando
+ You can file a FAFSA correction - be sure to have your PIN ready
+ Depending on how much you earned, the impact on your financial aid may be negligible - if, for example, your 1099 was for $50, it’s probably not even worth refiling your FAFSA
+ You should still file your IRS 1040, though
+ Dear Mr. Penn, I have been receiving government grant and scholarship offers but have not been able to open a single one of them. I alawys get the message thatoffer is not good in my area. Why is that? How can I apply for grants then? I would appreciate you assistance, and I look forward to hearing from you sonn. - Negin Maleki
+ Depends on where you live - according to your email, you’re in Italy
+ Foreign nationals are not eligible for US federal financial aid
+ Check InternationalScholarships.com for more
Here are the final statistics, web-based, from yesterday. From Feedburner’s metrics of the Bum Rush web site:
Here are the final Urchin-based statistics of the Buy Now page:
That number up top is 13,877.
Overall, not bad. As mentioned earlier, we should have some initial numbers from IODA soon; final purchase data (including people who bought directly from iTunes without using the affiliate link) could take some time.
Also, if you’re a researcher interested in crunching the data yourself, here’s a ZIP file of the clickthrough tracker statistics. It’s 817 KB, so make sure that you have some time to spare. The columns in it are IP address, referring URL, and timestamp. From this, you are more than welcome to do your own data analysis. Unlike the Urchin stats above, this data file is raw, raw data - including duplicates, spiders, etc. Also, there’s a slight data skew in that the timestamps are Eastern Time, which means that any purchases after midnight ET (9 PM PT) won’t be in there, but it’s a good first start for data analysis.
FAP496: Free Stuff Friday on personal finance, Cuomo sues EFP, BRTC followup, Andy McKee
Student Financial Aid News
+ How did BRTC go? Not #1, but in top 10 in a few places around the world.
+ After all is said and done, probably 10,000 purchases or so
+ Scholarship yield $4,500 - about a year of community college or in state tuition for a public 4 year college
+ May be up to a month before we get full purchase data details
+ There is money on the table - make sure you’re signed up with Scholarship Points!
+ From Inside Higher Ed: New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo revved up his campaign Thursday against what he just last week termed the “unholy alliance” between colleges and lenders. Not only did he announce an intent to file suit against the California-based Education Finance Partners (EFP) over the private loan company’s alleged “deceptive practices,” but he also named the names of 12 colleges allegedly accepting EFP’s “kickbacks”: Baylor, Boston, Clemson, Drexel, Duquesne, Fordham, Long Island, Pepperdine, St. John’s and Texas Christian Universities, plus Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Mississippi.
+ In a nutshell, Cuomo charges that the private lender paid institutions in exchange for preferential treatment and a spot on their lists of “preferred lenders.” (Preferred lender lists, provided to students and compiled by a university, are a powerful tool in shaping which companies students choose for a loan: Cuomo estimates that 90 percent of students choose lenders from these lists.)
+ Furthermore, the “revenue-sharing agreements,” also referred to by Cuomo as “kickbacks,” were often based on a tiered system, Cuomo said – meaning the more loans referred to the company by the college, the higher the percentage return on the value of the loan for the institution. Neither the colleges nor EFP adequately disclosed the financial terms of their agreements to students, Cuomo said.
+ Dallas Martin, president of NASFAA, refuted the use of the term kickback, as nothing was done under the table and no one personally profited
+ That system does provide, even if inadvertently, an economic incentive
+ IHE: The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency on Thursday adopted strict rules on reimbursing employees and family members for travel-related costs, following much public criticism of past spending that has come to light, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported. Among past spending that would now be barred: funds for facials, fly-fishing, $25 cigars and pedicures.
+ The University of Pennsylvania on Thursday announced that it was raising from $50,000 to $60,000 the family income level at which it would replace loans with grants for needy students. When Penn set the $50,000 level last year, it prompted Harvard University — then offering a similar program for families with incomes of up to $40,000 — to raise its income level to $60,000.
+ From Bloomberg: The subprime credit crunch is beginning to ensnare even borrowers with better credit. Lenders are increasingly refusing to lend to homebuyers who can’t make a down payment of more than 5 percent, especially if they won’t document their income. Until recently such borrowers qualified for so-called Alt A mortgages, which rank between prime and subprime in terms of risk. Last year the category accounted for about 20 percent of the $3 trillion of U.S. mortgages, about the same as subprime loans, according to Credit Suisse Group. “It’s going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to do a no-money-down loan at any credit score,” said Alex Gemici, president of Parsippany, New Jersey-based mortgage bank Montgomery Mortgage Capital Corp. Companies that buy the loans “are all saying if they haven’t eliminated them yet, they’ll eliminate them shortly.”
Scholarship Update
+ Cardinal Joseph E. Ritter Memorial Endowed Scholarship, $12,500 per year
+ Performing arts, visual arts, or education major or minor
+ Financial need
+ Demonstrated commitment to values exhibited by Cardinal Ritter
+ Approval by departmental chairperson
+ Deadline for application: February 1
+ Details at our free college scholarship search site
Buy at 
