FAP818: Financial aid makes tuition go up, Free Stuff Friday

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Student Financial Aid News
+ Chronicle: The nation’s largest student-loan company, Sallie Mae (ticker: SLM), reported on Thursday that investors had quickly bought up $2.5-billion worth of its debt. The sale was “significantly oversubscribed,” the company said in a written statement.
+ And the nation’s largest private university, the for-profit University of Phoenix, announced tuition increases that will coincide with higher federal student loan limits for students. Both take effect July 1. One industry analyst, Jeffrey M. Silber, of BMO Capital Markets, who follows the university’s parent company, the Apollo Group (ticker: APOL), noted that the increases appeared to be “designed to benefit from” the rise in the federal student loan limits.
+ Financial aid drives cost of college up – this is very obviously no longer correlation, but causation
+ The more we increase financial aid, the more price goes up
+ How do we get out of this situation?
+ The answer has got to be the Wal-Mart answer. Provide a plentiful, low cost alternative that is “good enough” to increase supply to the point where it exceeds demand – then prices fall
+ That’s good ol’ economics 101
+ Who will do it? I don’t know, but the only way out of the tuition trap is for there to be an overabundance of supply

Scholarship Update
+ Lin Hamer Memorial Behavioral Economics Scholarship at Minnesota State University
+ Who is eligible: Junior or senior female student and a declared major in the college of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
+ Amount: $1,500
+ Deadline: March 3
+ Details at our free college scholarship search site
+ I’ve been a huge fan of learning more about behavioral economics since Whitney Hoffman pointed me towards Dan Ariely’s great book, Predictably Irrational

Free Stuff Friday
+ Drink mixes
+ TCBY on Father’s Day
+ Buffalo Wings chips
+ Sketchbox stickies for the Mac
+ KeyJNote
+ Opera 9.5
+ Firefox 3
+ RepairPal for your car
+ A bunch of articles on WVO as home heating fuel
+ IM Feeds
+ If you use GMail, you can now get it read to you on your phone
+ A revised DIY air conditioner
+ Hey, has anyone built a Peltier air conditioner?

Free Song of the Week
+ Rayko KRB, Simple Love Song

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Reminders
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+ Financial Aid Podcast Show Notes at FinancialAidPodcast.com.
+ Free scholarship search secrets eBook at StudentScholarshipSearch.com/ebook
+ Open an FDIC-insured savings account today!
+ Private student loans
+ Student credit card information at StudentPlatinum.com
+ FAFSA form tutorials and free help at FAFSAonline.com
+ FAFSA blog
+ Grad student? Get graduate financial aid information at the GradLoans.com blog!
+ Stafford loans | Other federal student loans
+ The Financial Aid Podcast is a publication of the Student Loan Network.

I want to hear from you! Email me at financialaidpodcast {at} gmail {dot} com, visit http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com, or call 206-350-1208.

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