Financial Aid Podcasts

Here is a link of podcasts for college education planning: http://www.suntrusteducation.com/toolbox/podcasts.asp

websites

http://www.finance.yahoo.com/print/expert/article/generationdebt/50325

http://www.studentdebtalert.org/alert.asp?id2=35333

Survey Rough Draft

1. What is your age? (exact answer)

2. What gender are you? (exact answer)

3. Are you enrolled in college? (yes/no: If no, thanks for participating)

4. What class level are you? (multiple choice)

5. Have you used loans to pay for college? (yes/no)

6. If so, whose name were/are they in? (multiple choice)

7. If you answered yes to question #4, how much would you estimate that your college loan debt will total when you graduate? ($______)

8. What have you used your school loan refunds for in the past? (multiple choice)

repaying loans, housing, food, clothes, shopping, saving, dont’ receive refunds, electronics, computer, other

9. What lines of credit do you currently have open? (include credit cards, store accounts, car loans, Don Vito)(multiple choice, select all that apply)

10. How old were you when you opened your first line of credit? (exact)

11. How are/were you approached by creditors? (multiple choice)

email, telephone, mail, in store, you approached creditor

12. Not including college loans, how much would you estimate your debt totals ? ($_____)

13. What have you used your lines of credit for in the past? (multiple choice)

car, electronics, clothes, necessities, emergencies, food, furniture, other: ________________________

14. Are you currently employed? (yes/no: if no, skip to #16)

15. If yes, how many hours, on average, do you work each week?

Is your work seasonal or year round?

16. How much do you make yearly?(needs to be reconsidered)

5,000-10,000 10,000-15,000 15,000-20,000 20,000-25,000 25,000-30,000 30,000-35,000 more

17. Do you regret any decisions you have made regarding credit cards or loans?

18.What were those decisions?

19. Were you prepared to take on your own finances when you turned 18? (yes/no)

20. How knowledgeable do you feel now when it comes to understanding your credit?

21. Do you know what your credit score is?

22. When do you last check?

23. Do you know the current interest rates on any open accounts? (yes/no)

24. Do you save?(yes/no)

25. If so, do you save regularly or sporadically?

26. What do you think is the average monthly repayment for $35,000 in deferred school loans?

Slugs

1) The cards and loans issues (lead/introduction to the problems) — Tashieka

2) How this happened to them — Natalie

3) Horror stories from real lives — Jessica

4) The normal path out of the mess, income based repayment (IBR) — Dan

5) A cool solution to the problem, public service loan forgiveness — Robert

6) How to avoid this stuff in your life — Terri

7) What we’ve been telling you and hope you have learned (summary conclusions) — Michael

Calendar

3/26 Blog done

3/28 Work continues

3/31 Discussion of survey methodology

4/2 Work continues

4/4 Deploy survey instrument

4/7 Work continues

4/9 Survey finished & website greeking completed

4/11 All seven stories due

4/14 Survey data analysis completed & all illos (videos & stills) due

4/16 Resources list completed & wiki completed

4/18 Work continues

4/21 Work continues

4/23 Work continues

4/25 Last class & entire website & support sites project complete

5/2 Drop dead date & final exam day

New Links

I’d just like to point out a couple of new links that were added to the blogroll.

First, there is IBRinfo.org, created by the Project on Student Debt, that has a large amount of information on the new income based repayment plans for federal loans.

Essentially, your income will determine how much you pay back.

On the Regulations page, there is the legislation H.R. 2269(the text and pdf links next too 9/27/07), which is what made IBRinfo.org possible.

There’s 40 pages to wade though, so you might want to let our class do the heavy lifting.

We’ll do our best to demystify it.

Presidential Question

Our class decided to take the project to a federal level by sending a college-debt question to the three remaining presidential candidates: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain.

This question basically asked if college debt was a problem and how it could be fixed.

Unexpectedly, I received this response from Obama:

Dear Friend,

Thank you for contacting me about the critical importance of reforming America’s schools. I appreciate hearing from you on this issue, and I agree that we must do more to ensure that every child has the opportunity to succeed.

Too often our leaders present this issue as an either-or debate, divided between giving our schools more funding and demanding more accountability. We should do both.

Our kids deserve a better chance at every level – from preschool and summer school, to high school and college. Last year, I introduced the Innovation Districts for School Improvement Act, which provides grants to school systems that draft detailed plans for broad reforms at the district level. In addition, I have introduced a bill to promote summer learning opportunities for disadvantaged children, supported increased funding for the Head Start program to help provide preschoolers with critically important learning skills, and co-authored a bipartisan bill to help exceptional high school students enroll in college-level courses elsewhere if their school does not offer them.

We can’t stop there. The demands of the modern global economy have made higher education more necessary than ever, even as the costs of college continue to soar. To address this, my first proposal as a U.S. senator was a bill to make college more affordable by increasing the maximum Pell Grant to $5100. I also cosponsored the Student Debt Relief Act, which encourages colleges to participate in the Direct Loan program, increases need-based aid, and decreases fees and interest rates for student loans

Finally, the teacher is the most important factor in successfully educating our children, and we need to give our teachers everything they need to succeed. That means changing the certification process so that qualified applicants can avoid expensive additional coursework to become teachers; pairing up new recruits with master teachers; and giving proven teachers more control over what goes on in their classrooms. It also means paying teachers what they’re worth.

To learn more about my plans to revitalize education, please click here:

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education/

To read my recent speech on education, please click here:

http://www.barackobama.com/2007/11/20/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_34.php

I encourage you to share your own thoughts and policy ideas about education through the My Policy tool on the first web page linked above. Thank you again for contacting me about this important issue.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama

So, the paragraph on higher education is clearly the most relevant.

I’m looking forward to the other responses to see if they reflect Obama’s attitude toward the issue.

Federal Laws Regulating Credit Practices

I found a bunch of laws that regulate credit practices, such as lending, billing and collecting. There are also laws that protect consumers and list credit consumer rights. Most of the pdfs describing the acts were too long for a single post, so I listed them and some websites in the new tab “Credit Regulation” in the navigation bar.

Check it out!

Presidential canidates’ stance on credit card reform

Hey guys! Thought you may be interested in this article about the presidential candidates’ reform plans:

Check, Check, Check it out!

http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-card-presidential-reform-policies-1276.php

Wiki web

http://collegestudebt.wetpaint.com/

hey guys this a start for the wiki! Send me your e-mail address so that I can invite and add you.