| A long-kept Md. secret: interest-free college loans
Undergraduate and graduate students are eligible. There's no age limit. Recipients range from age 17 to 61. To qualify for a loan, you must apply for federal financial aid. You need to have a grade-point average of at least 2.0 on a scale of 4. And you must have a co-signer for the loan so that if you don't repay it, the co-signer would be on the hook. Central Scholarship will begin accepting applications for the 2008-2009 academic year in January. The deadline is May 31. For more details check out the nonprofit's Web site at www.centralsb.org. .
Contractor loses La. scholarship account data dating back to 1998
BATON ROUGE, La. -- A Boston-based contractor hired to store and safeguard state scholarship and college savings account data lost most of those records _ including bank account numbers and student and parent Social Security numbers _ during a move, officials say. "We certainly don't want to create any panic. But people should be aware and take the necessary steps," said Melanie Amrhein, executive director of the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance. "This is backup data off of a mainframe that contains sensitive personal information." Special equipment and software and "sophisticated computer skills" would be needed to get the compressed records from the TOPS scholarship program, START Saving Program, and Free Application for Federal Student Aid, according to a notice posted on the Internet.
UT Holds Public Forums On Tuition Hike
As the University of Texas considers raising tuition once again, education leaders from around the state are meeting to talk solutions for higher education. Those meetings are happening at the Frank Erwin Center to help increase college enrollment around the state significantly. The goal is to increase enrollment across the state by 30 percent from 2005 to 2010. While it is an achievable goal, still, university systems across the state feel they have to increase tuition to stay competitive, so while more students want to go to college, making it affordable is another challenge. Financial challenges, like getting students to apply through Free Application for Federal Student Aid, is just one of the many roadblocks to work through.
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