| Loan Scandal Escalates
When Andrew M. Cuomo started asking questions about the relationships between lenders and colleges, many in higher education scoffed (off the record) that this was a case of an ambitious politician looking for headlines and that there wasn’t much for his inquiry to find. There’s no doubt that Cuomo, New York State’s new attorney general, is an ambitious politician looking for headlines, but he’s finding more and more to investigate. And some experts on aid are increasingly worried that the scandal is going to scare some students and families away from borrowing or from getting advice from financial aid offices. .
A Shaky Season for Student Loans
Shortly after New Year's Day, Pat Watkins, financial aid director at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla., placed a worried call to National Education, a student loan company she has been working with for nearly two decades. She had heard rumors that the company was no longer funding federal Stafford and PLUS (Parent Loans for Undergraduate Students) education loans, but had received no official word from the company. She found out that the phone of National Education's local rep had been disconnected. Later she learned that Chicago-based National Education was not planning to accept applications for new loans for the spring semester after Jan. 15, though they planned to fund disbursements for students who received loans for the fall. Federal Loans Lose Funders That was the first surprise.
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.
Text of Napolitano address
There was no plan to give Arizona's children the early start they need and deserve. Teacher pay was lagging, and we weren't doing what was necessary to support our new teachers and keep our best educators in the classroom. Phoenix was the largest city in the nation without a university-based medical school and our state was not graduating enough students with college degrees to keep up with our growth.Fast-forward to today. We've created a new grade level by making full-day kindergarten available to every Arizona family. We've made historic investments in early childhood education and in teacher pay. We've broken ground on an all-new medical campus, tripled our contribution to student financial aid, and built up our universities.This is progress, and it is precisely where we needed to go.Now, we must move quickly this year to implement the voter-approved initiative aimed at early childhood.
After Harvard, Yale boosts aid
Yale announced this week that it will change its undergraduate financial aid policy for all students this fall. The changes are meant to make college more affordable for middle and upper-income families and follow in the footsteps of a similar policy enacted by Harvard last December.
"We want all of our students to make the most of Yale academically and beyond without worrying about excessive work hours or debt," Yale president Richard Levin said in a press release. "Our new financial aid package makes this aspiration a reality."
At both Yale and Harvard, parents with annual incomes below $60,000 a year will not have to contribute toward their child's college education, and families with incomes from $60,000 to $120,000 will now pay between 1 and 10 percent of their incomes toward tuition.
Bodde back and aiming to impress refs
The tough-tackling midfielder says he now wants to draw a line under the latest red-card incident after insisting he's taken on board to his manager's advice. And, as the 25-year-old aims to make up for lost time against struggling Port Vale, Bodde says he hopes he can take his frustration out – in a fair way – by maintaining Swansea's lead at the summit. "The gaffer told me I need to be smarter and get used to what you can and can't do and he's right," he added. "I can't change the way I play, but I can adapt to different styles. Hopefully I can show that now. Not being able to play a part in the FA Cup games with Havant was a big disappointment so I'm itching to go. "I've kept myself in shape and luckily the games have come thick and fast so it hasn't been too long watching on.
Panel: Build 'Early Action' projects on time
The staff came back Friday with other options: Delay other projects while carrying the Trolley forward, delay all of the early projects, or keep all of the projects on schedule and work to fill the gap later.The panel opted to keep every highway, rail and bus project on schedule.But in doing so, Santee Councilman Jack Dale reminded colleagues that they were committing themselves to "a mission to find additional dollars."And Del Mar Mayor Dave Druker, representing coastal North County on the panel, warned that if the mission fails, the agency will have to leave other projects behind in the second go-round of TransNet.Besides the Early Action Program, TransNet proposes to fund a slew of other projects. Those include popular North County projects such as car-pool lanes on Highway 78 between Oceanside and Escondido and widening of Interstate 5.The discussion was prompted by the need to adopt a TransNet financing plan as the agency prepares to sell $600 million in bonds this April to jump-start the 40-year campaign to make traveling around the county a little easier.The panel was persuaded to stay the course by John Meyer of Escondido, chairman of a regional watchdog group that oversees TransNet spending.
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