| 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.
Penn Treaty more likely to enter joint venture or sell assets than to ...
In December 2007, it received an extension from the NYSE until 16 February to file its annual report. The company has said that it expects to make a decision regarding any financial restatements by later this month, according to regulatory filings. Also according to regulatory documents, Penn Treaty's right to sell policies in Florida was suspended for at least one year for failure to file its 2006 financial results by 1 June. Penn Treaty said at the time that the suspension would not be material to its financial performance, as its right to sell policies represented 6% of its new business applications for the first five months of 2007. Florida sales, however, accounted for approximately 15% of the company's direct premium revenue last year, according to company figures.
Lamar State-PA extends spring semester registration
The Registrar's Office at Lamar State College-Port Arthur is extending the registration deadline for the 2008 Spring Semester one week through 5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 18."This Friday was supposed to be the final day of registration, and spring semester classes start Monday, Jan. 14. However, we want to accommodate everyone who wants an education. So we are extending the registration period," said Tom Neal, vice president for Student Services at the college. Lamar State-PA extends spring semester registration The Port Arthur News PORT ARTHUR — The Registrar's Office at Lamar State College-Port Arthur is extending the registration deadline for the 2008 Spring Semester one week through 5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 18. .
New home construction drops by largest amount in almost 30 years
Other metro-east communities, such as Belleville, Mascoutah, Smithton, Maryville and Godfrey, recorded declines of 15 percent to 25 percent. Economists said the current housing slump has already surpassed the 1990 downturn and will likely rival, if not surpass, the prolonged housing downturn in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a period when the Federal Reserve was pushing interest rates to the highest levels since the Civil War in a successful effort to halt a decade-long bout of high inflation. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, is forecasting that median sales prices for existing homes will fall by 2.5 percent for all of 2007, which would be the first annual price decline on records that go back four decades. "I think this housing downturn will be unprecedented in terms of its breadth across the country and in its severity," Zandi said.
Complex GI Bill makes for a rocky road from combat to college
STARKVILLE, Miss. - By the time he completed his four-year stint in the military three summers ago, Frank Wills had gotten used to taking orders, carrying a rifle and taking pictures of the dead as a combat photographer.
He knew how to be a Marine. He hadn't a clue how a Marine becomes a college student.
Neither, it seemed, did anyone else on campus. Advisers at one school Wills attended gave him incorrect information. Officials at a second offered no help at all. Often, he says, he felt like "the new kid who didn't fit in."
G.I. EDUCATION: Veterans' plans aren't easy to gauge
The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as the GI Bill, helped turn a college education into a right of middle-class America. It covered the cost for millions of World War II veterans as compensation for having disrupted their lives to serve.
Beautiful Miss Idaho in LCHS Parade
Below, Family Phil's shot of historic downtown Wallace. BTW, Phil has a Little-Ears-Have-Big-Windows post here. *HBO's still trying to figure out what Stebbijo/Your Choice means by done-r here. *CDADave/Thin Air is trying out a new look as he prepares to return to the HBO blogosphere in a big way on Monday. He's asking folks what they think here. *Amy Crooks/That's Life. Life Goes On sounds as though she's been working hard for her money and not blogging too much here. *Marianne Love/Slight Detour has some fascinating historical info about Bonner County, including how Hoodoo Creek was formed and how Sagle got its name after losing out to Eagle in southern Idaho here. Also: Herb Huseland/Bay Views puts in his 2 cents about the inheritance tax here, Digital Fog has another fine parody here, ErinG/Idaho Native is getting nervous about the birth process here and Cis Gors/From A Simple Mind analyzes an online quiz she took here.
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