| 10 Tips: Beat 'Gotcha Capitalism'
For nearly two and a half years, msnbc.com writer Bob Sullivan has been exposing scams and sneakiness through his blog, The Red Tape Chronicles. Based on his investigative reporting, Bob has written a book, “Gotcha Capitalism: How Hidden Fees Rip You Off Every Day – and What You Can Do About It." Bob's book highlights the machinations of a system that is rigged to make most consumers throw up their hands and simply give up. After all, who has the time to wade through an avalanche of fine print and decipher all the incomprehensible fees on their cell-phone bills, credit-card bills, cable bills, hotel bills, retirement plans, gym memberships, bank statements, mortgages and student loans? .
MOHELA Forgives $1.5 Million in Student Loan Balances for First-Year ...
ST. LOUIS, MO--(Marketwire - January 24, 2008) - The Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA) has announced loan forgiveness awards of up to $3,200 for 510 public school teachers in Missouri. Designed to encourage the retention of quality educators, the awards went to all certified first-year teachers with Stafford student loans owned and serviced by MOHELA, as well as provisionally certified math, science and special education teachers. This award brings the total higher education loan balance and fee reduction granted by MOHELA to more than $42 million since 2000. In addition, MOHELA has pledged $335 million to help universities across Missouri improve facilities and provided $15 million to encourage research, development and commercialization of new technologies through the Missouri Technology Corporation.
Fumo rips auditor general for audit of student loan agency
A state senator on the board of Pennsylvania's student loan agency criticized an ongoing state audit of the agency's spending practices Thursday, alleging that it's politically motivated.
Sen. Vincent Fumo, D-Philadelphia, said the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency's spending on business travel, entertainment and promotions have helped boost its revenues.
State Auditor General Jack Wagner announced last April that his office would audit PHEAA, citing news reports of lavish spending. The audit is expected to be completed by the end of June.
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Disputed Accord in Student Loan Case
Department officials portrayed the settlement reached with the Nebraska Education Loan Network, or Nelnet, as a defeat for the for-profit company. They noted that they were declining to pay an estimated $882 million in additional reimbursement requests that the company has pending under the same loophole, and ending future payments on such loans to other lenders as well unless the lenders can prove, through audits, that they qualify for the funds. Nelnet officials themselves, too, took issue with the department’s finding but said they had settled the case to allow the company to move on. But Congressional and other critics accused the department of going soft on Nelnet and other lenders. They blasted administration officials for failing to fully follow the recommendation of the department’s inspector general, who contended in a September audit report that Nelnet should be forced to repay all funds earned through the loophole, though which lenders were paid a 9.5 percent government subsidy on a certain class of student loans.
Lending Club Partners with Top University Alumni Associations to ...
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Oct. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Since the early 1900s, homecoming has marked the return of millions of alumni looking to reconnect and give back to their alma maters across the country. Lending Club, the rapidly growing people-to-people (P2P) lending service, today announced the availability of its affinity-based lending service through the websites of top university alumni associations to offer a new way to lend and borrow money among fellow alumni. Lending Club is the first in the P2P lending industry to provide co-branded lending applications to online communities, including the alumni associations at Georgia Tech, Kansas State and University of Michigan. "Whether it's helping fellow alumni pay off student loans or launch new enterprises, we offer a rewarding new way for alumni to invest directly in each other," said Renaud Laplanche, founder and CEO of Lending Club.
Legislation enforces regulations on student loans
The $85 billion a year student loan industry faced a lot of scrutiny over the past year with regard to the relationships between universities and alternative lenders. "I am pleased to see the long and deliberative negotiated rulemaking process produce final regulations that are a major step forward in improving the transparency of the student loan programs, ensuring borrower choice and restoring confidence in the federal financial aid programs," said Margaret Spellings, Secretary of Education in a press release. The regulations were drafted after New York's attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, conducted an investigation into these university-lender relationships. The investigation found many cases of payoffs, kickbacks, gifts and donations given by alternative lenders to financial aid employees.
Feds ask Pa. student-loan agency to repay $15 million
HARRISBURG, Pa. - The federal government is asking Pennsylvania's student-loan agency to repay as much as $15 million that officials say it overcharged for loan subsidies. The U.S. Department of Education outlined its request in a letter to the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency on Friday, two months after the department's inspector general released an audit of the PHEAA subsidies. The audit determined that PHEAA was overpaid $35 million in federal subsidies between July 2003 and June 2006 , 13 percent of the more than $263 million it received during that period. But the department ultimately did not accept all the audit's findings, Patricia Trubia of the Federal Student Aid office wrote in her letter to PHEAA. Federal regulations allow lenders to receive federal subsidies for student loans funded by tax-exempt bonds issued before Oct.
UTSA Tomas Rivera Center receives $129K grant
(Jan. 8, 2008)--The UTSA Tomás Rivera Center for Student Success (TRC) was awarded $129,441 by the TG Public Benefit Grant Program to help provide greater access to higher education and advance graduate student success with a new program. Created by the Texas Legislature in 1979, TG is a public, nonprofit corporation that administers the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP). FFELP formerly was known as the Guaranteed Student Loan Program. TG provides federal student loan guarantees to help ensure access to higher education for millions of students across the country each year. .
IRA, loan payments are equally good options
Question: I am a graduate student. I have two modest loans - one is at a 7 percent interest, whereas with the other, the government is paying the interest until I get out of school. I've got an extra $200 each month that I can use toward retirement or paying down my loans. Which option is best?
Answer: Your IRA contributions are tax-deductible, but so too are your student-loan interest payments. So either way, whether you fund the IRA or keep paying interest on the student loans, you get a comparable tax break.
With taxes out of the picture, your decision comes down to a comparison of the student-loan interest rate to the potential return on your IRA investments. Because you'll be investing for retirement, which is decades away for you, your time horizon is long enough to focus largely or almost entirely on stocks.
'Student' conman obtains £10,000
A CONMAN posed as a student to obtain almost £10,000 in loans, a court heard. David Jones, aged 32, of Hardy Mill Road, Harwood, used the identities of his brother and a friend to con a student loans organisation. Today he pleaded guilty to obtaining money by deception, attempting to obtain money by deception, and making a false representation. .
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