Pres. Trump appoints student loan industry exec to watchdog job
The Trump administration is appointing a long-time student loan industry executive to be the government’s top watchdog for the $1.5 trillion student loan market. Robert Cameron will serve as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s new student loan ombudsman, a job designed to protect student loan borrowers from poor industry practices in the student loan industry. […]
5 Facts About Student Loans
Americans owed about $1.5 trillion in student loans at the end of March 2019, more than two times what they owed a decade earlier. The increase has come as historically high shares of young adults in the United States go to college and the cost of higher education increases. Here are five facts about student loans in America, based […]
How college financial aid scams impact families and low-income students
Just months after the so-called “Varsity Blues” scandal, in which it was revealed that wealthy parents paid roughly $25 million to help their children gain admission to elite colleges and universities like Yale and Stanford, a new way wealthy families are manipulating the college admission process has come to light. A report by ProPublica highlights […]
Don’t Have Enough Money Saved for Child’s College? Here’s What You Should and Shouldn’t Do
It’s nothing short of shocking how quickly your child’s bus rides to elementary school turn into a heart-wrenching drive to drop them off at college for the first time. The time flies by, and you wouldn’t be alone if you reached the end of that period with nothing or close to nothing saved for the […]
Should Your Student Loans Really Be Cancelled?
If you read the latest student loan headlines, it seems all your student loans may be cancelled. Should they really be cancelled? Here’s what you need to know. Bernie Sanders: Cancel All Student Loan Debt Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a 2020 presidential candidate, believes that all $1.6 trillion of student loan debt should be cancelled for […]
New law aimed at helping more kids receive student aid
At the average public college, for example, the sticker price for tuition, room and board was $20,090 last year. But in-state students actually paid $14,210, on average. The difference was made up by student aid. Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed a measure aimed at helping more Illinois students receive federal student aid to attend college. […]
The College Financial-Aid Guardianship Loophole and the Woman Who Thought It Up
Lora Georgieva owns consulting firm in Illinois; U.S. Education Department says it will move to stop her actions The college consultant who developed a strategy to help wealthy clients access scholarships designed for the poor said she came up with the idea after seeing how much debt parents were taking on to send their children […]
Parents Gave Up Custody Of Their Kids To Get College Scholarships
ProPublica and The Wall Street Journal published reports showing some wealthy parents used the strategy to gain tens of thousands of dollars in need-based financial aid. Dozens of wealthy families in Illinois have reportedly been using a controversial tactic to help their children pay for college: They give up legal guardianship so the teenagers can […]
Thousands of California Students Lose Financial Aid in Regulatory Fight
Tens of thousands of students in California enrolled in online classes at out-of-state colleges abruptly lost federal financial aid this week after they found themselves in the cross-fire of a regulatory fight between Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and the nation’s largest teachers’ union. The students who lost their aid are the unlikely victims of an […]
How Summer Job Earnings Affect Your Financial Aid For College
Penalizing working students may sound unfair, but annual earnings are excluded from the financial aid formula — to a point. While you may be working to help pay for college, the money you earn could affect the financial aid you receive. Roughly one-third of teenagers have summer jobs, according to the Pew Research Center. Some […]