May 24, 2011
Pell Grants have lately taken center stage in the debate over the legitimacy of for-profit colleges. But regardless of whether you’re for or against for-profit education, the availability of Pell Grants themselves remains a separate issue.
Category: FAFSA, Financial Aid, Grants
March 16, 2011
Everyone who applies for federal student aid knows about the FAFSA, but what may not be well known are the recent improvements to the 2011-12 version. The Student Loan Blog pointed out some of these enhancements last week. Sally Croft states that the entire process is simpler and faster while the addition of easier e-filing reduces the need to consult occasionally shady third parties.
Because the original post has some heavy ad intrusion (including a horribly placed payday-loan banner), I’ve taken the liberty of summarizing Croft’s keys to the new FAFSA:
YouShouldGoToSchool.com is on record as being critical of the FAFSA (see our financial aid FAQ), so these changes are quite welcome. Go, color coding!
Category: FAFSA, Financial Aid, Higher Education, Planning for College
February 23, 2011
Financial-aid and scholarship searches can be hard enough, but when scammers enter the picture, it’s a whole new ballgame. As recently noted in The Washington Post’s “Answer Sheet” blog, certain individuals can be deceptive when offering scholarships, though it is legal for for-profit companies to charge for scholarship information. What for-profit companies cannot do, via Valerie Strauss’ blog post:
For additional guidance, see the section of the Federal Trade Commission’s website devoted to scholarship scams, which includes a list of actual companies that have faced legal action. (Look past the frequent use of juvenile $ signs in place of the letter s; this site really does have some authoritative information).
Making money on FAFSA
Beyond scholarships, a whole cottage industry exists to fraudulently (or otherwise unscrupulously) charge for filing the free FAFSA federal financial aid application or push fake scholarships. One case in point: misspelled online searches.
As Strauss points out, if you misspell “FAFSA” as “fasfa” or “fasa” (pretty easy to do), you may find various websites that will take your money for filing the form or even file the wrong form. For clarification, the URL for the real FAFSA is: http://www.fafsa.ed.gov.
Conducting some experiments, I noticed that Google can be helpful, too, usually redirecting various versions of the misspelled “fasfa” with the real FAFSA (though the paid ad for “fasfa.com” still shows up):
These financial aid scams are similar to the free credit report ones, where you need to go to annualcreditreport.com for the actual free reports, not freecreditreport.com or the other similarly named sites that charge you for the same service.
September 2, 2010
If you’re like most people, the topic of financial aid makes you want to take a baseball bat to your head. Also, if you’re like most people, you can’t avoid these two stomach-turning words if you’ve been to college or want to go back after some time in the workforce. It’s okay. I feel the same way, and even think tanks that have studied it agree:
“the primary difficulty with current federal financial aid policy is that it is poorly understood by nearly all of its constituents”
–Center for American Progress
Category: FAFSA, Financial Aid, Grants, Loans, Scholarships
March 22, 2010
Sunday night, the House of Representatives voted on and passed a version of legislation set to overhaul the current student lending system, according to an article in the Washingtion Post. Under the new system, students would borrow directly from the Department of Education, rather than from federally subsidized student loan companies, a move projected to positively impact the federal budget. This is the latest development in the ongoing debate over what form the overhaul will take, how it will be incorporated into the healthcare bill and how the potential savings will be allocated.
Earlier estimates projected the savings to be $87 billion over the course of 10 years, but more recent estimates, which take into account Pell Grant funding issues, say it’s much less. Accoring to EduWeek.org:
“in part because of the expanded need for Pell Grants and in part because more schools joined the Direct Loan program over the past year, the CBO’s savings estimate is now much lower; one recent estimate was about $67 billion.”
The Pell Grant system, a federally funded effort to provide financial assistance to lower-income college students, has seen a spike in applicants since national interest has turned to higher education as a way to secure an edge in the lean job market. The student-loan legislation would provide additional funding to the Pell Grant system, enabling an increase in the maximum value of the Pell Grant (scheduled to reach $5,550 next year) while adjusting it annually according to inflation.
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See our earlier post for more information and links to other insightful articles about student-loan reform. We’ll continue to follow the progression of the financial aid bill, and keep you up-to-date on this blog. Or get a comprehensive look at financial aid for college.
Category: Career, FAFSA, Financial Aid, Grants, Higher Education, Loans, Scholarships, Uncategorized
March 16, 2010
As if there wasn’t enough already riding on the healthcare debate taking place in Washington, the folks at edweek.org recently posted this blog.
There is currently a discussion in Congress over whether to include legislation in the healthcare bill that would modify the way students borrow money for college. According to their report, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated $87 billion in savings over ten years from a change in the student lending system. Under the new system, students would borrow directly from the U.S. Treasury, rather than from third-party institutions, whose loans are subsidized by the federal government.
The benefit of combining healthcare and student lending into one bill would be to compensate for the projected high cost of healthcare reform with the anticipated savings of student loan reform.
Also included in the bill are measures to reform the Pell grant system:
“If the student loan change isn’t passed, there will be a major shortfall in the Pell Grant program, a senior administration official told me. In fact, the maximum grant would go to $2,150 from $5,300.”
Although there is potential for many students to benefit from the incorporation of student loan legislation into the healthcare bill, push-back against healthcare reform could jeopardize the chance for that potential to be realized.
Photo courtesy of Warren H via Flickr
Category: Career, FAFSA, Financial Aid, Grants, Higher Education, Loans, Required Reading, Scholarships
