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 Blogpointed 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:
color coding (see image above)
fewer questions; can skip inapplicable ones
direct import of tax info from IRS website starting summer 2011
direct tie-in to eligibility for Pell Grants and federal loans
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!
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:
“collect fees but never provide the information”
“misrepresent themselves as a government official”
“guarantee they’ll get the student full funding for college”
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 paidad 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.
Interpreting BLS data, The Center for College Affordability and Productivity has written recently about the underemployment of US college graduates. Its latest estimate has about 17 million degreed people in jobs that don’t make use of college skills. As if that weren’t bad enough, Christoper Matgouranis recently posted new findings to the CCAP blog that show even advanced degree holders to be in trouble.
Takeaway #1: The graduate-degree employment scene is ugly. Underemployment among graduate degree-holders appears to be trending up since 1998.
Takeaway #2: If you want an advanced degree, make sure you’re getting good information from the respective school about employment prospects for graduates with that degree.
Never heard of a pain funnel? Neither had I, until today. Essentially, it’s what certain marketers (in this case, for-profit college recruiters) use to identify people’s pain or problems in order to entice them to consume their products, which represent the solution.
While it’s marketing 101 to appeal to emotions like fear—often closely related to pain—some of the recruiting document language for several for-profit colleges that was revealed Monday in a Senate floor speech by Sen. Tom Harkin is disturbing:
“Poke the pain a bit and remind them who else is depending on them …”
“Stay in constant contact through phone calls, emails, etc.” [Emphasis added]
“We serve the UN-DER World” (Refers to unemployed, underpaid, unmotivated, unskilled etc.)
“Student profiles: Welfare Mom w/Kids … Pregnant Ladies … Low Self-Esteem … Experienced a Recent Death … Physically/Mentally Abused”
My biggest issue is the predation, i.e., targeting individuals who may not be sufficiently educated or otherwise ready to make a rational decision and coercing them to enroll regardless of what is really best for them. It’s one thing to soothe people’s pain; it’s another to take advantage of it. View the individual documents above (via The Huffington Post) and judge for yourself. (Tip: Get a full-screen view by clicking the button to the left of “Download” at the top.)
We don’t usually get seasonal on this blog, but there is one kind of year-end tradition to which I will now surrender. To expose our newer readers to “oldies but goodies” and to give a small gift to the regular readers in the hopes that you might enjoy something you missed, I present (drumroll, please) … the double retrospective.
Second, here are the YSGTS blog’s own most popular posts from 2010 (or since we started in March). Thank you for reading, and we hope you continue to follow us next year!
I usually don’t use this space for log-rolling, but YouShouldGoToSchool.com has a new 2-minute video that is worth viewing for any prospective students of for-profit schools or other career-centered educational institutions.
I’ve written about this subject before (see here and here), but if you’ve ever wondered why you or somebody you know might want to consider a non-traditional education, we’ve wrapped it up with a ribbon right here:
Keep your eyes on this blog for regular reminders of the growing importance of and the latest trends in career education.
An article in U.S. News and World Report today looks at a new study from Kennesaw State University (Kennesaw, Ga.) that shows more work is required to improve the retention rate for online students. Interestingly, the report found numerous common strategies made virtually no difference in retention between control and treatment groups:
The latest offering we urge you to check out is yesterday’s Consumerism Commentary podcast, where the founder of the same-titled blog, Flexo, offers his sharp insights in an interview on saving money at college. From credit cards to dining out to, yes, saving money on textbooks, he covers wide territory in a short time. Some of the tips apply only to the on-campus experience, while others are relevant to commuter and distance/online students. Other than time spent landing scholarships or other big financial aid, it’s probably the best 25 (financial) minutes you could spend before or during college.
Give a listen here or find the podcast in iTunes or your favorite podcast source. You can thank us (or him) later.
A very small percentage of people who join the military choose to make it their long-term career. The overwhelming majority of recruits use the military as a stepping-stone, enlisting for one term, then leaving to enroll in school, or pursue a civilian career.
The GI bill is essentially a government grant designed to allow military personnel to attend college for free. The details of how the bill works can be a bit confusing, so read on to learn how to get the most out of the GI Bill.
