This is the time for parents of high school seniors to start thinking about applying for financial aid. I was reminded of that today when the college counselor at my son’s high school asked me to talk to his advisory group about the FAFSA and the CSS Financial Aid Profile. Just about everybody in the […]
Archive | Student Loans
Student Loan Consolidation and Other Student Debt Strategies
What’ the right way to pay back your student debt? It’s a question that puzzles a lot of college graduates, who are trying to figure out how to best juggle their student loans. For some college grads, student loan consolidation will be a smart idea. What’s also important is choosing the right payment option for […]
States with High Student Debt and More
10 Best and Worst States for Student Loan Debt Many of the states with the highest student loan debt levels are in the Northeast. In contrast, the states with the lowest student debt levels are in the West and South. That was one of the subjects that I wrote about last week for CBSMoneyWatch.com. In […]
The Ugly Side of College Student Loan Debt
I’m going to be surprised if the soaring level of college student loan debt doesn’t become a political issue. The number of student loan defaults and delinquencies are rising. The latest statistics on student loan delinquencies are shocking. The Student Lending Analytics Blog just crunched the Federal Reserve numbers on student loan delinquencies and came up […]
The Horrors of Student Loan Defaults, 529 Plan Tax Deductions and More
Here are links to my college blog posts for CBSMoneyWatch for the past week: The Horrors of Defaulting on a Student Loan In some respects, the college admission process can be fun. It’s fun to visit colleges and it’s fun to receive acceptance letters in the mail. What’s not fun is paying for college. Sometimes […]
Kicking Private Student Loan Lenders to the Curb
Tell me if this makes sense: When private lenders got into the federal student loan business years ago, the federal government guaranteed that it would step in when student borrowers defaulted on their federal loans. The government (us taxpayers) also gave the student loan lenders a fat subsidy to participate in this virtually risk-free business. […]
Can You Afford a Private College? And Other College Blog Posts
I told you so! That’s what I was thinking when I wrote one of my college blog posts last week for CBSMoneyWatch.com. With the media writing nonstop about how teenagers could only afford public institutions in this wretched economy, I must have looked like a lunatic when I insisted that private colleges could still be […]
College Blog Weeekend RoundUp: Harvard, Student Loans and SAT Tests
Here’s my weekend college blog roundup of the posts that I wrote during the past few days for CBSMoneyWatch.com. Hope you enjoy them. Is Harvard Going Broke? If you’ve been struggling to stay on a budget, you might appreciate what’s happening at Harvard, which is experiencing the worst financial crisis of its 373-year history. The […]