June 29, 2009
Dear Mrs. Madoff:Add your comment
Filed under: College
There has been a fair amount of complaining about the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), the government-administered form the calculates an “expected family contribution” for college students based on their families’ financial situations.
Apparently it was just too many hours of work to qualify for financial aid for college, and come on: Why should people have to fill out a detailed form to get money for college?
Filed under: Insurance, Technology, Transportation
Drive without insurance? Then you’d better stay out of Ohio, where the state is considering a program that uses red-light cameras and insurance company databases to check passing traffic for uninsured motorists. The system would use license plate numbers to verify driver insurance. According to the Columbus Dispatch, officials in Chicago, who are considering the same system, from InsureNet of Novi, Michigan, think that such a program could generate $200 million in additional revenue for the Windy City.
June 27, 2009
Filed under: College, Recession
With high unemployment hitting communities across the nation, more people are returning to school to gain new skills and an upper hand on the competition. Owens Community College in Northwest Ohio is expecting an increase of close 24% for full time students this fall and has seen an increase in summer enrollment of close to 20% as well. Technical schools, like Tennessee Tech, are also seeing a boom in enrollment, thanks to job seekers looking for new skills.
Part of this increase can be attributed to the fact that many of these schools have noticed a shift in demand and have accordingly adjusted their programs to fit the needs of nontraditional students, such as unemployed Boomers. More community colleges are also offering evening and online courses, which make it easier to work on a new skill while you are still gainfully employed.
June 26, 2009
Filed under: Home, Real Estate, Retire, The Dolans, Video
Ken and Daria Dolan, America’s first family of personal finance, answer your questions every Friday.
When one thinks about debt collectors, names like “leech,” “bloodsucker,” and “pit bull” immediately dance from the tongue; for those lucky few of us who have occasionally received wake-up calls from the bill man, the terms get even more emotionally fraught and foully descriptive. While cannibalism is obviously a somewhat extreme response, regular social calls from creditors can help one see the wisdom of Hannibal Lector, who proudly bragged of eating a census-taker’s liver with “fava beans and a nice chianti.”
In the current economic situation, affection would likely be the last response that a bill collector could expect from a client. However, this is exactly what a collector in Victorville, California got on Wednesday when she knocked on a customer’s door. The collector, a car saleswoman, came by to pick up a payment when she noticed that her customer had missed the pay date. (Continue the story…)
June 25, 2009
Filed under: College
What recession? Despite recent news reports (and posts on this blog) detailing the boatload of debt shouldered by the nation’s new college grads, a few schools out there are catering to students who want to live the Entourage lifestyle while earning a degree. They’re adding valet parking for students. To date, only a handful of schools have augmented their offerings with this decidedly non-recessionary perk, but interest is on the rise as colleges seek more creative ways to generate revenue.
At Florida International University in Miami, a valet-parking program put into place last spring charges student $5 an hour for preferred parking spots. Although the program was put on hiatus for the less-heavily-attended summer semester, it’s reported to be back in the fall.
Filed under: Debt, Wealth, Celebs & Money
If you thought prices at the canceled auction in April for Michael Jackson’s belongings were high — $20,000 for one of the front gates to Jackson’s Neverland Ranch — the pop icon’s death on Thursday will likely push the prices off the charts.
Filed under: Banks, Consumer Complaints
Bank of America complained that the credit markets were so tight, soooooooo tight, that it couldn’t possibly generate cash in the private sector, and that was why it needed a federal bailout.
Well now it got its federal bailout, and it continues to rip off consumers across the country with one of the worst savings account rates in the world — 0.10% APY.
Imagine that you are mowing the lawn, and your lawn mower pitches a stone into one of your windows, cracking the glass. So you put a little piece of wood in front of the glass to cover the breakage, and go back about your business. You’ll get the window fixed later.
One week later, you receive a letter from your homeowner’s insurance carrier, stating that your coverage is going to be dropped. The letter cites your unkempt landscape and the boarded up window as the reasons for your loss of coverage.