As part of its bid to become the Least Cool City in America, Pittsburgh’s City Council is preparing to vote on a plan to add a 1% tax to tuition bills for the 100,000 college students who call Pittsburgh home.
The mayor announced a one-week delay on the vote this morning, and colleges and students in the area are lobbying aggressively to get the mayor to back off the plan — which, it should be noted, is one of the dumbest ideas in history.
Filed under: College, Saving Money, Bankruptcy
The Dow may be over 10,000, but unease about the economy persists as unemployment hovers over 10%. To help ease some of your concerns, WalletPop is ready to answer your personal finance questions. Here’s this month’s sample:
Filed under: College
Earlier this month, I warned readers not to enroll — or encourage their children to enroll — in for-profit colleges.
New student loan default rates from the U.S. Department Education highlights in more detail why these institutions are such a bad idea. According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of the data (subscription required), 21% of students who use federal loans to attend for-profit college go into default within three years. That compares to 7% at public four-year colleges and 16% at public two-year colleges. (Continue the story…)
Filed under: College, Extracurriculars, Career
College head coaches are free to come and go, but the NCAA denies college football players the same freedom. We were reminded of this travesty this week when Cincinnati Bearcats head coach Brian Kelly jumped ship for the greener pastures of Notre Dame.
Filed under: College, Kids and Money
Amazon.com has launched a new system to allow customers to trade in their old textbooks. Just type in the ISBN, find out how much your book is worth, print out the shipping label, and get a gift card once the book arrives at Amazon. Amazon only accepts books in good condition.
Sound easy? It sure does. And if money isn’t tight and you can’t be bothered to maximize value for your old books, it’s a great option — if you like Amazon store credit.
Filed under: College
The Associated Press reports that huge for-profit college chains are raking in huge sums of federal student loan dollars.
According to the AP, “Last year, the five institutions that received the most federal Pell Grant dollars were all for-profit colleges, collecting more than $1 billion among them. That was two and a half times what those schools hauled in just two years prior, the AP found, analyzing Department of Education data on disbursements from the Pell program, Washington’s main form of college aid to the poor.”
Filed under: College
It hasn’t gotten much press in the United States, but college students in the United Kingdom who rely on loans to pay their expenses are facing a serious problem: The Guardian reports that “Three-quarters of universities polled said they had made extra payments from their hardship funds to help students pay the rent, buy books and feed themselves while they wait for the Student Loans Company (SLC) to work its way through the backlog of tens of thousands of student applications.”
The SLC took over student loan processing duties from local authorities this year and, evidently, wasn’t prepared for the task. Students are being placed on hold for hours, and loan sharks are descending on campuses to cash in at the expense of students who need cash for rent, school supplies, and food.
(Continue the story…)
It seems like there is data (or at least numbers) on every factor that any family could ever dream of considering when selecting a college. Which colleges have the highest graduation rates? Which college produce the most Nobel Prize winners?
But let’s be honest. There’s one thing we really want to know. Which schools are most likely to turn kids into drunken train wrecks? Happily, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has put together some data on the topic: (Continue the story…)
Filed under: Banks, Borrowing, College
When I can’t think of anything else to write about, I sometimes like to pick up a copy of US News & World Report’s America’s Best Colleges, and spend about 30 seconds flipping through to find one piece of really, really, really horrible advice.
Michigan State University’s College Employment Research Institute’s latest graduate job outlook is pretty bleak.
This year’s college graduates have a mind-boggling 40% fewer job prospects, and jobs for candidates with bachelor’s degrees are expected to drop by 1% in 2010.