eduJunction » Student Aid & Loans

Scholarships For College And Where To Find Them

Marty — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 06:16:47 +0000

I wanted to share some more information for you on scholarships for college. I posted to youtube and wanted to let you guys know about it. Click on the link below to see it: These are just a few college scholarships out there that might help people when deciding how to get the funds needed in order to go back to college. To find out more about scholarships you can watch the video here to and get our guide to 1,000 Scholarships and Grants absolutely free!

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College Degrees Online Are The Future

Marty — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:33:19 +0000

Traditional campus based colleges and universities are whispering to the rest of the world what they don’t want to admit; college degrees online are the future. Although they don’t want to admit it, they can not afford to ignore it either. In a recent story issued by Huffington Post, traditional college admission rates are dropping to the point where they must now seriously consider the power of getting a college degree online. While schools like Harvard, Columbia, Yale and Princeton all saw their applicant pools drastically increase last year, their acceptance rates were at all time lows, with Harvard being the lowest at 6.2% for the class of 2015. One might draw several conclusions as to why these numbers show these projections, but given the current economic climate, it is widely agreed upon that the higher education industry must consider a change in business model. People who have lost their jobs are looking for ways to advance themselves. A lot of folks who have jobs feel they are not making enough to make ends meet currently, let alone further their kids’ chances at higher education, a promising career, and enabling an overall better life than the ones they had. If getting a degree online expands the potential reach for higher education’s customer base, shouldn’t it be considered by all in that marketplace? If competition drives every market and adjustments are constantly being made to ensure the longevity of those services, won’t every single college in the world consider the need for an online college degree? People need flexibility, especially in this economy where both parents might be working multiple jobs. Nothing is more flexible, convenient, or as accommodating as allowing someone to get a college degree online. And if desperate times call for desperate measures, then no one in the changing landscape of higher education can be choosy, including the fastest best accredited online schools themselves.

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Go Back To School As An Adult

Marty — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:26:56 +0000

It is never too late to go back to school. If you’re ready to go back to college after all these years, you’ve come to the right place. College isn’t only for young people. You can still go back to college as an adult. Whatever it is that you want to go back to school for, in this day and age it is more possible than ever. There are ways to get back into a brick and mortar school, but an idea that is getting more popular these days are online college degrees. You have to shop around for schools, and see if they offer online classes. There are so many different schools that specialize in different areas that you can learn any skill you need online. You can live anywhere and get a degree without ever having to go into any kind of building. The reason it’s good when thinking about going back to college is because new skills are a great thing to have. If you’re tired of your job, or just want a change, then going back to school can provide that. There is no time like the present to get back into school. Whatever your age is, you can still learn so much. If you don’t take the time now and keep putting it off, you’ll never get ahead in your quest for more knowledge. Sometimes we grow bored with our work. Other times we just want to know more about something. By going back to school, you will be able to gain new skills and will be able to work in that field. You may be scared because studying and homework were something of the past, but it’s a small price to pay to do something you’ve always wanted to do. Request more information from one of many online colleges and go back to school as an adult. Don’t put this decision to go back to college off just because you’re an adult. It is very possible and even an idea that’s popular these days. You are not alone in wanting to go back to college as an adult. Many people are taking steps towards this and lots of them succeed. If you feel like something is lacking in your life, going back to school is a fantastic way to put more excitement in your life. Not only will you accomplish something, but you will grow as a person and will have a lot of new experiences to look forward to. Incoming search terms: going back to college at 40 going back to school at 40

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Go Back To School Because You Should

Marty — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:42:24 +0000

It’s time to shave that scruffy face of yours (if your a dude), get an instant makeover and go back to school. We are most definitely in the year 2012, and regardless of what the Mayan calendar says, time will continue to tick tock forward. It’s equal parts scary and depressing to know that life moves with or without you, but it just does! And so it is true, do your best to enjoy it. Every year people are making big decisions about how they will handle the new year. Whether it’s starting their own business, getting a new job, or even going back to college so they can get a degree in a field they will love, people are making big plans. I recall a quote from Harry S. Truman that I stuck to my bathroom mirror in high school, “make no little plans, make 1 big plan and spend the rest of your life carrying it out.” I did this so I would be reminded of the one sport I pursued all throughout high school. Needless to say, I never made it to the NFL! Harry, where are you now when I need you? If you want to start that business you have dreamed about for years, there may not be a better time. If you have been thinking about going back to school at 30, 40, or even 60, it still might be the best time for you. Remember, life moves forward with or without you. This is only a breath and a whisper. Find a school that has your programs of interest, go back to college, and get your degree! Incoming search terms: going back to school at 30 going back to college at 30

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6 ways to save on continuing education

Marty — Fri, 13 May 2011 19:27:15 +0000

As companies begin to cut jobs in a deepening recession, it’s a good time for older workers to stay one step ahead of a pink slip by returning to school and beefing up their resume with a master’s degree or simply some extra credits in their professional field. And there’s no reason the cost of additional education has to fall on your shoulders alone, especially if you’re an older worker. Here are six ways that age can help you land financial aid: Paying for continuing education Scholarships for adults Work-life credit Employer tuition assistance State-school discounts Scholarships in your field Veterans assistance 1. Target scholarships for grown-ups People who believe the only students receiving financial aid are graduates fresh from high school should talk to Abigail Nall. A recipient of the REACh Scholarship, an aid award from the group Resources for the Education of Adults in the Chicago Area only available to adults ages 25 and older, Nall is putting her free $1,500 toward her master’s in speech language pathology at Rush University on the city’s West Side. “I applied for this scholarship because it was geared toward adults and that meant there was a smaller pool of applicants,” Nall says. “As an adult student, I thought that I had a story to tell.” Indeed, working adults can get a leg up on the competition by applying for scholarships aimed exclusively at older audiences, such as the Talbots Women’s Scholarship Fund and the Jeannette Rankin Foundation awards. They also can use their work experience to their advantage when applying for scholarships available through professional associations. When starting the scholarship hunt, Kelly Tanabe, co-author of “501 Ways for Adult Students to Pay for College,” recommends that students with work experience head directly to their school’s financial aid office and their academic department to ask about profession-specific scholarships. Older students also should look for scholarships targeting older students through their school’s office of adult education or office of continuing studies. Only after school-based aid options have been exhausted should older students begin making national aid searches aimed at traditional college students. 2. Use your experience Tanabe says working adults who have spent a lifetime in a particular profession or occupation may be able to opt out of some classes before going the financial-aid route to take additional classes. “People who have worked in a certain field might be able to get credit for two or three courses because of life experience,” Tanabe says. “Not every college has a program where you can use life experience to get credit, so adults should research that before applying.” Tanabe adds that adults attending schools that don’t accept life-experience credit may be able to opt out of a few introductory courses by passing placement tests. If the school doesn’t offer its own placement testing, working adults can save money by scoring well o standardized advanced placement, College Level Examination Program or the SAT Subject Tests, all of which are available through the not-for-profitCollege Board. Many universities nationally accept them. 3. Passing the buck Tuition bills from Johns Hopkins University, one of the most prestigious and expensive schools in the nation, don’t intimidate Alison Cieszynski. A senior consultant at the McLean, Va.-based management consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, Cieszynski let her company pick up half of the tab when she decided to return to school for her master’s in business. “Booz Allen has a partnership with Johns Hopkins, so they not only paid for about $5,000 of my tuition per year, they also locked us in at the tuition rate we started with,” Cieszynski says. “I paid the same amount per credit for the entire two-and-a-half years I attended. My costs didn’t go up, while the rest of the world’s did.” Cieszynski estimates that she saved about $12,000 on her degree thanks to company-sponsored tuition, money she never would have received as a traditional college student. The book “FastWeb College Gold: The Step-By-Step Guide to Paying for College” reports that 85 percent of large and mid-sized companies nationwide offer some form of employer education assistance. Tuition reimbursement programs typically require workers to pursue degrees directly related to their current position as well as to stay with the company for a certain period of time after receiving aid. But employer-based educational assistance is one of the simplest ways for older students to get free college cash. 4. Don’t forget the discounts In states like Virginia, Illinois, Florida, Alaska and Connecticut, being over the hill can also mean being over big tuition bills. That’s because those states offer tuition waivers to senior citizens ages 60 to 65 (depending on the state) and older who attend in-state public colleges and universities. Senior students who live in a state without a waiver may be able to get around paying tuition if they apply to the right schools. While a handful of four-year institutions, such as Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., and the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., offer partial tuition waivers to seniors, the programs are available more broadly on the community-college level. In addition to offering discounts ranging from 50 percent to 100 percent of the cost of tuition, many two-year institutions also offer low-cost credit and noncredit classes designed for senior students only. 5. Scholarships in your field One of the biggest trump cards that older students hold over traditional college coeds is that they already have a career, Tanabe says. Armed with years of experience, real-world connections and a well-rounded resume, older adults seeking field-specific financial aid often are better positioned than 20-somethings for some scholarship programs. “Somebody who’s offering scholarships in an area like marketing, for example, they want to make sure they’re giving that scholarship to a person who knows they’re going into marketing,” Tanabe says. “You can raise your chances of getting that scholarship by demonstrating that you’ve had experience working in that area.” 6. Cash in on service Thanks to new legislation, military veterans may be able to pass their [...]

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Colleges help to tame tuition

Marty — Fri, 13 May 2011 19:26:17 +0000

Fear you’ll never be able afford college tuition? Schools are feeling your pain. More colleges and universities, both public and private, are trying to make themselves less expensive — and more attractive — by experimenting with ways to offset rising costs and mounting debt. College costs have skyrocketed past the rate of inflation year after year; tuition, fees and living expenses can now top $45,000 a year at some private schools. They’re expected to rise yet again, by nearly 6 percent, according to the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. State-school costs are lower, averaging $13,000, but annual increases can fluctuate, depending on the state’s fiscal stability. As tuition rises, so does a family’s share of the financial burden. According to the U.S. Department of Education, students carry more than $8,000 a year in education debt. Approximately 50 higher-education institutions, from Amherst College to Yale University, are making attempts to lower the burden. New programs include freezing tuition, offering grants over loans, and changing financial-aid formulas to lower families’ contributions. Unlike past efforts that mostly focused on helping lower-income students, these new moves are also aimed at helping more affluent families feel less pain. Helping students be debt-free The latest to change its ways efforts isDavidson College, a top-ranked liberal arts school near Charlotte, N.C., which will eliminate all student loans from its financial aid packages starting this fall. Instead, it plans to boost its endowment and provide all its student aid in the form of grants and work-study. In doing so, Davidson becomes the first liberal-arts college in the U.S. to adopt the policy of helping students graduate debt-free. In the last school year, a quarter of the school’s 1,650 students received loans. At $39,000 a year, tuition is not cheap. So the main goal of Davidson’s new initiative was to make economically disadvantaged students put off by the high numbers think twice, says Christopher Gruber, Davidson’s dean of admissions and financial aid. “Students were skipping past us because they looked at the sticker price and said, ‘Why even bother?’ We wanted to crank open our doors even further.” Davidson is making a smart marketing move, says Terry Hartle, senior vice-president of the American Council on Education. “It’s a very respected college, but not well-known outside the Southeast. This will give it more national attention, and I suspect they’ll be receiving thousands more applications this year.” It’s too early to tell, but Gruber says the school had a spike in acceptances from those offered admission for the fall semester. Hartle says other liberal arts colleges would love to follow in Davidson’s footsteps, but few have the funds to do so. Still, Davidson has an endowment of only $420 million, so leaders will still have to scramble get the millions it needs from other sources. The program will cost about $1.8 million a year for students now on aid. Leaders expect the number of needy students to grow to about 40 percent, which would cost $3.5 million a year. Trustees already have raised $75 million to pay for the first few years of the effort. Gruber says new money will be raised, instead of tuition, to fund future grants. “This is not a Robin Hood program, it won’t take away from other programs.” In 2001,Princetonwas the first to announce it would replace all student loans with grants and not ask low-income families to contribute funds for undergraduate education. Other Ivies like Harvard, Yale and Columbia soon said they would do the same. Harvard does not ask families with incomes under $60,000 to contribute anything, and it also reduced the expected contribution amount for families making $60,000 to $80,000. More schools are also giving homeowners a break. A consortium of 28 top private colleges that call themselves the568 Presidents’ Group(after the federal antitrust exception allowing them to set joint aid rules) will start using a more generous financial-aid calculation this year that aims to reduce contributions for families whose homes have appreciated. Previously, this group, which includes schools like Duke, Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania, counted the market value of a house, up to 2.4 times a family’s income, as an available asset, regardless of how large the mortgage was. Now they will count onlyhome equity, which is market value minus mortgage debt, and cap that at 1.2 times income. On the West Coast, Stanford said earlier this year that it would tighten the cap on annual undergrad student loans, from $3,500 to $2,000. It also will reduce theexpected contributionfrom families making between $60,000 and $135,000 by capping the amount of home equity assessed to 1.5 times the family income, saving an average of $2,000 a year. Stanford said it would make an allowance for renters with no home equity so that their other assets aren’t disproportionately weighted. Public schools pump up efforts It wasn’t until 2003 that public schools took similar action. The first to take that step was the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill when it announced the “Carolina Covenant,” eliminating loans for students whose families made 150 percent of the federal poverty level, then $28,000 for a family of four. The program has now expanded to those earning 200 percent of the poverty level. UNC Chapel Hill had 949 Covenant scholars, last year, about 8 percent of the total undergraduate population, and will be adding another 450 this fall. Other public powerhouse schools are making similar efforts: the University of Virginia hasAccess UVa, and the University of Texas at Austin has theLonghorn Opportunity Scholarship. Some schools are increasing income-level eligibility. Emory University in Atlanta is replacing loans with grants for families earning $50,000 or less. For income ranges between $50,000 and $100,000, Emory will cap the total amount of need-based loans a student must take at $15,000 over their college career. Others are locking in tuition rates. Big schools, such as George Washington University in Washington, D.C., to regional schools, such as Hiram College in Central Ohio, let each incoming class lock in [...]

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Everything You Need To Know About Financial Aid

Marty — Fri, 13 May 2011 19:03:09 +0000

An education loan is a form of financial aid that must be repaid, with interest. (Scholarships, on the other hand, do not have to be repaid.) Education loans come in three major categories: student loans(e.g., Stafford and Perkins loans), parent loans (e.g., PLUS loans) and private student loans (also called alternative student loans). A fourth type of education loan, theconsolidation loan, allows the borrower to lump all of their loans into one loan for simplified payment. A recent innovation is peer-to-peer education loans. More than $100 billion in federal education loans and $10 billion in private student loans are originated each year. Since July 1, 2010, all new federal education loans have been made through the Direct Loan program. The loans are made through the college’s financial aid office with funds provided by the US Department of Education. This includes the Federal Parent PLUS loan in addition to student loans. The terms of the Federal Stafford, PLUS and Consolidation loans are similar to the terms of the federal education loans previously available through the federally-guaranteed student loan programs. However, the interest rate on the Federal Direct PLUS loan is lower (7.9% vs. 8.5%) and the approval rate is higher. Making payments of at least the new interest that accrues during the in-school and grace periods avoids negative amortization. This can save borrowers money and help them pay off the debt sooner that borrowers who defer payments of principal and interest. Federal law sets the maximum interest rates and fees that lenders may charge for federally-guaranteed loans. Nothing prevents a lender from charging lower fees. Many lenders offer a variety of student loan discounts to attract borrowers. Few students can afford to pay for college without some form of education financing. Two-thirds (65.6%) of 4-year undergraduate students graduated with a Bachelor’s degree and some debt in 2007-08, and the average student loan debt among graduating seniors was $23,186 (excluding PLUS Loans but including Stafford, Perkins, state, college and private loans). Among graduating 4-year undergraduate students who applied for federal student aid, 86.3% borrowed to pay for their education and the average cumulative debt was $24,651. (For just federal student loan debt, excluding PLUS Loans, the figures are 61.6% and $17,878.) Average cumulative debt increased by 5.6% or $1,139 a year since 2003-04. When one includes PLUS loans in the total, 66.0% of 4-year undergraduate students graduated with some debt in 2007-08, and the average cumulative debt incurred was $27,803. (About two in fifteen (13.5%) of parents borrow PLUS loans for their children’s college education, with a cumulative PLUS loan debt of $23,298.) These figures were calculated using the data analysis system for the 2007-2008 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS)conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics at the US Department of Education. (For comparison, cumulative education debt statistics from the 2003-2004 NPSAS are also available.) The 2007-2008 NPSAS surveyed 114,000 undergraduate students and 14,000 graduate and professional students. These statistics are not necessarily available from published NPSAS reports. The median cumulative debt among graduating Bachelor’s degree recipients at 4-year undergraduate schools was $19,999 in 2007-08. One quarter borrowed $30,526 or more, and one tenth borrowed $44,668 or more. 9.5% of undergraduate students and 14.6% of undergraduate student borrowers graduating with a Bachelor’s degree graduated with $40,000 or more in cumulative debt in 2007-08. This compares with 6.4% and 10.0%, respectively, for Bachelor’s degree recipients graduating with $40,000 or more (2008 dollars) in cumulative debt in 2003-04. The following table shows the percentage of students borrowing and average cumulative debt per borrower (excluding Parent PLUS Loans) at graduation according to type of educational institution but not restricted by degree program. Undergraduate Education Debt (Excluding Parent PLUS Loans) Institution Level & Control Percent Borrowing Cumulative Debt Overall Total (4, 2 and < 2 year) 58.8% $18,625 Public 49.4% $16,369 Private Non-Profit 69.7% $26,683 Private For-Profit 93.1% $17,162 4-year Total 66.5% $22,656 4-year Public 61.1% $19,839 4-year Private Non-Profit 70.6% $27,349 4-year Private For-Profit 97.0% $24,635 2-year Total 44.8% $12,307 2-year Public 37.2% $10,444 2-year Private Non-Profit 64.0% $14,790 2-year Private For-Profit 97.6% $17,310 < 2-year Total 74.7% $10,172 < 2-year Public 36.1% $10,321 < 2-year Private Non-Profit 45.0% $10,990 < 2-year Private For-Profit 86.0% $10,123 As noted in Default Rates by Institution Level vs. Degree Program, however, institution level (4-year, 2-year and less-than-2-year) does not correlate well with degree program, especially at for-profit colleges. The following table shows cumulative debt at graduation by institution control and undergraduate degree program. Notice how the average debt for Bachelor’s degree recipients is much higher at for-profit colleges than the average debt at graduation at 4-year for-profit colleges. More than two-fifths of degrees at 4-year for-profit colleges are Associate’s degrees, compared with less than 5% at non-profit and public 4-year colleges, yielding a lower average debt at graduation when measured by institution level as opposed to degree program. Undergraduate Education Debt Institution Control and Degree Program Percent Borrowing Average Cumulative Debt Median Cumulative Debt (Just Borrowers) Median Cumulative Debt (All Students) Bachelor’s Degree 65.2% $23,118 $19,999 $10,500 Public 61.2% $20,040 $17,500 $6,998 Private Non-Profit 70.5% $27,535 $22,374 $16,115 Private For-Profit 96.0% $32,909 $32,625 $31,186 Associate’s Degree 47.1% $13,289 $10,000 $0 Public 38.9% $10,574 $7,668 $0 Private Non-Profit 71.1% $19,294 $16,130 $10,000 Private For-Profit 97.8% $19,681 $18,783 $18,415 Certificate 63.2% $11,302 $9,000 $4,804 Public 32.0% $9,754 $6,625 $0 Private Non-Profit 49.5% $15,071 $10,000 $0 Private For-Profit 89.9% $11,573 $9,858 $8,797 The following table shows the percentage of students borrowing and average cumulative debt per borrower (including Parent PLUS Loans) at graduation according to type of educational institution but not restricted by degree program. (The NPSAS includes separate variables for cumulative student education debt and cumulative parent education debt, but not a combined overall education debt variable. Calculating a combined value requires disaggregating the student and parent education debt data by the cross product of students graduating with and without student and parent education debt, then recombining the results. This process adds a slight amount of error to the figures.) Undergraduate Education Debt (Including Parent PLUS Loans) Institution [...]

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Online Degrees: No One Gives It To You – You Must Take It!

Ryan — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 21:35:00 +0000

As we slowly crawl out of this economic downturn, there is room for a new mindset. People can be separated into two groups. There are those who sit and wait for things to happen and there are those who will themselves toward success. Since we have lived inside the information age for over 10 years, everything you can imagine is at your disposal. There really are no excuses for the lost and the lazy anymore. I was having a discussion on this topic a few weeks ago with a friend. He asked me if I thought there had to be the lost so that there could be the found. If there had to be darkness so we could identify the light. Or even, if there had to be failures so we could discern those who have triumphed. It makes sense to me that the world was set up this way – somewhat of an orchestral arrangement aligned by the cosmos. But lately I have been begging for a different angle on this topic. You have seen it in some movies where the guy fails miserably in the beginning and spends the remainder inching to figure it out. Part of the drama of real life is the moment in which we play the protagonist and figure it out for ourselves. People all over the world are screaming for initiative whether they know it or not. There is a commercial airing that I keep seeing and can’t get it out of my head. A male voice serves as the metaphor for the theme saying, “the hotter the fire, the stronger the steal.” It’s dark, aged and rugged and mentions that success can sometimes be measured as lines upon a face. You have to take it, you have to go and get it, maybe even suffer a bit, because in the end, it will be worth it. I wish I had cared about this sort of thing 10 years ago. The friend I was talking about this with recently went back and got an MBA online. I guess this came up because his mindset had changed drastically from when he was an under grad. He was well aware that he couldn’t go back in time, instead he was very appreciative of his recent experiences to help him move forward. A few years ago, he became under the influence of all the possibilities he had within his own power, grasp and control. He acknowledged that he could in fact take it if that’s what the world was offering. We have the internet. We have smart phones. Bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees are clicks away, literally. If you want something and do not like where you are at, you have the ability to take it if they are offering. There is so much being offered. It is up to you to recognize it and take it because no one will give it to you.

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