Student Loan Blog : University of Michigan

University of Michigan Not Going Private, President Says

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 06 May 2009 00:28:00 GMT

University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman has stepped forward to set the record straight with TIME magazine after an article in the publication began circulating rumors about the university being forced to privatize due to state budget constraints, The Detroit News reports (“U-M President Refutes Report That University Will Go Private,” April 28, 2009).

“No such discussions are under way, nor are they being considered,” Coleman wrote in a letter to TIME, refuting the magazine’s April 23 article.

TIME reported in its article that this year’s graduating class from the University of Michigan would have “the distinction of possibly being one of the last graduating classes of a genuinely public institution.”

Earlier this year a work group was tasked with finding ways to cut some $326 million in state appropriations to the school’s higher education budget. Privatizing the university was the commission’s fourth suggestion, but the idea never gained any notable public support.

“It is a provocative idea but not very realistic,” said Cynthia Wilbanks, the university’s vice president for government relations, in a statement. “Further, it would take more than a recommendation from the commission. There would have to be legislative and citizen involvement in a decision like this that involves a constitutional change.”

President Coleman’s letter to TIME also addressed the fact that the magazine inaccurately portrayed the University of Michigan’s budget situation.

“Due to careful management, we are in better financial shape than many of our peers, both public and private,” Coleman wrote in her rebuttal. “It is true that we have worked to boost revenues from other sources as the state’s financial support has declined, but what defines a public institution goes far beyond its funding sources.”

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Harvard Inks Custom Loan Deal to Help International Graduate Students

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:47:00 GMT

At a time when large numbers of lenders exiting the student loan marketplace has made it more difficult for international students to find college and graduate school funding, Harvard has announced an exclusive agreement with JPMorgan Chase that will allow the school’s international graduate students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance without a co-signer, reports The Harvard Crimson (“Harvard Strikes Loan Deal,” March 2, 2009).

Considered the first deal of its kind for the banking giant, the new private loan agreement may make it easier for international students — who are ineligible for U.S. federal financial aid — to get the money they need for school.

The JPMorgan deal was arranged after Citibank announced it would no longer offer loans to Harvard’s international graduate students in October of last year, citing the frozen credit markets and higher loan default rates among international students compared to their American counterparts.

Citibank also cancelled similar arrangements with MIT and the University of Michigan, The Harvard Crimson reports.

Harvard’s arrangement with JPMorgan is part of the school’s pledge to maintain its current levels of graduate student aid for the next school year even at the expense of other programs, says Harvard President Drew Faust — a commitment she deems one of the university’s top priorities.

The university has also unveiled several expanded financial aid programs, including those for Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School, as part of its renewed commitment to meeting student need.

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Campuses Draw Vets as New GI Bill Benefits Kick In

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:26:00 GMT

With the “21st Century GI Bill” set to take full effect in August 2009, colleges and universities throughout the country are preparing to receive the large numbers of veterans that will soon be transitioning from soldiers to students, reports The Detroit Free Press (“With New GI Bill, Campuses Prep for Influx of Veterans,” Dec. 29, 2008).

Campuses could see as much as a 25 percent increase in enrollment by military veterans in the next 2-3 years due to the new GI Bill, said Keith Wilson, education services director at the Veterans Benefits Administration.

The new bill will nearly double the college benefits offered under the old Montgomery GI Bill: anyone who has been on active duty for at least 36 months will get full tuition to the most expensive public university in their home state as well as monthly and yearly stipends to cover the costs of housing, books, and tutoring.

U of Michigan Students Push for Veteran Assistance Programs

Two veterans at the University of Michigan say that the state can leverage the new GI Bill and boost the state’s economy by catering to veterans at colleges.

Carl Ireland, president of the Student Veterans’ University of Michigan chapter, and Derek Blumke, co-founder of the Student Veterans of America, want Michigan to extend in-state tuition rates to all vets. They’re also lobbying colleges to establish on-campus veteran’s offices that assist students with any financial, housing, and mental health issues veterans may confront during their transition from active duty to academia.

School programs that assist veterans are a great marketing tool for universities, said Shaftone Bryne Dunklin, assistant director of Veterans Services at Eastern Michigan University. Dunklin believes that the new GI Bill will open classroom doors next fall to veterans who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford a college education.

Proposed Legislation May Soon Help Veterans

To ensure that veterans get the help they need statewide, both Ireland and Blumke have drafted a plan that they hope will become law sometime in 2009.

Besides requiring Michigan institutions to extend in-state tuition to veterans, their plan would require state universities to establish veterans’ offices that would assist vets in claiming their benefits, offer tutoring and other services, and act as a university liaison if a veteran is unexpectedly deployed. The proposal also seeks to waive the admissions fee for veterans and mandates that universities review a veteran’s military training to see if they can get college credit for their training.

Ireland’s and Blumke’s proposed legislation has the backing of two- time veteran and former U.S. Rep. Joe Schwarz, who said he will help the two veterans get their proposal before lawmakers. “The whole idea is make Michigan veteran-friendly, a place that is welcoming and a place where they’d want to pursue their education,” said Ireland.

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Citibank Suspends Student Loan Program for International Students

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:04:00 GMT

Citibank announced it is canceling its private student loan program for international students in an effort to minimize its financial risk during the global financial crisis, Bloomberg reports (“Citigroup Curbs Foreign-Student Loans at Harvard, MIT, Michigan,” Oct. 15, 2008).

The lender’s CitiAssist private student loan program allowed international students at certain schools to borrow as much as $150,000 in private student loans without a cosigner; similar programs required that international borrowers have a U.S. citizen or permanent resident cosign on the loans.

Citibank informed MIT and the University of Michigan this month that it will stop making CitiAssist loans to the schools’ international students in November, just before students begin borrowing for the 2009–2010 academic year. Earlier this month, the bank also terminated its international lending program at Harvard University.

CitiAssist “did fill a very important role,” says Elizabeth Hicks, executive director of student financial services at MIT, where more than 200 of the school’s foreign students at the Sloan School of Management will have fewer borrowing options to help them meet their education costs, which total nearly $76,000.

International Student Loans Drying Up, More Banks Unwilling to Lend

In suspending its lending program to international students, Citibank joins Bank of America, one of the largest providers of student loans to foreign students, which terminated its foreign student lending program in April.

Other lenders are not likely to fill in the lending gap to international students, due, in part, to the fact that international students have a higher likelihood of default than U.S. students and because loans to “international students are not the most profitable loans,” says Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of Finaid.org, a financial aid website sponsored by Citibank’s parent company Citigroup.

Analyst Daniello Natoli, of New York-based financial firm Matrix USA, adds, “It makes sense for [Citibank] to move away from riskier products such as loans to international students, whose creditworthiness is more difficult to assess.”

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MBA Cheating Scandal Ends With Almost 100 GMAT Scores Cancelled

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 20:46:00 GMT

In June, 6,000 MBA hopefuls saw their aspirations come crashing down when it came to light that their GMAT scores could be cancelled due to a cheating scandal that involved the illegal posting of live GMAT test questions on Scoretop.com. Most of those students named in the controversy can now breathe a sigh of relief.

The Graduate Management Admission Council, the company that administers the GMAT test, announced that only 84 test takers, not the several hundred or thousand students as many originally feared, would have their test scores voided, according to a Business Week article (“Nearly 100 Would-Be MBAs Nailed in GMAT Scandal,” Sept. 9, 2008).

Of the 84 students whose scores were cancelled, 72 posted messages on Scoretop.com saying that they recognized test-prep questions from the site on their GMAT exam. These individuals will not be allowed to retest and, as a result, may not be able to qualify for a MBA program that requires the GMAT as an admissions prerequisite.

The remaining 12 individuals who had their scores cancelled, but who didn’t post test question information on the Scoretop site, will be eligible to retest after three years. Some 500 score reports sent to colleges and universities by the 84 test takers were also cancelled by GMAC, which notified all affected schools of the cancelled scores.

GMAC President David Wilson said that the decision to cancel scores was based on extensive analysis of data from the Scoretop Web site as well as GMAT registration and examination information.

“We take the action of canceling scores very seriously, with a full understanding of our ethical responsibility to both students and schools to protect the integrity of the test and the application process,” Wilson stated in a recent press release (“Graduate Management Admission Council Completes Investigation of GMAT Test Takers Who Used Scoretop.com; Scores Canceled,” Sept. 9, 2008).

Colleges to Handle Students With Cancelled Scores Differently

At the number-one ranked University of Chicago business school, two students enrolled this fall had their scores cancelled, leaving administrators only two weeks after GMAC’s score-cancellation announcement to figure out what to do prior to the start of the new semester.

Derrick Bolton, MBA admissions director at Stanford University, was notified of 20 cancelled scores, including one from a student who already graduated and 10 from applicants who were denied admission. If any of these 10 applicants re-apply in the future, Bolton said, they will be required to provide detailed explanations of their involvement with Scoretop before their application is considered. The fate of the student who already graduated has yet to be determined.

University of Michigan’s dean of the Ross School of Business, Robert Dolan, said the school will strictly enforce its honor code, which prohibits cheating, for any Ross students identified by GMAC as part of the scandal on a case-by-case basis.

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Teach for America Sees Surge in Applications

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:40:00 GMT

Teach for America, the nonprofit program that recruits graduates of elite colleges to become teachers at underserved public schools, is on a winning streak, according to U.S. News & World Report (“Plenty of Praise for Teach for America,” June 20, 2008).

This year Teach for America applications jumped to 25,000 from 18,000 last year — a 37 percent increase. And this fall, the organization will place 3,700 new teachers in classrooms across the country, up from 2,900 last year.

A recent study by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan research institution, concluded that Teach for America is successful at turning high-achieving college graduates with no prior experience or coursework in education, into effective teachers. Authors of the study found that “TFA teachers’ effect on student achievement in core classroom subjects was nearly three times the effect of teachers with three or more years of experience,” particularly in math and science.

Founded by Princeton graduate Wendy Kopp, who was recently named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people, Teach for America looks for candidates with strong critical thinking skills, solid grades, and who have the ability to influence and motivate others.

Among this year’s recruits, 90 are from the University of Michigan, 60 are from the University of Illinois, and the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Texas each have 50 graduates joining Teach for America.

The program will place teachers in more than 100 school districts located in 29 urban and rural areas this fall.

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Laptop Bans by College Professors May Improve Class Discussions

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:39:00 GMT

Some professors at the nation’s most prominent law schools are resorting to classroom laptop bans to help reengage law students in lectures and discussions, and, despite students’ claims that the anti-laptop policies deny them a proper education, professors are seeing positive results, according to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Law Professors Rule Laptops Out of Order in Class,” June 13, 2008).

Don Herzog, University of Michigan Law School professor, conducted a one-day laptop ban as an experiment.

“Not only was I stunned by how much better the class was, the students volunteered that it was much better,” he said. Herzog will make the ban permanent when he begins teaching again this fall after completing his sabbatical.

In addition to Herzog, law professors at Florida International University, the University of Wisconsin, Georgetown, and Harvard, have enacted laptop-ban policies for their classroom lectures.

David Cole, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, stopped allowing his students to bring laptops to class two years go. A survey of Cole’s students conducted last year regarding his “no laptop” policy found that approximately 75 percent of his students favored the laptop ban and 95 percent admitted to using the internet to engage in activities not related to the class lecture.

“If half the people [in class] are checked out, then the conversation just isn’t going to be as rich,” Cole said.

Not All Educators Agree with Anti-Laptop Policies

Ann Althouse, University of Wisconsin Law School professor, says that there will always be distracted students with or without the internet. Before the web, she says, students doodled, fidgeted, or stared absentmindedly out the window.

“The idea that we're going to somehow save these students from being distracted is a bit absurd,” Althouse told the Chronicle.

With the proliferation of iPhones, Blackberrys, and other PDAs, it may soon be difficult to regulate who’s surfing the Web, says Harvard Business School professor John Deighton.

“Ultimately the only way to ensure that a class member is not on the Web,” he says, “is to conduct an engaging class.”

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By the Numbers: Top 10 Undergraduate Business Schools

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:53:00 GMT

Are you a future MBA who sees yourself building the next Trump–like empire or heading up the new 21^st-century tech giant that will finally unseat Microsoft?

If you’re planning on joining the 20 percent of college students who major in business and you’re on the hunt to find the best business school for undergrads that could give you your head start on mega-mogul success, here’s some help.

We’ve got the vitals on the 10 best from BusinessWeek’s list of the country’s Top 50 Undergrad Business Programs for 2008.

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia

The world’s first collegiate business school, established in 1881, and BusinessWeek’s number-one program for the third year in a row.

Previous Rank: 1
Tuition: $35,916
Full-Time Enrollment: 2,519
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 16%
School Mascot: the Quakers

McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia

Previous Rank: 2
Tuition: $8,690
Full-Time Enrollment: 652
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 34%
School Mascot: the Virginia Cavaliers

Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame
South Bend, Indiana

The Mendoza College offers undergraduate degrees in accountancy, finance, marketing, and management (with your choice of management track in consulting, entrepreneurship, or information technology).

Previous Rank: 7
Tuition: $35,187
Full-Time Enrollment: 1,626
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 29%
School Mascot: the Fighting Irish

Cornell University
Ithaca, New York

Previous Rank: 10
Tuition: $19,291
Full-Time Enrollment: 708
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 37%
School Mascot: the Big Red Bears

Goizueta Business School at Emory University
Atlanta

Previous Rank: 4
Tuition: $34,336
Full-Time Enrollment: 622
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 44%
School Mascot: Dooley, the Spirit of Emory

Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Combining a liberal arts and business education, the three-year Bachelor of Business Administration program allows you to apply during your freshman year of college and begin the BBA program as a sophomore. If you’re a high school senior, you may be still be able to apply for the Ross BBA program through the Preferred Admissions process.

Previous Rank: 5
Tuition: $12,585
Full-Time Enrollment: 1,069
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 49%
School Mascot: the Wolverines

Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University
Provo, Utah

Earn your Bachelor of Science in accountancy, management, or information systems.

Previous Rank: 8
Tuition: $3,840
Full-Time Enrollment: 1,616
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 74%
School Mascot: Cosmo the Cougar

New York University Stern School of Business
New York

Previous Rank: 9
Tuition: $36,524
Full-Time Enrollment: 2,335
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 24%
School Mascot: the Bobcats

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Previous Rank: 6
Tuition: $34,986
Full-Time Enrollment: 246
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 12.5%
School Mascot: the Beaver

McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas

Choose a major in accounting, finance, international business, marketing, management information systems, management, supply chain management, or engineering route to business for your BBA.

According to the McCombs website, more current CEOs in the S&P 500 have graduated from McCombs than from any other public business school.

Previous Rank: 13
Tuition: $8,908
Full-Time Enrollment: 3,969
Undergraduate Admission Rate: 52% (in 2006)
School Mascot: Bevo the Longhorn

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