Student Loan Blog : room and board

$17,000 Obama Scholarship to Be Awarded to 1,600 Arizona Students

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 15 May 2009 21:01:00 GMT

Arizona State University officials have decided to rename the school’s largest financial aid program after President Barack Obama in honor of his commencement address to ASU’s 2009 graduating class, reports The Arizona Republic (“1,600 ASU Freshmen Will Qualify for Obama Scholarship,” May 7, 2009).

Approximately 1,600 incoming ASU freshmen could now qualify for an award under the President Barack Obama Scholars Program, after the school increased the qualifying family income from $25,000 to $60,000. Worth up to $17,000, the need-based scholarship will cover tuition, fees, books, and room and board and will require recipients to take on a work-study job on campus.

The decision to rename the scholarship program came shortly after ASU began receiving negative publicity for not choosing to award President Obama with an honorary degree. ASU President Michael Crow apologized for the stir created by the university’s controversial decision but stood by his adherence to the school’s policy, which doesn’t allow for honorary degrees to be awarded to sitting politicians.

Crow says that the scholars program meets Obama’s goal of allowing more students to attend college. He said, “This is an important commitment on our part to make certain (that) students still have access to the universities.”

Share this post: email this | del.icio.us | reddit

Nebraska State Colleges Extend Free Tuition Offer to Freshmen

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:31:00 GMT

Beginning this fall, incoming first-year students attending any of Nebraska’s three state colleges — Wayne State College, Peru State College, or Chadron State College — may see their dreams of a college education come true with a little help from the state, the Omaha World-Herald reports (“3 Colleges to Waive Tuition for Some Freshmen,” March 8, 2009).

Nearly one-third of all students in the Nebraska State College System receive federal Pell Grant funding, but only Pell-eligible first-year students will have their first year of tuition covered under the new Nebraska State College System Advantage Program. The state college system will pick up the tab for these students’ tuition expenses where their Pell Grant funding leaves off.

“With the recent economic downturn, access to college has become more challenging and this program will assist first-time freshmen in their pursuit of earning a degree,” said Bill Roskens, NSCS board chairman (“Nebraska State Colleges Offer Free Freshman Tuition,” KCUA-TV, March 3, 2009).

Students must meet five criteria to qualify for the NSCS Advantage Program:

They must be a Nebraska resident
They must be a recipient of a federal Pell Grant
They must be a first-time first-year student attending a NSCS school during the 2009–10 school year
They may not be a transfer student
They must be enrolled in at least 12 on-campus credit hours

Students can continue to receive this tuition assistance throughout their college career as long as they remain eligible to receive federal Pell Grant awards and as long as they continue to enroll in at least 12 credit hours.

“We are attempting to remove the financial barriers many [of our students] face,” said NSCS Chancellor Stan Carpenter, by only requiring students to pay for textbooks, supplies, and room and board.

College officials believe the Nebraska initiative also has the potential to increase enrollment and encourage more students to remain in the state.

Lois Brunnert, a first-generation college student who relies on financial aid to attend Wayne State, agrees.

“It’s going to allow [students] to have more time to save up money,” Brunnert said. “And it’s going to probably help students continue with their financial aid.”

Share this post: email this | del.icio.us | reddit

Massachusetts College Students Lose Funding Source for Student Loans

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:41:00 GMT

For the first time in its nearly 30-year history, The Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority won’t be offering student loans this fall to the 40,000 borrowers it serves, according to an article in The New York Times (“Agency in Massachusetts Is Stopping College Loans,” July 29, 2008).

Citing the troubled economy and fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis, MEFA dropped out of the federal student loan business in April, but by June said it would continue to offer private student loans.

The nonprofit student-loan authority, which provided more than $500 million in college loans to Massachusetts students last year, announced on Monday that it would no longer be feasible to offer private student loans. MEFA made the announcement following news that the authority’s bond insurer faced a possible credit-rating downgrade that would have increased the cost of floating new debt.

”It’s really the capital markets. It’s a global situation,” said Jessica Belt, a MEFA spokeswoman. “We’re looking at other options. It’s uncharted territory for everyone, not just MEFA.”

MEFA joins the list of 50 other nonprofit organizations, state agencies, banks, and private lenders that have dropped out of the student lending business this year. Belt says that while it is unclear when the agency will be able to secure new funding, it hopes to rejoin the market in time to help students with their tuition bills for the spring semester.

In the meantime, MEFA has set up a hotline to help families secure other college funding sources.

MEFA will continue to run its other educational programs, including U.Fund, a college savings plan that families can use to pay for tuition, fees, room and board, and books at 80 Massachusetts colleges and universities.

Share this post: email this | del.icio.us | reddit

As Food Prices Rise, Cost of Campus Meal Plans Going Up

Student Loan Girl — Sat, 10 May 2008 01:05:00 GMT

College students may see a sharp spike in the cost of their on-campus meal plans this fall, due to rising food prices, according to a story this week in The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Soaring Food Prices Have Campus Dining Halls Squeezed,” May 6, 2008).

Several schools have already announced that they intend to increase their meal-plan prices next year, and it’s likely that many more schools will follow:

• Louisiana State University	7.0% increase
• Clemson University	6.0% increase
• University of Miami	4.5% increase
• Ohio University	3.5% increase

In an attempt to avoid huge deficits and stay within their budgets, college food-service operations across the country are getting creative with their meal plans and coming up with unique solutions to contain their costs.

Louisiana State University, for instance, will focus on reducing the portions of its meals.

At Ohio University, the school will focus on marketing meal plans to off-campus students in an attempt to increase overall revenue. In addition, food-service staff will be baking items like cookies, pizza dough, and rolls, from scratch, instead of using premade products.

Rich Neumann, director of dining services at OU, estimates that baking from scratch will save the school almost $100,000 each year alone.

One of the simpler, if more manipulative methods is the one implemented by Western Washington University for one week last month. The school simply removed trays from the dining halls so that students couldn’t carry as much food.

The strategy worked.

According to the director of WWU’s dining services, the dining halls saw a 34-percent reduction in waste when the institution went trayless.

Share this post: email this | del.icio.us | reddit