By Andy Thomason. The Department of Education on Monday made it easier for members of the armed forces to pay lower interest rates on their federal student loans. Service members who qualify for a cap on their interest rates under the Higher Education Opportunity Act have had to request that the benefit be applied to their loans. But the department’s new guidance directs student-loan servicers to consult a government database and automatically apply the cap for qualifying borrowers. More...
30 août 2014
Interest-Rate Cap on Loans Is Now Automatic for Qualifying Service Members
Student Debt in Mind, Education Dept. Renegotiates Loan Servicers’ Contracts
By Andy Thomason. The U.S. Department of Education on Friday announced it had renegotiated its contracts with federal student-loan servicers, giving them more incentives to keep borrowers from defaulting on their loans. President Obama announced plans to renegotiate the contracts in June, but Friday’s announcement provides more detail. For example, customer-satisfaction surveys will now play a larger role in how the servicers are evaluated, according to a statement from the department. More...
Stimulus Law Didn’t Protect State Financial Aid
By Chronicle Staff. Report: “The Role of State Policy in Promoting College Affordability”
Author: Jennifer A. Delaney, assistant professor of education policy, organization, and leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Publication: The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Summary: The federal stimulus law of 2009 had a maintenance-of-effort provision that required states to hold steady the amount they appropriated for public colleges. While that measure worked generally to protect money for the institutions, state lawmakers cut student financial aid by about 12 cents for every dollar they received from the stimulus, according to the report. More...
Campus-Banking Costs Can Add Up, Report Warns
By Chronicle Staff. Report: “Campus Banking Products: College Students Face Hurdles to Accessing Clear Information and Accounts That Meet Their Needs”
Publication: Consumer Reports
Summary: Consumer Reports reviewed campus banking products offered by nine financial companies to compare their terms and calculate their costs. More...
Business Is a Big Draw for International Students in the U.S.
By Sandhya Kambhampati. Previous research has shown that international students at American colleges and universities tend to be concentrated in specific areas, such as business and engineering. Now a new report from the Brookings Institution goes deeper in telling us who these students are, which cities they are coming from, and where they end up staying. More...
How Economically Diverse Is Your College? A 'New York Times’ Ranking May Soon Tell
By Goldie Blumenstyk. The New York Times is entering the college-ratings game. Sorta. Kinda. Next month it plans to unveil "a new ranking of colleges and universities based on their ability to attract underprivileged kids." Or at least that’s how the project is billed on the agenda for the Schools for Tomorrow conference that the newspaper is holding next week in New York City. More...
Political Scientists Propose New Ways to Engage Policy Makers and the Public
By Beth McMurtrie. Public outreach has become a major topic of conversation in the academy as it battles widespread perceptions that university research is often irrelevant to what policy makers and the public care about. Political science is no exception. At this week’s annual conference of the American Political Science Association here, scholars have been discussing how they can make their voices heard beyond academe to show that their work is both relevant and useful. More...
Starting university: how to manage your finances
By Norman Miller. Worried about your finances? Norman Miller guides you through the essentials of how to choose a bank and keep to a budget as a student at university. Read more...Is there such a thing as too much education?
By Eleanor Doughty. Britain is on course to become one of the most qualified countries in the world, but are we getting the right kind of education, asks Eleanor Doughty. Read more...Foreign students 'should not be classed as immigrants'
By Graeme Paton. University vice-chancellors call for an overhaul of immigration policy as a survey finds the majority of adults favour a rise in the number of foreign students entering the UK. Read more...
