Colleges Replacing Loans With Grants

Colleges Replacing Loans With Grants Colleges are replacing student loans with grants in the same amount, according to an article in the Washington Post. So, instead of taking out a $5,000 loan to pay for college expenses, your college might just give you a $5,000 grant. This is a growing financial aid initiative to eliminate student loans at some of the nations most expensive colleges. No-loan pledges can even make college free for some students, if they would need full financial aid to attend. This movement started during the 2007-2008 school year, and now more than 70 colleges offer this program to some of their neediest students. Four years later, some of these students have now graduated, completely debt free. College debt has been rising at record rates the past few years, and economists believe that it could reach $1 trillion this year. This news put expensive colleges on the ropes, forcing them to take action. No college wants their students graduating with over a $100,000 in debt. So, colleges had two choices: decrease tuition or offer more grants/scholarships. Most decided to go with grants. Colleges simply dont have the money they had 10 years ago, and many desperately need to increase enrollment to generate more revenue. Higher education is becoming a buyers market, as colleges are tripping over each other to offer the best deal to students. Offering more financial aid/scholarships is the easiest way a college can attract more prospective students. Colleges have since responded by offering these no-loan pledges to their neediest students, making college a possibility for low-income students. The grants are also part of larger publicity stunt for colleges. When colleges prices skyrocketed, higher education got a bad reputation. It started becoming an elite group, something just for the upper class and upper-middle class. For many low-income students, college simply was not an option. Now, colleges are competing not only on price, but also on reputation. Colleges want to have the best reputation of admitting low-income students. Theyre essentially chasing after the same group of low-income students who are academically talented, Mark Kantrowitz, an industry expert who is tracking 73 collegesthat have eliminated or capped student loans told the Washington Post. If you get in, these schools are a great deal. No two colleges have the exact same financial aid system. But, Harvard and Yale (two of the nations wealthiest colleges) do not allow families to pay more than 10 percent their household income on college expenses. For example, a student from a family with a household income of $100,000 will not pay more than $110,000 (10 percent) for college costs. Even families that earn $180,000 are receiving non-merit based financial aid to wealthy universities like Harvard and Yale. Other colleges cap loan debts for students, but the cap depends on the students family income. But, still many colleges cannot afford to hand out big financial aid grants to all their needy students. For the most part, only the nations wealthiest colleges can afford this program. Code: 3T4D6PGG25SS

ACT Math Strategy Series [Part 2 of 3]

ACT Math Strategy Series [Part 2 of 3] ACT SAT Prep and College Admissions Blog Math is a subject that most students either love or hate. In either case, preparing thoroughly for the Math section of the ACT is important in order to do your best. If math is not your strongest subject, building a solid foundation of understanding will be important for maintaining a decent overall score. If math comes easily for you, reviewing will still be important in order to fill in the gaps in your knowledge, especially if you want your score to truly reflect your ability. Either way, this series of posts gives you valuable strategies that will help you maximize your score. This post is the second of a three part series that looks at strategies for acing the ACT Math section. Strategy #4: Budget Your Time Since the ACT is a timed test, using your time and focus effectively will have a huge effect on the outcome. Sixty minutes for sixty questions may seem like plenty of time, but the questions cover a range of difficulties, and some will take much longer than a minute, which means that others will have to take much less. For example, suppose you take two minutes to complete one problem. Then you will have to complete two problems in only thirty seconds to make up for this time. If it took you three minutes to answer one problem, you would have to answer three more in only twenty seconds each to stay on par. And a six-minute problem would cost you six ten-second problems! So, if a problem is taking too much time or draining your ability to focus, don’t be afraid to skip it and come back to it if you have time. Since all of the questions count the same regardless of their difficulty, the more you are able to answer the better. Strategy #5: Factor In Order Of Difficulty One factor to take into account in budgeting your time is that the difficulty of the problems tends to increase as you go along, so you should be able to complete the earlier problems much faster. If you complete early problems in less than a minute, or even better, in less than 30 seconds, you are essentially “banking” time that you can then use for the later, more challenging problems. A good target to aim for is having two thirds of the problems completed when your time is halfway up. Strategy #6: Read Questions And Answers Carefully As on all multiple-choice tests, make sure that you clearly understand what each question is asking for, and be wary of choosing intermediate steps as answers. Just because you are proceeding with a calculation and come across one of the answer choices doesn’t mean it is the correct one; make sure you have completed the problem all the way to arrive at the final answer. Dane Dormio is an online tutor and blogger with an unconventional approach to education. Visit his tutoring blog at www.synergy-tutoring.com. hbspt.cta._relativeUrls=true;hbspt.cta.load(215486, '6baac2ae-05a3-4610-9d1f-265c8cbd809f', {});