Author's articles

Taming Student Loan Debt With Prepayments

By Jeff Mictabor · 12 years ago

Today, two-thirds of college students leave school with at least some debt from college loans. The average debt is approaching $25,000, a figure that includes not just the original amounts borrowed but, for most students, ...

Paying for College: Evaluating Your Financial Aid Package

By Jeff Mictabor · 12 years ago

Prospective college students who have filled out their applications for federal student aid (the application known as the FAFSA) should now be receiving information about their financial aid packages for the upcoming school year. College ...

Community Colleges and the Dangers of Student Loan Debt

By Jeff Mictabor · 12 years ago

For high school students who are on the hunt for ways to reduce the cost of a college education, your local community college may look like a way to keep your expenses down and avoid ...

Student Loan Debt Collections Come Up Short

By Jeff Mictabor · 12 years ago

The U.S. Department of Education is reporting that its current student loan debt collection contract produced more revenue in the first 15 months of operation than the previous debt collection contract did for the same ...

New Report Goes Beyond Defaults, Examining Student Loan Delinquencies

By Jeff Mictabor · 12 years ago

A new report issued by the Institute for Higher Education Policy examines the issue of delinquency -- late payments -- as a factor in student loan defaults. Researchers at IHEP analyzed a broad range of ...

In Calif., Using Student Loan Defaults to Limit College Grants

By Jeff Mictabor · 12 years ago

The state of California is taking a page from the U.S. Department of Education’s playbook. In an effort to trim a nearly $27 billion budget deficit, lawmakers are exploring the possibility of limiting payouts from ...

Tenn. Community College May Cut Federal Student Loans

By Jeff Mictabor · 12 years ago

Nashville State Community College is weighing the decision to eliminate federal student loans from its financial aid programs. The school is assessing the number of its students who have defaulted on their federal student loans ...

Keeping Tabs on Your Federal Student Loans: Using the NSLDS

By Jeff Mictabor · 12 years ago

For the majority of students, college loans are part of the reality of higher education. Two-thirds of bachelor’s degree students who graduated in 2007-08 left college with debt from school loans, and their average student ...

Paying for College: Using Employment Prospects to Drive Decisions

By Jeff Mictabor · 12 years ago

For college students who are approaching graduation, the employment picture may be looking slightly better than it has in the past couple of years, as the country slowly recovers from the Great Recession. This recovery ...

N.C. Community Colleges Lobby Against Federal Student Loans

By Jeff Mictabor · 12 years ago

The presidents of 38 North Carolina community colleges have come together to oppose a new state law that requires them to offer federal student loans to their student bodies beginning July 1, 2011. As written, ...

Are Student Loans Still a Good Bet?

By Jeff Mictabor · 12 years ago

In the mid- and late-1960s, there was no doubt among U.S. public policy makers that the federal government should be encouraging more citizens to attend and graduate from college. Bolstered by the success of the ...

Minn. Survey Shows Impact of Recession on Student Loan Debt

By Jeff Mictabor · 12 years ago

The Minnesota State University Student Association has released the results of a survey it issued in September 2010 to help assess the impact of student loan debt on its members. Because the survey’s number of ...

Paying for College: Student Loans or Credit Cards?

By Jeff Mictabor · 12 years ago

Research conducted by student loan company Sallie Mae shows that in 2010, about 5 percent of college students paid an average of more than $2,000 in tuition and other educational expenses using a credit card ...

Paying for College Without Using Student Loans

By Jeff Mictabor · 13 years ago

Paying for college can be tricky, especially when the cost of a college education is far outstripping the rate of inflation. About two-thirds of today’s college students take out student loans of some sort, and ...

Student Loan Default Rates on the Rise

By Jeff Mictabor · 13 years ago

Updated statistics released by the U.S. Department of Education show that student loan defaults are rising. According to the latest figures, the default rate for federal student loans that entered repayment in 2008 is 13.8 ...

Study: Student Loan Worries Affect New College Students’ Mental Health

By Jeff Mictabor · 13 years ago

Researchers at the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California in Los Angeles say that worries about student loans are having a measurable negative impact on the mental health of first-year college students. ...

Getting Through College Without Student Loans

By Jeff Mictabor · 13 years ago

According to statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Education, two-thirds of college students today leave their alma mater with debt from student loans, and the average student loan debt amount among these graduates is ...

Vt. Nonprofit Lender Mulls Life After End of Student Loan Program

By Jeff Mictabor · 13 years ago

The Vermont Student Assistance Corporation (VSAC) was established in 1965 as a public nonprofit agency designed to oversee the issuing of federal education loans to Vermont students. But with the sweeping reforms to the federal ...

Too Much Student Loan Debt? License to Work DENIED.

By Jeff Mictabor · 13 years ago

On January 11, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that one unlucky law school graduate is carrying too much student loan debt to be allowed to hold a license to practice law in the state. Hassan ...

Law School Graduates Awash in Student Loan Debt

By Jeff Mictabor · 13 years ago

It’s no secret that going to college can cost plenty, and there are no shortages of student loans, whether you’re looking for federal college loans, graduate loans, or private student loans. Recently however, the American ...