The Admission Arms Race: Six Ways Colleges Game Their Numbers
April 25, 2013 6:00 am-
Course Load: The Growing Burden of College FeesA student walks near Royce Hall on the campus of UCLA in April 2012. Students and parents are learning their college...by Marian Wang on March 30, 2013 5:46 pm -
Another Way Student Loans Are Like Mortgages: Subpar ServicingTwo recent government reports found that the companies handling private student loans sometimes add to the frustration...by Marian Wang on November 5, 2012 10:00 pm -
How Financial Aid Letters Often Leave Students Confused and MisinformedA student guide points out campus sites to prospective students and their parents during a college tour. The financial...by Marian Wang on October 18, 2012 7:00 pm
Author Archive
No Income? No Problem! How the Gov’t Is Saddling Parents with College Loans They Can’t Afford
by Marian Wang ProPublica More than a decade after Aurora Almendral first set foot on her dream college campus, she and her mother still shoulder the cost of that choice. Almendral had been accepted to New York University in 1998, but even after adding up scholarships, grants, and the max she could take out in [...]
Grieving Father Struggles to Pay Dead Son’s Student Loans
by Marian Wang, ProPublica A few months after he buried his son, Francisco Reynoso began getting notices in the mail. Then the debt collectors came calling. “They would say, ‘We don’t care what happened with your son, you have to pay us,’” recalled Reynoso, a gardener from Palmdale, Calif. Reynoso’s son, Freddy, had been the pride of [...]
Student Loan Borrowers Dazed and Confused by Servicer Shuffle
The Department of Education has been transferring large batches of federal student loans to new loan-servicing companies — leaving in the lurch some borrowers who are suddenly encountering problems with their loans, such as payments that are mysteriously adjusted up or down. The switch, which has been going on for months and will ultimately include millions of loans, is mandated [...]
While White House Emphasizes Easing Student Debt Burden, Fed Contractors Play Hardball
It was with some fanfare that the Obama administration announced last fall that it was ramping up a program to help students with federal loans reduce their monthly payments. Under the program, payments are adjusted based on how much students earn — what’s known as income-based repayment. Yet, even while the administration has emphasized easing the burden for student borrowers, some [...]
The Recess Appointment(s) Obama Hasn’t Made
A move by President Obama this week to proceed with a handful of recess appointments has top GOP leaders crying foul, complaining that the move is questionably legal because it ignores a clever procedural technicality used by Republicans to prevent such appointments. But if the White House feels confident enough in the legality of its actions and has chosen [...]
Decoding the Payroll-Tax Cut: How Well Does It Work?
Update, 12/19: A deal brokered last week by Senate Democrats and Republicans to extend the payroll-tax cut now looks likely to be blocked by House Republicans. House Speaker John Boehner said that the Senate proposal — a short-term deal that would only extend the payroll-tax cut by two months — would simply be “kicking the can down the road. The House votes tonight [...]
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