Although its difficult in the age of COVID to visit campuses, in no way should that diminish one’s effort to gain as much information as possible to make an effective decision when choosing a college from those which you’ve been admitted to diminish the risk of malinvestment. Admitted students should use every virtual resource available from attending the special admitted…
Starting in March 2020, first former President Trump, then President Biden have automatically suspended accrual of Federal student loan interest, as well as deferred student loan repayment for every borrower. According to Federal tax law, all borrowers can claim a deduction of the student loan interest paid during the previous tax year. Yet given the automatic deferment of interest for…
On January 21, 2021 by executive order, President Biden continued the suspension of all Federal student loan payments as well as interest until September 30, 2021. With President Biden’s extension, student loan borrowers will be granted a total of 18 months of loan and interest deferment, since payments were suspended since the enactment of the CARES Act in March 2020. …
Private universities discounted tuition in the form of merit scholarships and grants nearly 50% on average in the 2019-20 school year. Furthermore, tuition discounts for the 2020-21 school are forecasted to be 52.6% for full time, first year students, according to data from National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO). And, in the current COVID-induced disruption of higher…
In the current economic upheaval, those individuals with more education are unemployed at lower rates than all other groups. Or by wages, assuming that wage is an indicator of educational attainment, those with $60,000+ in wages have lower rates of unemployment than those earning less than $60,000. However, if the recession during The Great Financial Crisis of 2009 is an…
So, said Warren Buffet, net worth $86 billion. Tuition can be a measurement of value, as in, “What’s the value of the education for the number of dollars exchanged?” When families question the “affordability” of a particular college, as in, “Do I have enough money to pay for X College?”, they’re in essence determining the value of one college’s education for…
For the first time in four weeks, less than 800,000 people filed new unemployment claims (those who have lost their jobs and now seek financial relief from either state or federal government) during the week ending October 17, 2020. Yet, the pre-COVID job market is slow to recover post the March 2020 financial tantrum, as the reduction can mean a…
The 2021-22 Free Application for Federal Student Aid, commonly known as the FAFSA, which U.S. universities use to determine what, if any, financial assistance for families, opened on October 1, 2020. Parents and students can submit the form online, only requiring some time and patience to complete, what can, on first glance, be reminiscent of a complex tax form. Furthermore,…
At some universities, SAT and ACT scores are used to award merit scholarships, in addition to being a metric for admissions. (Merit scholarships are awarded regardless of a student’s family’s financial status and based on an applicant’s qualifications, like GPA and SAT or ACT scores.) Many parents are concerned that their children will miss merit scholarship opportunities, if they do…
In the current economic backdrop, where the median view of economists predict a near 5% year over year decline in GDP (total amount of goods and services produced in the American economy) for 2020 (officially a recession), where both initial and continuing unemployment claims stubbornly loom above their longer run average, and though the economy seems to have bottomed, a…
In just the last 13 weeks, more than double the 25 million jobs created in the last decade have been lost. With the total supply of jobs not in equilibrium to demand, a job shortage exists, so anyone searching for a job will be competing more than at any time in the last decade against others equally in need of…
Federal student loan interest rates for the upcoming 2020-21 school year will be set lower than the 2019-20 school year. The 2020-21 rates will be as follows: Undergraduate Direct Loans: 2.75% Graduate Student Direct Loans: 4.3% Parent PLUS Loans: 5.3% Student loan interest rates are set annually and apply to any loan taken during that school year. The interest rates…
Last Thursday, May 14, California Governor Newsom announced 2020-21 budget revisions, including cuts to higher education, given the projected $54 billion loss of state revenues. Although he proposes a $376 million cut to the University of California (UC) system affecting 285,000 students and a $404 million cut affecting 500,000 California State University (CSU) students, the $1 Billion cut to California’s…
University enrollment has annually grown, despite four digit percent increases in the costs of college over the last three decades, seemingly making an inelastic demand for college eduation. Yet, for the 2020-21 school year, for the first time, there may be a a shift in the supply/demand equation given the changes in the recruitment for the newest class of students,…
Ahead of the traditional, widely accepted national enrollment deadline of May 1 for first year college students, although some colleges have extended the enrollment deadline to June 1 due to the COVID-19 health crisis, college admissions officers are already extending offers of admissions to waitlist candidates. I contacted two different admissions officers on the West Coast and another in the…
