College & Education

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• Some Colleges Cut, Eliminate Student Debt
  

  Colleges are moving to eliminate -- or at least ease -- student debt as pressure builds in Washington for them to spend more from their endowments to help families afford the rising cost of school. This month, Williams College announced that it will eliminate loans from all financial-aid packages beginning next school year and replace them with grants. Amherst College recently announced a similar initiative. And Davidson College in Davidson, N.C., began this fall replacing loans with grants and student employment.

  
  
• Parsing Candidates' Student-Loan Proposals
  

  The front-running Democratic presidential candidates are pushing a simple idea they say will make college loans more affordable: cutting out the middlemen. And the middlemen -- primarily, commercial banks and lenders -- are none too pleased. This month, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton issued her plan to make college more affordable through a range of proposals, from creating a new tuition tax credit to simplifying the aid application process. Buried at the bottom of her plan is perhaps the most radical step: A pitch to eliminate the Federal Family Education Loan Program, which gives subsidies to commercial lenders such as Sallie Mae to distribute federal loans to students.

  
  
• A Break on College Costs
  

  A new federal law increases college financial aid for families who qualify, offers grants to students who plan to teach and helps struggling graduates repay their student loans. Need-based aid. Pell Grants, awarded to students with financial need, climb to a maximum of $5,400 per year over the next five years (the current maximum is $4,310). The interest rate on subsidized Stafford loans (also need-based) drops to 3.4% over the next four years, half the current rate. The rate on unsubsidized Staffords remains at 6.8%.

  
  
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• College costs slowly rise
  

  The average total cost of a private four-year college rose to $32,307 for the current school year, but the rate of increase has slowed compared to public school prices, according to a report released Monday. Excluding room and board costs, average published tuition fees at a private four-year college in 2007-08 climbed 6.3 percent year over year to $23,712, according to the College Board, a non-profit association of more than 5,200 schools, colleges and universities.

  
  
• College-Area Properties Get Good Grades
  

  Checklist as your teenager heads off to college: Don't forget to: a) pay the tuition; b) have the safe-sex talk; c) have the drinking-and-driving talk; and d) buy your student a house or condo. Pardon the whiplash on that last one, but the fact is, many parents who are financially able to do so are choosing to invest in real estate close to campus for their college-bound offspring. In many cases, it's preferable to shelling out dormitory fees or apartment rent. Statistician Walter Molony of the National Association of Realtors, or NAR, estimates there are about 3 million campus houses and condos in America today, properties that were purchased primarily for the owners' college-bound students. That represents about 8 percent of the nation's 37.4 million investment properties, but excludes 6.8 million vacation homes, which don't tend to be near college campuses.

  
  
• What is Plus Consolidation of Educational Loans?
  

  The parents of students opting for higher education take the Plus Loans. These loans are taken to supplement the income of students. It meets the various necessities of funds to finance the aspects other than their fees of college education. To elaborate, the plus loans are used to finance boarding, lodging, books, tuition fees and so on. Plus loans are also used for financing any unexpected expenditure incurred in education.

  
  
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