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Posted
Aug 28 2009, 08:57 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Some people are talking about a federal bailout for former college students. Forgive student loan debt, they say, and the economy will be instantly energized.
The Baltimore Sun's Eileen Ambrose polled readers of Consuming Interests about this, and, last we checked, readers were hugely in favor -- even though her post presented a solid argument about why it wouldn't work as advertised.
We voted no. "JLP" at All Financial Matters, who directed his readers to the poll, also said no. "Actually, I say HELL NO!" he wrote.
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Posted
Jul 20 2009, 11:11 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This guest post comes from "vh" at Funny about Money.
Tina, my associate editor on the day job and my moonlight business partner, sent a link to this interesting discussion. The main post itself has several links to relevant, equally interesting posts and conversations.
Given the astonishing burden of student loans that too many young people are saddled with -- my son's roommate's girlfriend, for example, remarked that she will graduate from a top-quality institution with a master's degree in international business and $1,400-a-month student loan payments -- assessing the "value" of graduate education is not a crass or pointless exercise.
It's well and good to love learning for learning's sake and so to feel that the graduate school experience is irrelevant to one's vocational prospects. However, once that graduate school experience ends, you still have to pay for it. You still have to keep a roof over your head, put food on your table, and foot the considerable cost of raising a family. When young people are saddled with five- and six-figure student loan debt, they should reasonably expect the financial investment in graduate education to pay off with jobs that will support them.
That, unfortunately, is too often not the case.
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Posted
Jul 07 2009, 12:57 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
What can you expect to earn after graduating with a bachelor's degree in history from Podunk U? Would that income increase if you had the same degree from an Ivy League school? How about if you had a journalism or engineering degree?
A peer-to-peer private student loan service called People Capital has devised a way of estimating the earning potential of college graduates based on a number of variables, like major, college or university attended, and academic performance. The result, called the Human Capital Score, is presented as an alternative to the FICO score for people who haven't used credit long enough to have a meaningful credit history.
Even if you're not in the market for student loans, this could make for interesting conversation -- particularly if you get a good score. So let's try this out.
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Posted
Apr 27 2009, 05:37 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This guest post comes from Mr. ToughMoneyLove at Tough Money Love.
The federal government has been subsidizing student loans made by private lenders since 1965. This must end and, to his credit, that is what President Obama wants to do.
Much of the student-loan industry is a racket that exploits college students who ignorantly and naively embrace the concept that piles of student-loan debt are part of life. That's what all of the colleges have been telling them. Many parents have joined the "borrow your way through college" crusade, as part of their own "borrow your way through life" mentality.
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Posted
Feb 18 2009, 06:32 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller.
Government Web sites provide a wealth of information about money-related topics. But finding what's out there can be a chore. This resource provides links to 70 government Web sites about everything from finding a job to buying a home and paying for college.
Buying a home and mortgages
- Buying a Home -- HUD. A step-by-step guide to the home-buying process.
- FCIC: How to Buy a Home With a Low Down Payment. This brochure describes how families can get into their own homes with little cash upfront. It explains mortgage insurance and how it works, and looks at the two options -- private mortgage insurance and government mortgage insurance.
- Buying a Home: It's a Big Deal. Information on selecting a real estate agent, commissions, and choosing real estate-related services.
- Home-Equity Credit Lines. Everything you'd want to know about a home-equity line of credit, including costs, interest rates, upfront closing costs, and how much you can borrow.
- Home-Equity Loans: Borrowers Beware! According to the FTC, "Homeowners -- particularly elderly, minority and those with low incomes or poor credit -- should be careful when borrowing money based on their home equity. Why? Certain abusive or exploitative lenders target these borrowers, who unwittingly may be putting their home on the line. Abusive lending practices range from equity stripping and loan flipping to hiding loan terms and packing a loan with extra charges."
- HUD -- 100 Q&As for Homebuyers. Covers just about any question a homebuyer could have.
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Posted
Feb 03 2009, 06:21 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Stephanie at Poorer Than You feels that she's in a bind. She's finishing up college, doesn't have job prospects yet, and did the math on her student loans. That was a bummer.
When she starts making payments on all three loans over the course of this year, she'll be looking at a combined $319 a month by the end of 2009 -- or possibly more depending on her repayment plan.
That's bad enough. What also makes us nervous is her contingency plan if her income in her first job is too small to live on and also pay those bills. She describes it in a post called "Is it OK to bridge the gap with credit cards?"
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Posted
Jan 07 2009, 06:07 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This guest post comes from Shtinkykat's PF Blog.
After I wrote about how I'm no longer underwater on my student loans, I marveled how my debt-repayment process was awfully similar to that of the seven stages of grief.
Shock (1998-1999) and denial (1998-2007). When I graduated from law school in 1998, I knew I was graduating with a big debt -- $106,925, to be exact -- but I never paid attention to exactly how much and never gave much thought to how I was going to pay back the loans.
When the grace period after graduation expired, my reaction was, "Oh my God, I don't know how I'm going to repay this. But I'm sure it'll all work out somehow."
I'm not sure exactly why I thought things were going to "work out somehow," because I didn't have a budget or a plan.
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Posted
Dec 24 2008, 04:13 PM
by
Karen Datko
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
"Coupon Artist" has $139,360 in student loans, including those from a post-graduate degree. Combined with her fiance's student loans and credit card debt, they owe about $250,000. Still, rather than feeling sorry for herself, she yearns for the freedom that comes with being debt-free. In fact, they're making extra payments on their debt. They live on a small portion of their income. She even has a plan to pay next to nothing for food for an entire year. (That's an amazing goal in itself, combining barter and her coupon mastery.)
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Posted
Dec 09 2008, 06:48 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
He's no stranger to controversy, that "Mr. ToughMoneyLove." Whether it's help for homeowners in default -- he called that post "Homeowner bailouts destined to fail" -- or sympathy for a particular 54-year-old GM retiree -- "It's second-career time, my friend, and quit the whining," he said -- he's never shy with his opinions. Recently, he blamed free-spending universities for teaching impressionable minds that it's OK to carry huge debt. Try this quote on for size, from his post "The college student debt machine: A national disgrace" at Tough Money Love.
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Posted
Dec 03 2008, 11:14 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
How do people in other countries see us? Do they wonder if we're all like the people on "The Jerry Springer Show" (honest -- we were asked that in a pub in Scotland) or do they think we're all living in luxury homes (now in foreclosure)? We got some insight from FruGal, an Aussie who lives and blogs in London. What she observes about our current financial behavior is pretty positive. Her post also suggests that people are "reeling from a spending hangover" on both sides of the pond.
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