Good News! The FAFSA Application Will Be Easier

Students and/or their parents dread filling out the long list of questions to apply/reapply for financial aid from the government every year. Well, the current administration is hoping that'll be a thing of the past.

The government is changing FAFSA questions this January for many reasons (read here for the WSJ article). The two main reasons are to make it easier for families to fill-out the application and to decrease the amount of private students loans being taken out. What strikes me the most from reading the article is that 1.5 million students may be losing out on grant money from the government!

The government and colleges know that it's not easy funding a college education. At least the new administration is attempting to take away some of the stress from the process of getting aid to help fund students' educations.

Liam Dunfey
University Advisors

New Loan Policy from Sallie Mae

Last week, Sallie Mae announced that it’s changing its lending rules for its signature loan for the 2009-10 academic year. Here are the pros and cons:

I always like starting out with the cons and ending with the pros so the last thing the reader remembers is positive J

Cons

-Interest payments on the loan start while you’re in school.

-It just got harder for families to get a private loan and in the tough credit market, that’s not good news.


Pros

-Value of loan payment will be cut up to 40% over its life!

-Loan payments will be 5 to 15 years instead of 15 to 30.

Why did Sallie Mae make this change? It’s a cash flow issue – they get the money back faster and don’t have to wait till the student graduates.

A higher education is an investment and loans will continue to be a part of the process.

Liam Dunfey
University Advisors