| Parents often fumble on financial aid forms
High school seniors have been scrambling for months to complete their applications for college. Now it's their parents' turn to sweat.
The start of the year marks the launch of financial aid season, when parents fill out exhaustively detailed forms in an effort to get their share of the billions of dollars of assistance available. Unfortunately, aid forms can be every bit as unnerving as college applications. Missteps can cost thousands.
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Colleges uneasy about Harvard's deal on tuition
Two words to students hoping to get a break on college tuition now that Harvard and a handful of rivals have increased financial aid to middle-class students: Fat chance. Most colleges say they aren't loosening the purse strings just yet, although as financial-aid season approaches they are under intense pressure from parents to offer Harvard-style deals. Ursinus College's enrollment director, Richard DiFeliciantonio, said a parent already had called him to ask: "'If Harvard can do this for their kids, why can't you?' " The answer is obvious: Ursinus, like most colleges, isn't as filthy rich as Harvard, whose endowment of $35 billion is the largest in the nation. "Maybe 30 colleges in the country can even think about doing what Harvard is doing," said DiFeliciantonio, whose school has $150 million in its coffers.
Harmony may be shut down
Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann filed a lawsuit Friday seeking to shut down Harmony Community School, a charter school in Roselawn. Dann's suit claimed that the school has a record of academic failure, financial mismanagement, ethical lapses and consumer fraud. "Harmony has failed to accomplish its primary charitable purpose - educating students - despite receiving $31.9 million in taxpayers' money since 1998," Dann said during a news conference after personally filing the lawsuit in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court. .
Schools unhurt by admissions change
Four prominent universities that ditched their early admissions programs have answered questions about whether the move would hurt their popularity. That answer is no. All are reporting record applications this year. Harvard, Princeton and the University of Virginia attracted widespread attention with announcements in 2006 that they would stop holding a separate, early round of admissions in the fall. They argued the practice contributes to anxiety and disadvantages students who need financial aid. This year, they began considering all applicants in a single pool with a January deadline. The University of Florida later made a similar announcement and moved to a single deadline of Nov. 1. Most selective schools kept some form of early admissions. Now, the results are in.
Text of Napolitano address
There was no plan to give Arizona's children the early start they need and deserve. Teacher pay was lagging, and we weren't doing what was necessary to support our new teachers and keep our best educators in the classroom. Phoenix was the largest city in the nation without a university-based medical school and our state was not graduating enough students with college degrees to keep up with our growth.Fast-forward to today. We've created a new grade level by making full-day kindergarten available to every Arizona family. We've made historic investments in early childhood education and in teacher pay. We've broken ground on an all-new medical campus, tripled our contribution to student financial aid, and built up our universities.This is progress, and it is precisely where we needed to go.Now, we must move quickly this year to implement the voter-approved initiative aimed at early childhood.
Disputed Accord in Student Loan Case
Department officials portrayed the settlement reached with the Nebraska Education Loan Network, or Nelnet, as a defeat for the for-profit company. They noted that they were declining to pay an estimated $882 million in additional reimbursement requests that the company has pending under the same loophole, and ending future payments on such loans to other lenders as well unless the lenders can prove, through audits, that they qualify for the funds. Nelnet officials themselves, too, took issue with the department’s finding but said they had settled the case to allow the company to move on. But Congressional and other critics accused the department of going soft on Nelnet and other lenders. They blasted administration officials for failing to fully follow the recommendation of the department’s inspector general, who contended in a September audit report that Nelnet should be forced to repay all funds earned through the loophole, though which lenders were paid a 9.5 percent government subsidy on a certain class of student loans.
Women accuse auditor hopeful
He faces Republican Lorenzo Garcia, a retired government auditor, in the Nov. 7 election. The state auditor seat is open because Democrat Domingo Martinez has reached his term limit. Albuquerque Police Chief Ray Schultz said his department sent information on the most recent case to the District Attorney's Office on Aug. 18. "We did the investigation and sent it to the District Attorney's Office and are awaiting their decision," he said. Schultz said the investigation was handled as any similar allegation would have been and was not given special treatment because of Armijo's candidacy. Brandenburg said Friday that her office began reviewing the case Monday. She said such cases are difficult to investigate and that it might take months to determine whether there are grounds for charges.
Unconventional wisdom
The flight of jobs that began immediately after World War II was key to the fate of cities like Detroit, as were the racial barriers in employment and housing faced by their black citizens. Sugrue spoke recently to Metro Times by phone on the occasion of a new edition of Origins from Princeton University Press. Metro Times: Your new preface begins with a visit to your fathers childhood home around Chalfonte and Santa Rosa, south of Fenkell on the West Side. .
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