| Schwarzenegger Vetoes DREAM Bill for Immigrant Students
Late Saturday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a series of vetoes on various bills — and in so doing dashed the hopes of student activists who have been pushing to make it easier for undocumented students to obtain financial aid and to pressure publishers and faculty members into changing practices that some believe contribute to the high price of textbooks. At the same time, Governor Schwarzenegger signed another bill on textbooks, favored by publishers and opposed by student groups. .
A Shaky Season for Student Loans
Shortly after New Year's Day, Pat Watkins, financial aid director at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla., placed a worried call to National Education, a student loan company she has been working with for nearly two decades. She had heard rumors that the company was no longer funding federal Stafford and PLUS (Parent Loans for Undergraduate Students) education loans, but had received no official word from the company. She found out that the phone of National Education's local rep had been disconnected. Later she learned that Chicago-based National Education was not planning to accept applications for new loans for the spring semester after Jan. 15, though they planned to fund disbursements for students who received loans for the fall. Federal Loans Lose Funders That was the first surprise.
Contractor loses La. scholarship account data dating back to 1998
BATON ROUGE, La. -- A Boston-based contractor hired to store and safeguard state scholarship and college savings account data lost most of those records _ including bank account numbers and student and parent Social Security numbers _ during a move, officials say. "We certainly don't want to create any panic. But people should be aware and take the necessary steps," said Melanie Amrhein, executive director of the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance. "This is backup data off of a mainframe that contains sensitive personal information." Special equipment and software and "sophisticated computer skills" would be needed to get the compressed records from the TOPS scholarship program, START Saving Program, and Free Application for Federal Student Aid, according to a notice posted on the Internet.
UVa Aid Policy Gets a Facelift
A year ago, the University of Virginia joined the growing list of selective institutions altering their financial aid policies to make them friendlier to students from low-income families. Now it has decided that it needs to do even more, and do it sooner, than originally planned. .
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. .
UT Holds Public Forums On Tuition Hike
As the University of Texas considers raising tuition once again, education leaders from around the state are meeting to talk solutions for higher education. Those meetings are happening at the Frank Erwin Center to help increase college enrollment around the state significantly. The goal is to increase enrollment across the state by 30 percent from 2005 to 2010. While it is an achievable goal, still, university systems across the state feel they have to increase tuition to stay competitive, so while more students want to go to college, making it affordable is another challenge. Financial challenges, like getting students to apply through Free Application for Federal Student Aid, is just one of the many roadblocks to work through.
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