Before we get to the good reads!
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A Few Good Reads
Here are a few of my favorite reads from the past week.
1. Student loans is second largest source of debt in US households, says recent study:
Steven Sabel, a former firefighter, decided to go to law school after a knee injury prevented him from returning to duty. He had wanted to be a lawyer since he was young.
Sabel, now a second-year student at UCLA, is financing his degree almost entirely on loans. Tuition at the UCLA School of Law costs more than $45,000 a year, and Sabel expects to graduate with around $200,000 in debt.
“From day one of starting law school (I was) already accruing interest,” he said with a sigh. “(The debt) will impact what I do for work. … I have to get the big law firm job just to pay off the loans.”
Sabel is one of many individuals who said student loans will influence their life decisions. A recent report by the Campaign for College Opportunity, a nonprofit advocacy organization in California, estimates that the amount of student loan debt in the U.S. was $1.08 trillion by the end of 2013, exceeding the national aggregate totals of auto loan, credit card and home-equity debt balances. Find every info
2. U.S. wealth gap gets wider with $1 trillion in student loan debt:
Every month that Gregory Zbylut pays $1,300 toward his law school loans is another month of not qualifying for a decent mortgage.
Every payment toward their student loans is $900 Dr. Nida Degesys and her husband aren’t putting in their retirement savings account.
They believe they’ll eventually climb from debt and begin using their earnings to build assets rather than fill holes. But, like the roughly 37 million others in the U.S. saddled with $1 trillion in student debt, they may never catch up with wealthy peers who began life after college free from the burden.
The disparity, experts say, is contributing to the widening of the gap between rich and everyone else in the country. Find every info
3. Student loan debt becomes one of the largest forms of consumer debt:
It’s a 1.2 trillion dollar problem that’s worse than all of the nation’s credit card and auto loan debt combined.
Experts and lawmakers say student loan debt, carried by 40 million Americans, is one of the biggest threats to economic growth.
That data leaves some college students in the area scratching their heads about the debt they’re piling up.
Just ask Western Illinois University freshman Channing Voss.
“I think that college overall is a little pricy, especially, I mean, we are in the cafeteria, the little things are what they get you at,” Voss said. Find every info
4. Dept of Ed Fails with Student Loan Debt Collection:
Efforts by the U.S. Department of Education to rehabilitate defaulted student loans have been seriously flawed, according to federal investigators.
Testifying before Congress on March 12, an official from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) highlighted “serious weaknesses” in the department’s management and oversight of the loan rehabilitation process.
The Education Department failed to properly implement and oversee a computer system upgrade in 2011, during which time it couldn’t process rehabilitations. Because of that, some 80,000 borrowers were unable to get their loans out of default.
Additionally, the Department’s poor oversight of debt collectors has had a negative affect on the ability of delinquent and defaulted borrowers to rehabilitate their student loans, according to the GAO. Find every info
5. Debt Recovery Strategies for Student Loans:
The debt that students find themselves in because of taking out too many student loans hasCollections 3 gotten a close look for the last 10-plus years. However, public outcry really went up when the student loan debt surpassed credit card debt last year.
Universities are being tasked to monitor their cost increases and some states have instituted tuition maximums that universities must abide by or risk losing part of their state appropriation. When you and your staff have done everything you can to address costs at your educational institution, you’re still going to have students leaving with debt that goes unpaid.
Let’s take a look at where most of the debt lies. Of the $1 trillion in student loan debt, $850 million is tied to federal student loans, like the Stafford, Perkins and PLUS loans. Around $150 million is tied to private student loans. A surprising amount of students are defaulting on these loans, but most debt collection attempts start with the private loans. Find every info