SLA Webinar (Thursday, March 4th): What’s New In Private Student Loan Land?

Join me for this informative webinar
to be held on Thursday, March 4th at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time.  This
90-minute webinar will focus on the current state of the private (non-federal)
student loan market as well as provide an outlook for the future.  This webinar
will be extremely helpful to financial aid professionals and others
interested in learning more about [...]

Time For A Student Aid Summit

I couldn't help, but think, as I watched the Health Care summit this morning, that it was time for a similar confab on student aid reform.  Why?  Given what many describe as a "once in a generation opportunity", it would seem to be worth a day to get a roomful of experts (ground rules:  no [...]

Who Is Offering Three-Year Undergraduate Degrees?

I first saw this on the NY Times The Choice blog:
"The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
is announcing today that it will allow “highly motivated students” to
graduate in three years, beginning with the freshman class that will be
seated this fall.
Specifically, the program will be offered to incoming freshmen who
already have at least 12 college credit [...]

Is College Debt Becoming A Bigger News Story?

It now has it's own page on the Huffington Post (one of most popular news aggregator/blogs based on web traffic) with a new contribution from Secretary Arne Duncan titled "Move Our Money From Banks to Students."  Going down the left column, the home page for College Debt also provides nine different personal stories about how [...]

Finovate Alumni News from BancVue, Billeo, and Credit Karma

Stories from our Finovate blog covering some of the most innovative financial companies in the world. More alumni news is available on our Finovate Twitter feed. BancVue Acquires Financial Literacy Company Skill-Life In its first corporate acquisition, BancVue purchased fellow…
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Chase And Sallie Mae Adjust Pricing on Private Student Loans

Here are the changes:

Chase reduced the lowest rate on their cosigned loans to 4.15% (a 0.25% reduction) and the highest rate to 8.75% (a 1.00% reduction).  Rates go into effect on March 1, 2010

Here is their announcement:  Download E-Blast Chase Select Pricing Update 4Y 2-18-10

Sallie Mae changed their pricing methodology and is now differentiating rates [...]

FirstAgain Targets Online Users with Excellent Credit

I had a great conversation today with the founders of FirstAgain, a startup online lender from the same folks that brought us PeopleFirst Finance ten years ago. People First invented “blank check” auto lending, earning it  one of the…
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Huff Post To Investigate Student Debt Problems

The Huffington Post Investigative Fund is asking for student loan borrowers to come forward and describe issues they might be having with debt collectors, the student loan ombudsman or getting a loan discharge due to disability: 
"The Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, in partnership with
the Huffington Post Investigative Fund, is examining the student loan
crunch. In [...]

PNC Bank Takes on Mint & Quicken with PNC Virtual Wallet

Just when you thought Mint, Wesabe, and Geezeo had a lock on all the headlines for Gen Y personal finance, along comes a truly inspired effort from a major U.S. retail bank. Furthermore, it’s not from Wells Fargo, Bank of…
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This Could Make the Guinness Book Of World Records…

As the largest student loan balance ever:  $550,000.  The Wall Street Journal has found a borrower with this incredible level of debt:
"When Michelle Bisutti, a 41-year-old family practitioner in
Columbus, Ohio, finished medical school in 2003, her student-loan debt
amounted to roughly $250,000. Since then, it has ballooned to $555,000.
It is the result of her deferring loan [...]