Performance rankings are out for debt collection agencies under contract with the U.S. Department of Education and once again Pioneer Credit Recovery, Inc. and Coast Professionals outperformed peers in their respective categories.
This
time, however, immediate rewards to top performers go beyond bragging
rights. Pioneer, of Arcade, NY, and Anaheim, Calif.-based Coast
Professional each received a greater number of new accounts than their
peers when the education department issued new placements this past
weekend. The allocations are proportionate to the agencies’ overall
performance between October, 2009 and March 31, 2010, the first few
months of the new student loan debt collection contract.
"New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has touted student-loan
reforms as a marquee achievement of a tenure that has put him on a path
toward the governorship.
Yet two-and-a-half years later, $13 million he collected as part of
a settlement with lenders and schools to be used to inform students
about financial-aid options remains unspent."
The AG's office had requested bids in May 2009 but apparently no decisions have been made on how the funds will be spent:
"Mr. Cuomo's office began to solicit bids for a Web site, a call center
and public-service ads in May. The request for proposal's projected
start date is Jan. 1, 2010. The plan for the Web site is to contain
objective side-by-side comparisons of loans."
Think proprietary and community colleges. Of the almost 700 schools that had over 5,000 FAFSA filings in the first quarter, these twenty-five schools all experienced over 50% growth in FAFSA filings on a year-over-year basis:
"More than 2,500 teachers and 76,000 students in all 50 states
participated in the voluntary exam, which shows interest is strong. But
the scores were disappointing. The average student is just squeaking by
with 70% correct. Students failed to answer basic questions about
credit cards, car insurance, and compound interest. This shows we have
a lot of work to do."
I was just having this conversation about this very topic and thought it was important enough to include "Finish in Four" as part of my 140-character tweet about advice on paying for college. So, how does the NY Times Freakonomics blog answer the question "Why Does College Take So Long These Days?"
"American college students, particularly male students, have been slower and slower to finish college over the past 30 years. A new working paper by John Bound, Michael F. Lovenheim, and Sarah Turner
suggests the trend is due to rising costs of education. Demographics
and academic preparedness don’t explain the trend, but the authors
found evidence in support of the increasing cost hypothesis: both
increasing student-faculty ratios and cohort size are linked to
increasing time-to-degree, particularly in “non-top 50 public sector”
schools. The authors also found that students are working more hours
in response to rising costs. Low-income students and students at
less-selective institutions are particularly vulnerable to the trend."
Forbes recently released a College Tuition Risk List to rank universities based on their likelihood of increasing tuition levels:
"Five of the 10 schools on our high-risk shortlist are part of the University of California
system. Despite the recent approval of a 32% tuition increase that will
force many UC in-state students to pay roughly $10,000 in tuition and
fees for the next school year, we predict still more pain for a system
that's supported by a state with a 49% budget gap and has a ways to go
before it charges its in-state students as much as, say, the University
of Vermont ($13,554)."
Here are some new developments which show how the peer financing market continues to morph over time with one provider, People Capital, providing their origination platform to facilitate traditional private loans while several other companies move more towards more of a donor model:
People Capital partners with Access To Money (ATM) to provide private student loans solution. People Capital will provide the origination platform and their credit analysis tool, the Human Capital Score (from People Capital's blog) and ATM will provide their business development skills:
It's Financial Literacy Day today and April is Financial Literacy month so lots of news to compile this week:
Syracuse University financial aid director Youlanda Copeland-Morgan sees transformation in financial aid's role in assisting students (from Syracuse.com): "Traditionally, financial aid professionals are most recognized for one
thing: helping students pay for college. But now more than ever, we are
also seeing the growing need to counsel students who are in way over
their head with personal financial issues."
Syracuse has rolled out an array of services including:
