The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

Teaming Up To Reach Out To Lower-Income Applicants

Harvard University, Princeton University and the University of Virginia, after dropping early admissions programs criticized for catering to the wealthy, are now teaming up on a tour to attract lower-income applicants. The tour will stop next month in 19 cities, including Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington. Admissions officials will discuss financial-aid programs and academic offerings at meetings with high school students and their parents, the universities said in a statement today. Read more at:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=a2yXG4lYVV1s

Elite IHEs Providing More Aid To Middle-Income Families

Some of the nation's most elite colleges, trying to ward off perceptions that they've become unaffordable to even high-income families, are bolstering their financial aid packages by offering grants to students whose parents earn as much as $180,000 a year. IHEs are increasingly reaching out to families caught in the middle: those who are too wealthy to be eligible for federal grants, but not so wealthy as to be able to absorb the $50,000 a year for college, particularly with the rising costs of home ownership. Read more at:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/09/27/at_elite_colleges_new_aid_for_the_middle/

Examining The Big Bucks In The Student Loan Industry

The student loan industry could be in for more jolts. Policy makers and regulators say that there are dangerous parallels between the private student loan and subprime mortgage markets. In both, there have been phenomenal profits, aggressive marketing and, until the recent credit market turmoil, a healthy appetite from Wall Street investors. This article profiles a company called First Marblehead, that made vast amounts of money marketing loans to college students. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/business/02jabba.html?th&emc=th

Student Lenders Get More Competitive

With the student loan industry under scrutiny, at least three lenders are sweetening their discounts on loans, potentially cutting costs for millions of students. The lenders — Sallie Mae (SLM), Nelnet (NNI) and College Loan Corp. — say they've decided to make their loans more enticing because of fierce competition in the industry. "As the public turns its eye to the student loan market, the lenders are trying to appear competitive," says Luke Swarthout, a consumer advocate at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Read more at: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/banking/2007-05-15-student-loans-usat_N.htm?csp=34

Returns Are Good But Not Great

U.S. colleges and universities continued a three-year streak of "pretty good returns" on their endowments by earning 10.6% in 2006, a report shows. That's lower than the return from the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index, which gained 15.8% last year with dividends reinvested. But it's up from a 9.7% average return among colleges in 2005, and it's an improvement over declining returns among colleges and universities earlier in the decade. Read more at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-01-10-endowments-usat_x.htm

Put The Plastic Away When Paying Tuition

Many universities now impose additional fees on students and parents who pay by credit card and, in some cases, refuse to accept certain credit cards altogether.he changes stem from increasing costs to universities in processing credit card transactions. The fees on charged tuition can cost IHEs millions of dollars. Read more at: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/060606/6tuition.htm

Do You Know Where Your Endowment Funds Are Invested

Supporters of major colleges and universities are commonly barred from knowing how their donations are invested, according to a survey released Tuesday. Only senior administrators and trustees know where endowment dollars go at 66% of the 216 schools that responded to a survey. Results of this first-time collegiate investing survey are striking a chord on campuses where students want to see investment policies reflect their schools' moral values. Read more at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-05-29-college-invest_x.htm

Wooster Big On Hedge Funds For Endowment

The College of Wooster is a small, liberal arts college in Ohio whose graduates have historically gravitated toward careers as Presbyterian ministers, music teachers or college professors, not traditionally high-paid professions. Yet its endowment is on a roll. Nearly 80 percent of the endowment's assets are invested in hedge funds — making Wooster among the endowments with the largest exposure to hedge funds, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Still, that strategy has brought it rich rewards: Its endowment has climbed to $250 million today, from $89 million in 1990. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/10/business/10place.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Smaller IHEs Try To Boost Endowments With Hedge Funds

According to a BusinessWeek analysis of data from NACUBO, a dozen endowments had more than 40% of their portfolios in these higher-risk investments as of June 30, 2005 (table). Included are the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, at 82.4%, and Yeshiva University in New York City, at 65.3%. "We all very much envy the success of Harvard and Yale's endowments," says Bob Walton, vice-president for finance and business at the College of Wooster. "When you look at how they achieve their returns, a lot of it has come through alternative investments like hedge funds." But the heavy reliance on hedge funds raises concerns that smaller institutions are moving into these investments just as performance may be peaking. Read more at:
http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/may2006/pi20060503_813775.htm?campaign_id=nws_insdr_may5&link_position=link7

Student Loans Create New Class Of Working Poor

About 40 percent of students now graduate with what lenders consider "unmanageable" debt loads, meaning their payments eat up more of their salaries than is considered financially sound. This combination of forces has the potential to create a new class of working poor -- those who have fallen behind before they've had a chance to get ahead. A couple profiled in the article owes $350,000 in student loans. Read more at: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/257094_studentloandebt26.html