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Creative Ways to Pay Back Your Federal Student Loans

20.05.12

If there is one oddity that is both obvious and impressive college students, other than their ability to stay lean on a fast peanut butter and pasta, it is their commitment to fools: they study all night and still go to the merits, they will drink a case of beer, then go to the pool, and they will do everything to save money.

With living expenses and tutelage costs climbing faster than a mountain goat on a mission, it’s no surprise, then, that we’ve seen students doing some charming crazy things to help cover the cost of college or pay down the debt they have after graduating. Steve Stanzak, a student at NYU, couldn’t give up a dorm room so lived in the campus library for eight months. Two University of Colorado students cashed in on the social gathering scene by starting a cleaning service to spruce up after house parties. One guy even paid for his living expenses by spending his unused time disco dancing in the street, shaking his way to $10,000 a year.

But not everyone can face up to their debt by confronting their crazy, so what can you do to help pay down your own? The secret: get creative without getting stupefied. And one of the best ways to do that for students with federal student loans is to consider a federal policy called advance forgiveness, which cancels some or all federal student debt in exchange for certain types of serving. The good news is there’s something for everyone, so if you have the time and the ambition to lessen your debt, consider the programs below:

Volunteer: Armistice Corps, AmeriCorps, or AmeriCorps VISTA

Volunteering isn’t just a great way to see the in every way or give back to your own community, it’s a great way to help tackle your debt. The best part about it is that many volunteer opportunities offered through these programs run things travel and living expenses in addition to offering other great benefits, like allow deferment while in service, a post-service stipend, or an educational award that can be in use accustomed to to pay down your debt when you’re finished. Peace Corps volunteers receive $7,425 after their 27 months of care and qualify for partial cancellation of any Perkins loans (15% off for each of the first two years of service, 20% for each of the third or fourth years if you give your service). And both AmeriCorps and AmeriCorps Vista volunteers can get up to $5,550 for the completion of 1,700 volunteer hours over a ten month program.

Be accurate: Consider military service

While each branch of the military has a host of financial benefits, and there are many military and mature associations that offer scholarships to those who’ve served, you should also be aware that students who enlist in the Army Nationwide Guard can qualify for up to $50,000 in student loan repayments, which is helpful to those who’ve incurred beholden before enlisting.

Teach: Opportunities for teachers

Full-time teachers with a passion for portion those who need it most—that means students from low-income families or special education students—and teachers who specialize in want areas like bilingual education, math, and science qualify for the predisposed to or complete cancellation of Perkins or Stafford loans they have. Click here for more information.

Other opportunities

But the ease doesn’t stop there! Other people who may qualify for partial or complete cancellation of their student loans comprehend nurses and childcare providers. Check out the HRSA Nursing Education Loan Repayment Program and the Childcare Provider Credit Forgiveness Program for more information. Also for those employed in public service, the federal command will forgive any remaining debt after 10 years of full-time employment if you’ve made at least 120 payments. Interruption with your employer for eligibility.

The point being…

Helping people isn’t such a bad way to spend your time, and has the added aid of curbing your debt, so maybe it’s time to get some Gandhi spirit and give a little while getting a barely bit back.

Source: Bostinnovation

Speaker: Proposition 103 could save school programs

20.05.12

Individual views were discussed as local officials talked with Rocky Mountain Farmers Unity members about Colorado's Proposition 103 Wednesday at the Morgan County Extension Company.

Proposition 103 would raise about $514 million to use for school funding during the first year and would keep on over the next five years if voters approve it in November.

It would do this by raising the state income tax back to 5 percent from 4.63 percent and its sales tax back to 3 percent from 2.9 percent. Those amounts were lowered in the years 1999 and 2000 singly, and 103 would return them to the former rates.

Currently, the state spends $3.7 billion on K-12 tutelage and $624 million for higher education, one of the lowest rates in the U.S.

If passed, the proposition would not suffer legislators to lower school funding, and the new funding would be put on top of the existing funding. It is a statutory gage, not a constitutional measure, and could be overturned by the legislature at a later time.

There are no restrictions on how schools would dish out the money, and opponents say it would only give the schools more money with no accountability.

This measure was proposed because it is expected that the state will continue struggling with its budget, and could have to cut an additional $500 million in monetary year 2012-13, said Dale McCall, vice president of the Unbending Mountain Farmers Union.

If Proposition 103 fails, it is likely that $200 million to $300 million of those cuts will be to K-12 teaching and state colleges and community colleges, he said.

If Proposition 103 passes, it could purpose that the budget shortfall would have to be absorbed by the remaining state agencies, but some believe that would be a excel problem to have, McCall said.

Finding funding is particularly important to exurban districts which are already struggling with declining enrollment, he said. State funding comes as per-disciple funding, and when schools lose students they lose funding.

The Agate Lyceum District recently decided to only keep its elementary school open, and secondary students go to other not far-off districts for education since there are not enough students to keep enough funding to keep a secondary school open, McCall said.

Fort Morgan

There are two sides to the point: Economic and tax policy and what might happen to schools' levels of services, said Fort Morgan Instil District Superintendent Greg Wagers.

He was there to address what could happen with Fort Morgan schools, and especially to the district general budget, he said.

Schools have three sources of funding: City property taxes, specific ownership taxes and state equalization dollars.

Land funding has dropped significantly over the past few years since the recession hit. During the 2009-10 prepare year, the Fort Morgan district had $23.8 million to work with. This year, preliminary figures show it will only have $21.5 million -- a $2.3 million or an almost 10 percent drop, Wagers said.

The only reason that Fort Morgan schools have not had to cut more than it has is that the board of course of study and officials predicted this might happen and instituted cost containment measures, he said.

Over the existence three years, the district managed to save almost $3 million, which shows solid planning and use of money -- contrary to those who say schools do not use money wisely -- but the province now has to tap that fund balance of reserves to continue to offer its programs, Wagers said.

Schools were clever to save money mostly due to American Recovery and Reinvestment stimulus money, he said.

So far, the area has not had to cut sports, music, art, physical education or clubs, and officials did not want to defective the quality of education or the school experience, Wagers said.

That has meant doing "more with less," but the locality is at a tipping point where it will only be able to do "less with less," he explained.

The Fort Morgan district expects to go through about $342,000 of the money it saved this year, Wagers said.

If additional funding like that in Proposition 103 is not found, the area will not be able to provide all the services it has before, he emphasized.

Any household or business would be in the same predicament if takings was cut, Wagers noted.

What the district has saved is like a family savings account. It can be adapted to for a short time in a period of crisis, but that cannot continue indefinitely, he said.

Nice fiscal management has gotten the district this far, but the levels of service are not sustainable if funding remains as it is, Wagers said.

It is only a reality that schools will have to look at what they can cut, he said.

Fort Morgan has already cut its supplies and materials back by 80 percent and is making do with fewer supplies, but when new shape standards come out the district will be forced to buy new textbooks, Wagers pointed out.

Part of rate containment was freezing salaries by not giving teachers their regular step increases and not raising classified worker wages, he said. This year, the board decided to offer teachers a half-to take action and classified employees a 10-cent per hour raise. If things look crap-shooter, that might be doubled, but there are no guarantees.

Critics of Proposition 103 claim that money will be sucked out of the off the record sector into government, hurting the economy, and this recession is a bad time to charge more taxes. They requisition charging more in taxes might result in less consumer spending and business investment, which would further ease off the economy.

However, most of the school funding -- 80 percent in Fort Morgan -- goes to salaries, and that banknotes goes right back into the economy, Wagers noted. Teachers and other employees go through their money on groceries, mortgages, rent, retail stores, gasoline and other parts of the briefness.

As one of the largest employers in Morgan County, the district was cognizant of the importance of those salaries on the townswoman economy, and only eliminated positions by attrition when people retired or left, he said. When the depression started, the district had 324 employees and that is down to 301, a 7 percent drop. The slews of teachers fell from 242 to 220, or a 9 percent cut in teachers.

The district's most suitable hope was that funding would eventually stabilize, and there would at least not be more cuts, but now it is facing cuts as as a whole as last year, Wagers said.

If that happens, it will mean more jobs lost, because that is the only other post to cut, and the district cannot run a deficit, he said. The district has already cut its materials and administrators.

Wiggins

The Wiggins Primary District is in much the same position, said Superintendent Steve Neel.

Funding has been cut heavily, Wiggins has also cut about 9 percent of its teachers and some of its dispensation and employees also had their wages and salaries frozen, he said.

Wiggins managed to conserve up money, too, and offered the staff raises, but there are no promises for the future, Neel said.

Schools are in an trackless area, because cuts like this have never happened before and they cannot fall back on experience, he said. Nonetheless, the region posted record Colorado Student Assessment Program test scores in the last round of testing. That means the teachers were dedicated in defiance of their difficulties.

Even though the Wiggins district saved up some money, it will have to use some of that this year, and that cannot continue without consequences, Neel said.

Proposition 103 would better, but it would not fix all the problems facing education, he warned. It would just be a bandage on a wound that needs a tourniquet. It would mingy that some schools would not have to close and some programs would not have to be cut.

"I hope it passes," Neel said, as it will be a touch of fresh air and new life for a while, but people cannot think of it as a permanent solution. An overhaul of academic financing is needed.

Districts are doing their best to live in a financially valid manner. People might be surprised to see teachers stapling scrap paper together to use as note pads, and teachers are buying supplies out of their own pockets, Neel said.

For now, there is still moneyed for things like field trips and programs, but it is unrealistic to deny that the job could get ugly without some financial relief, he said.

"It scares me to death," Neel added.

One of the problems for a under age district like Wiggins is that when enrollment declines it cannot just cut a teacher, since there are fewer kids in all levels and the total expenses stay the same, he said.

Should Proposition 103 pass, Fort Morgan schools would meet receive an extra $1.7 million, Brush schools about $500,000, Wiggins schools $300,000 and Weldon Valley $219,000 if it is distributed the same way as in the over, due to the districts' different sizes. Statewide that averages out to about $500 per student.

Questions, concerns

One RMFU fellow noted that money that was supposed to go to highways was diverted after one election to fund more later management for the state, and wondered what guarantees there would be that something like that would not happen again.

The way the proposition is worded would provoke it hard to use the money for other things, but the state does have some heavy pressures on it, McCall said. It is unmanageable to say what would happen with the rest of the budget.

McCall noted that he heard about some impending federal cuts that might damaged schools, too, when he recently visited Washington, D.C. One budget office employee said it was remote a super committee would find the cuts it is aiming at, and then automatic cuts would go into effect for everything from military to indoctrination funding. That might be as much as a 7.9 percent across-the-board cut.

That would be bad, because the feds are already not

Source: Fort Morgan Times