Filed in archive
Expenses
on August 26, 2010
©
SashaW
There is nothing quite like the feeling of being accepted into the school of your choice. You get your backpack, your books, your supplies, and you're ready to start the semester. It feels like you're about to conquer the world. Or, at least, a Monday.
If you're an adult heading back to school, you may feel exhausted before you've reached the middle of the parking lot. After a long day, long weekend, and long wait standing in line for the admissions office, you may even find yourself reconsidering this whole school thing. Don't give up. Whether you're going back to school for personal needs or to further your career, school may give you a well-needed break from the day-to-day tasks of managing your household and work schedules. Sometimes, you need to spend money to make money. You never know what doors your education will open. It could be what gets you a promotion.
If you already have an established home life, bills are always on your doorstep so you need prepare for the unexpected things that could arise at any moment. Not everyone can set money aside each month in case of an emergency. If you or a loved one have an accident, you may be thinking of dropping out of school to save money. Instead of giving up on your educational dreams, consider emergency loans. With their help, you can get your hands on the cash you need quickly to pay off the debt or unexpected expense right away. You don't need to drop out of school, pay your bills late, or ding your credit. Your education is worth the time it takes to fill out paperwork to get the extra funds you need. Once the emergency passes, you'll be glad you didn't give up on school.
Filed in archive
Degrees
, Studying
on August 13, 2010
©
Speaker Pelosi
To avail of the tax benefits, families may make use of quite a few options. One is through the Hope and Lifetime Learning Credit, which will allow a student tax breaks for tuition fees and education related expenses.
Another way is to deduct up to $4,000 from the tuition every year. However, this may only be claimed once for a married couple.
A third option is for previously taken out college loan. The interest of the loan may be deducted from their taxes or not have the amount of the cancelled loan become part of the taxable income.
Filed in archive
Expenses
, Studying
on July 16, 2010
©
p373
The new law, for instance, ended the Family Education Loan Program (FELP), under which the federal government paid commercial banks to act as middle men between the government and the student borrower. Under the new measure, all federal loans will now be acquired from the US Department of Education through the Direct Loan Program. This should make the borrowing process clearer for many students. It will also lead to lower interest rates and better loan accessibility, since the measure removes the cost of having the banks facilitate the loans for the student.
The new measure also allows students to consolidate some federal loans even while they are still in college. Among those that qualify for consolidation are FELP loans issued by a private lender, Direct Loan Program loans, and FELP loans sold to the education department.
With money saved from eliminating the banks from the loan programs, the maximum Pell Grant for the next academic year is expected to go up to $5,550 from $5,350 last year. More students will also be eligible this year for the Pell Grant since the family contribution cutoff for a student's college education has been raised to $5,273 from $4,617.
Married couples where both spouses have loans also stand to benefit from the new student loan legislation. Under the new law, the couple's combined federal loan will be compared with their combined income to determine the amount of loan payment they must shell out. Previously, federal loans obtained by married people were treated separately while their incomes were combined. This resulted in most couples having to repay greater portions of their debts than they would have if they haven't been married in the first place.
Filed in archive
Expenses
, Studying
on July 15, 2010
©
U-g-g-B-o-y-(-Photograph-World-Sense-)
Here are six things you can do to cut down on your college expenses this coming fall:
1. Think about online education
Not everyone can go to a brick-and-mortar school these days. There are many online options that can give you quality education you are looking for. You not only get to save on tuition costs, online education also allows you to cut down on, if not totally get rid of, money spent on gas, parking, clothing and food. You also don't need to worry about getting to school on time since almost everything can be done in the comforts of your very own home.
2. Hunt for Scholarships
Consider applying for loans only as a last resort. The first thing to do is to search for grants and scholarships. These don't have to be paid back! Many will also have provisions for books and living expenses. And not all scholarships are reserved for the straight-A student. If you do your homework right, you should be able to find many non-academic scholarships as well.
3. Buy Textbooks Online
You can save as much as $100 per book if you buy your textbook online. There is the shipping time to think about, since most online book stores will take about five to fifteen business days to get books you need delivered. But if you can find out next semester's books and start buying them online now, that's about $400 you get to save each semester!
4. Rent Textbooks
If it's a book you won't need to use after one semester, you are better off just renting it. Go online, look for the book you need, and pay only about a quarter of what the book will cost if you bought rather than rent it. Just make sure you are able to return the book in as good a condition as when you first rented it.
5. Buy Used Goods
If you are looking for furniture, a second-hand computer or a bag, walk around late in the summer and look for used stuff that's still in almost mint condition. Many students who are graduating would rather get rid of extra stuff they had than haul it all back home. Go on craigslist and look for yard sales, garage sales or moving out sales.
6. Use Your I.D. Card
Many establishments like coffee shops and restaurants offer discounts to students in the area. These discounts can easily go up to about 20% and when added up together may mean savings of as much as $200 each semester on food, school supplies, clothes and even entertainment.
Filed in archive
Degrees
, Employment
on June 24, 2010
©
niyam bhushan
On the other hand...next to technical expertise, most employers are looking for soft skills among their applicants. These are skills that allow a prospective employee build better relationships with colleagues, superiors, and in many instances, clients. For most bosses, these skills are just as important as having a thorough grasp of the technical concepts behind a particular task.
1. Communication skills
Employers are looking for workers who know how to express themselves well. Examples of good communication skills include coherent writing, effective selling approaches and the ability to explain things at a very basic level.
2. Ability to work with others
Most successful projects are accomplished by teams rather than individuals. Even if one employee is assigned to be the point-person for a task, the responsibility will often have to be delegated to at least a few colleagues and all of these people must be able to work as a team.
3. Ability to go with the flow
Not everything will work well for us all the time. And there will always be changes in the office environment that we will have to get used to. We may one day see having more of our colleagues and even bosses getting younger, more of our work processes being completed electronically and in some instances, things just not happening the way we want. As we get older in our work environment, it is important that we are constantly able to positively deal with all these changes that are going on around us. Otherwise, our colleagues and more importantly our bosses, may see us as obsolete members of the team.
4. Problem solving
We will constantly be faced with work-related problems and our skills in dealing with them will always be tested. We have to think very hard about how we understand the problems we face at work, how we may be able to deal with them, which of our colleagues we work with to solve the problem and what measurable data we use to determine the outcome.
5. Keen observation
After we collect data and manipulate them, our analytical and interpretative skills will come into play. It is important that we are able to write a complete story about what we did and how it may impact events at work. If future problems are foreseen, this is also the time to suggest a few possible solutions to them.
6. Working out conflicts
It is important to build mutually beneficial relationships with our co-workers as often as possible. This will sometimes mean being able to persuade and negotiate with them. Our colleagues must see our suggestions as "win-win" solutions to the problems that confront us.
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