Student Loans

Latest Articles

Breaking down the cost of Brown; birth control mirth; business as usual

Hill hiking
Mayor Angel Taveras and Brown University are locked in a nasty fight over upping the school's payments to the city. And the university's governing board has announced it will hike tuition and fees by 3.5 percent next year.
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | February 15, 2012

Obama responds to the 99 percent

Band-aids or benefits?
In announcements that could be interpreted as gifts to the Occupy movement, President Barack Obama recently introduced three measures to help struggling students, veterans, and homeowners.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | November 09, 2011

Sallie Mae not

As federally sponsored student-loan giant Sallie Mae prepares to go private, it’s squeezing every last penny from student borrowers while opening up scads of new businesses. How can you protect yourself?
If you have had to borrow money to pay for school, chances are good you've borrowed from Sallie Mae, the largest student-loan company in the US, which currently handles between 40 and 45 percent of the business.
By CATHERINE TUMBER | July 25, 2011

Stay in the black

Graduate without financial ruin
Some of you greenhorns are embarking on your academic careers. And some of you veterans are practically outta here. Remember all that advice about maintaining a good grade-point average? There's another number that might actually be more important: your credit score.
By CLAUDE MORGAN | August 26, 2009

The Loan Groan

Never a borrower or a lender be dept.
Each month, with miserable certitude, the snail-mailboxes of middle-class twenty- and thirtysomethings are stuffed with student-loan bills, from both federal and private lenders. The balance seems to remain stagnant, even as we mail in check after check.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | July 08, 2009

Loan Groan

A new federal program aims to help overburdened student borrowers
Each month, with miserable certitude, the snail-mailboxes of middle-class twenty- and thirtysomethings are stuffed with student-loan bills, from both federal and private lenders. The balance seems to remain stagnant, even as we mail in check after check.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | July 08, 2009

Loan Groan

Public colleges get the shaft

Fewer teachers. Bigger classes. More applicants. Huge tuition hikes. the outlook for Rhode island higher ed is bleak .
When it came time to pick a college, Thomas Ahrens just couldn't pass up the relative affordability of a University of Rhode Island education.
By MEAGHAN WIMS | February 25, 2009

Get over it

What every freshman should know about going to college in Boston
Okay, you survived the college-application process; you filled out the miserable FAFSA forms; you sweated out the wait for acceptance letters; and cut your best financial-aid deal.
By CLIF GARBODEN | August 21, 2009

The devil in the details

‘Drawn to Detail’ and ‘Laylah Ali’ at the DeCordova, Esteban Pastorino Díaz at the SMFA, and Student Loan Art Program at MIT
It’s hard to imagine stopping to look at drawings that don’t coalesce till you let them pull you in and spin you around a bit.
By RANDI HOPKINS | August 28, 2008

MEFA madness

No need to panic over student loans. Just pay more.
On July 28, news broke that the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority had fallen on hard times.
By KARA BASKIN | August 13, 2008

Stay away from me, baby

Politics and other mistakes
Imagine a Maine in which almost everybody is over the age of 40.
By AL DIAMON | November 14, 2007

School for scandal

An Emerson College dean becomes the first Boston casualty of the national student-loan fiasco
Lending institutions have been buying the favor of sticky-fingered college administrators for some time now.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | August 27, 2008

Lender bending

It’s time to rein in the student-loan industry. Plus, trying to make sense of the horror at Virginia Tech.
It should come as little surprise that financial institutions resort to heavy-handed and ethically shady tactics to increase their share of the student-loan business.
By EDITORIAL | April 18, 2007

Opportunity Maine — missing the target?

Numbers
Why are college students leaving Maine after graduation?
By EMILY PARKHURST | April 04, 2007

Student loan scandal

Is your college getting paid to steer you in the wrong direction?
Are students getting screwed, and will anybody stop it?
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | March 28, 2007

Young and dumb

Politics and other mistakes
Consider two mildly mythical Maine citizens.
By AL DIAMON | March 07, 2007

Schoolyard bully

Letters to the Boston editor: December 29, 2006
Can you imagine the uproar if homeowners were suddenly unable to refinance their home with a different lender? Or worse, if they could not refinance at all?
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | December 27, 2006

Manhandled no more

Running with a PAC
A few years ago, if you googled student-loan giant Sallie Mae and the word “lawsuit,” a live-journal blog called Southern Girl Babbling would turn up.
By CATHERINE TUMBER | December 14, 2006

The unfaithful scholar

Advice for transfer students, or how to dump your college
Perhaps you were lured by the promise of original Abraham Lincoln speeches (Boston College) or a castle (Emerson’s Kasteel Well, a 12th century landmark in the Netherlands).
By JESS MCCONNELL | October 23, 2006

MECA slims down

Bodywork
To achieve its $15 million capital campaig goals, the Maine College of Art must first deal with declining enrollment and an administrative exodus.
By SARA DONNELLY | July 12, 2006

Federal anti-drug provision hits RI students hard

Drug wars
Rhode Island has been hit hard by an anti-drug law that bars college students with drug convictions from receiving federal grants and loans, according to US Department of Education statistics.
By STEVEN STYCOS | May 17, 2006

Second time around

Meeting the high costs of going back to school
If you are thinking of going back to school, you will want to do four things before making that commitment.
By MICHAEL BRONSKI | May 08, 2006

Quotes and numbers, April 7, 2006

Debt, guns, gas and more
33.3 Percentage of Four-year public-College students in Massachusetts who would have unmanageable student-loan debt if they took teaching jobs in this state.
By | April 05, 2006

Q is for quagmire

Letters to the Boston editor: March 31, 2006
In response to your recent coverage of the president’s policy in Iraq, I would like to point out that the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the 2006 Supplemental Appropriations Act which forbids the Pentagon from entering into any basing agreement with the government of Iraq.
By EDITORIAL | March 29, 2006

No money, mo problems

Screwed students get heard
There are more than 4000 degree-granting higher-education institutions in the United States.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | March 22, 2006