An AP article details the medical doctor supply in Idaho.

About 90 percent of Idaho qualifies as a “health professional shortage area,” according to federal guidelines.

That’s a lot of demand. To remedy this problem the state Office of Rural Health awards $220,000 per year to medical facilities, some of which go to clinicians for student loan repayment.

The lure of bonus money to relieve student loan debt is often not enough to get someone to move to a small town and become a family doctor.

Dr. Rob Wolfe said part of his inspiration to work in a rural area was attending the funeral of his grandfather, who worked as a doctor in a Wisconsin farming town.

“There were thousands of people coming in and they said, ‘You don’t know what he did for me,’ and ‘He delivered me,’ and ‘He delivered my kids,”‘ Wolfe said. “It struck me that you can make a big impact on people’s lives.”

A nice resource to check out would be the National Health Service Corps, which provides up to $50,000 of loan assistance for doctors that work in qualified rural areas for two years.

Project Evergreen awarded their first two scholarships for the Because Green Matters program in its first year.

To qualify for a Because Green Matters scholarship, students must major or minor in a green industry-related field such as horticulture, plant sciences, botany, agronomy, plant pathology, water management, etc.

Each student will receive $2500.

For students to be eligible, they must be attending a two or four-year program that involves majors like turf, landscape and golf management that affect the ‘green industry’.

This year’s winners are studying Environmental Horticulture and Landscape Management.

Go to Project Evergreen’s website for information on the scholarship and their non-profit organization.

The Emerald Coast Community website has some positive news for Florida college students. Get this:

During the 2006-07 school year, the state aims to award more than 30,000 full-time eligible students approximately $47 million in new Academic Competitiveness (AC) and National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (SMART) grants worth between $750 and $4,000 per student.

That’s a nice jolt of cash from the government. 30,000 students is like the population of a large state university. Also, many grants are for small amounts, not even coming close to the $4000 limit for these extra AC and SMART grants.

If the government is going to spend money, why not give it to intelligent students who have a high chance of creating wealth in Florida and United States’ economies. With the average college tuition increasing many times over the cost of inflation, all forms of financial aid should be increased by federal and state governments just to keep the students’ financial burdens at a level playing field.

The Akron Beacon Journal has some figures on the colleges and universities in Ohio and the increasing popularity of distance learning. The article, entitled ‘Distance learning attracting full-time students‘, goes through some stats about who’s using these modern class methods.

Of the 37,000 students taking distance-learning courses in the state, more than half are full-time students.
..and, a majority are community college students, with fewer than one-third attending main university campuses, according to the Ohio Learning Network of 72 colleges and universities.

An increasing trend is to attend a local school, and take distance learning courses at other schools and then have them transferred over. This clearly shows a demand for more online classes, and many schools are adding to their list of internet classes.

Wright State, where 1,500 students have enrolled in Internet courses, offers five online degree programs and 17 general education courses. The school plans to expand general education courses and create three additional undergraduate degrees and eight additional online graduate degrees.

From The National Jeweler - The Manufacturing Jewelers & Suppliers of America’s Education Foundation, or MJSAEF as I like to call them, awarded 6 college students with scholarship funding.

Out of the total $6500 allocated for 2006:

• two students received $2000
• two students received $1000
• three students received $500

All seven students are majoring in some form of arts degree.

If you know what you will do for a living after graduation, always find and apply for small scholarships like these from niche business foundations.

A Chicago Tribune article warns of the problems associated with cosigning for student loans and credit ratings.

If you cosign for your child’s student loan, you are held accountable for the repayment of the loan. I know it’s a nice thing to do for your son or daughter, but there is a huge risk when repayment time begins.

Since Stafford and Perkins Loans can only offer limited funding, parents often take out additional loans to finance their child’s college education. This makes the parents liable for repaying the loan every month.

If the student goes into default, both the student and parent will have their credit rating affected. Oftentimes, parents are uninvolved with the financial actions and obligations of their child once they graduate or leave college.

Having bad credit from this unfortunate situation affects all other credit-based financial activity such as the interest rate on other types of loans and getting insurance. The credit score can be damaged for up to seven long years.

The best solution for parents wanting to help their children, while protecting the parents’ credit is recommended:

…after students exhaust federal Stafford student loans, which carry a 6.5 percent interest rate, parents finance remaining costs by borrowing through the federal PLUS loan program, which are loans with a 7.9 percent interest rate.

…if parents use PLUS loans, they draw up an official contract with their child, outlining specific terms under which the child will repay parents after graduation.

You may have seen the Ben Stiller movie, ‘Along Came Polly’, where the protagonist had a job as a risk assessment expert. The details of the job were a little exaggerated of course, but this profession is certainly real and important; mostly to companies in the business of:

• insurance
• health
• retirement
• finance

These risk experts are also called actuaries. I decided to check out if there are any education grants for students studying in the field of risk management and assessment.

Here is a list of some colleges that offer grant and/or scholarship programs for students interested in actuarial science.

• The University of Nebraska at Lincoln
• Illinois State University
• The University of Iowa
• Ball State University
• The University of Texas at Austin

A great resource to check out to learn more about this profession would be the Society of Actuaries

Pamela Yip writes in The Dallas Morning News about the challenges facing many student debt holders. It’s true that on average, students with a college degree earn much more over their lifetimes than high school diploma holders. On the other hand, there are situations where the job received is less rewarding than anticipated.

Many people take out student loans while they are young and first entering college. They may not see the actual risk of taking out a loan for such a large amount of money. These loans should be repaid promptly, and any default will cause personal and professional consequences.

Student loans are very different from other debts such as with a credit card. Students should financially plan like the adults they are to consider the negative effects of a college degree such as not getting the job they want, being underpaid, losing their job in a recession, and paycuts.

The article describes the uniqueness of a student loan with other consequences:

The Internal Revenue Service can seize your tax refund to pay your student loan. You can’t discharge your loan by filing for bankruptcy, and the federal government can garnishee your wages to pay the loan. That applies even in Texas, which has strict prohibitions against wage garnishment.

What’s more, professional licensing boards will deny you a license if you default on student loans.

If you think you’ll have trouble paying off your federally guaranteed student loan, contact your lender immediately to work something out. You don’t want to mess with Uncle Sam.

An article in Bloomberg entitled, “Kindergarten to Grad School Loans Boost Bond Market”, covers the increased activity in the bond market due to the increase in both federal and private student loans being taken out.

The interesting part was the mention of modern trade schools and how some lenders are catering to this market:

Students enrolling at The National Schools in La Mesa, California, can finance classes in bartending and casino dealing through Sallie Mae. The bartending program costs $500 while a two-month course to learn how to deal poker, including Texas Hold-Em and 7 Card Stud, costs $895.

The Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment in Fairfield, Iowa, advises its students that they can take out a loan with Citigroup. It costs $2,500 to study transcendental meditation and loans can be repaid over as long as 10 years at an interest rate of prime plus 1.50 percent. The prime rate is currently 8.25 percent.

The tuitions mentioned for the bartending and casino schools are small enough where many students can afford to take out a small personal loan or line of credit.

Ideally we should have accreditation agencies that approve alternative and trade schools for government student loan status. Many community colleges are accredited and have these alternative classes, but there are not enough of them to fulfill the demand. Online bartending schools do offer a solution, but lack the important hands-on experience.

There doesn’t seem to be a big push by lawmakers to include some smaller trade schools in federal education funding, so look for an increase in the private banking sector to market their financial services to match the growing demand.

All new Stafford Loans taken out after July 1, 2006 will have a FIXED rate of 6.8%. The interest rates used to be variable, changing every year on July first. Experts remind us that the average student loan rate has been in the high 6 and low 7 percentile, and this current rate hike reflects the average over time.

Many have become used to the historically low rates that have been prevalent in the past couple of years. The interest is capped at 8.5%, and the closer the Stafford rates are to that figure, more private loans will become more attractive. However, private loans usually require a cosigner.

Students looking for additional funds should look into PLUS and Perkins Loans for more federal funding options.