Want to help the public interest legal community? Please participate in NALP’s brief online survey.
The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) is conducting a brief, anonymous survey of nonprofit and government public-interest law offices throughout the country about 1) recent law student and attorney hiring and 2) hiring expectations for the immediate future NALP will use the data to produce a report about what the public interest employment market looks like now and how it may change in the near future. NALP will release the report later this fall. The report will be made freely available online. The report will NOT identify…
Film Review - Default: The Student Loan Documentary
The overwhelming majority of student loan borrowers are working hard to meet their financial obligations. Life is full of unanticipated twists and turns, everybody gets sick sometimes, and it’s just not true that if you work hard, you’ll always get ahead. Default: The Student Loan Documentary demonstrates how student debt can be hard to manage, especially for people who face underemployment, unemployment or illness. This 27 minute documentary chronicles the stories of student loan borrowers, and explores the dire consequences…
CLAARP Benefits NOT Taxable as Income
Sweet! The Internal Revenue Service has determined that recipients of the short-lived Civil Legal Assistance Attorney Repayment Program (CLARRP) do NOT need to pay income tax on the benefits they receive. I was somewhat concerned that repayment benefits might be deemed taxable, because both Federal Family Education Loans (FFEL) and Federal Direct Loans were eligible for repayment assistance under CLAARP, and tax free benefits require forgiving debt owed to the forgiver, rather than repaying debt owed to another. In it's analyis, the IRS…
Students Misled By Student Aid Award Letters
This post is written by Mark Kantrowitz and was originally published on September 13, 2011 on Higher Ed Watch (a blog of New America Foundation's Higher Ed Initiative). My sincere thanks to New America Foundation and Mark Kantowitz for their outstanding contributions to higher education finance. Mark Kantrowitz: The letters that colleges send students to alert them of their financial aid awards should be focused primarily on the needs of students and their families. Students and their families need and want clear, correct, complete,…
Consolidation Loan Interest Rates
Consolidating student loans is the right move for some folks, especially if you need to get your loans into Federal Direct to earn Public Service Loan Forgiveness. But how do you know what the interest rate will be on the consolidation loan? The interest rate on a Direct Consolidation loan is the weighted average of the interest rates on the loans being consolidated, rounded up to the nearest 1/8 of a percent and capped at 8.25%. More about consolidation loans and their interest rates is on Mark Kantrowitz's fabulous FinAid.org website. Click…
