Black College Expo Events and Scholarships

If you are going to be near Oakland, CA, around December 8, Los Angeles around December 15, or Atlanta on March 8, plan on attending the Black College Expo road show. It includes a college fair featuring over 50 historically black colleges and universities and educational organizations.

And if you are going to attend, than make sure to apply for the Black College Expo Scholarship. Entry is by submitting an essay before the deadline, which is differnt for each venue. Entry deadline for Oakland is Nov. 26, LA is Dec. 3 and Atlanta is Feb. 25 (all at 12:01am).

Winners do not have to attend a historically black college or university to claim the scholarship, but they do have to attend the expo at which they have applied.


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October 19, 2007 - Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC) Launches New
Student Loan Program for Illinois college Seniors

On Friday, the Illinois Student Assistance Commssion announced the introduction of the College Illinois! Capstone Loan program designed to help Illinois college seniors make it through their final year.
There were seven schools selected to take part in the pilot phase of the program, including the University of Illinois at Chicago, Western Illinois University (Macomb and Quad Cities), Loyola University Chicago, Saint Xavier University, both Chicago and Orland Park, North Central College at Naperville, Millikin University at Decatur and Midstate College at Peoria.

Beginning at a minimum of $1,000, the Capstone Loans can be as much as the cost of education less the amounts of other grants, scholarships and Stafford Loans. The interest rate begins at 8% and is not subsidized, but there are ways to lower it. Once graduated, if you get a job in Illinois, that is good for an immediate 1% reduction. Beyond that, if your pay is less than $50,000 per year, you may qualify for further reductions.

See http://www.illinois.gov/PressReleases/ShowPressRelease.cfm?SubjectID=1&RecNum=6356 for more information on the Capstone Loan Program.

See Illinois Student Loans for more information on other Illinois Loan programs.

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For a long time, low-income public service or government jobs have gone unfilled because students graduating college have so much debt that they are unable to take these low paying jobs, pay back their student loans and still have enough to live on.

Tufts University in Medford, Mass, is implementing a program that will help their graduates if they want to take these jobs. A grant from Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam will be used to fund the program which will provide $500,000 in loan aid each year to significantly indebted university graduates who choose to work in low-income public service or government jobs.

While not every university gets an grant from the Omidyar's, there are many with major endowment funds that could find a way to spread the wealth a bit to assist graduates who want to help out with public service.

Read more about the program at Tufts Loan Payback Program


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I was just reading an article about 10 students receiving a $20,000 scholarship from the Samsung Corporation through the American Legion. I decided to check a little bit and it's interesting how visiting one web page and a little searching can bring you information on many scholarship programs.

First, Samsung has endowed the fund with $5 million in appreciation to the US veterans who came to the aid of Korea during the Korean War. If you are a high school junior who joins and completes an American Legion Boys State or American Legion Auxiliary Girls State Program and you are a direct descendent of a US wartime veteran who served between certain dates, then you may be eligible for this scholarship. Check it out at Samsung American Legion Scholarship.

While on the American Legion scholarship page, there are links to several other American Legion sponsored scholarships. Among them are the American Legion Eagle Scout, American Legion Nursing Scholarship, American Legacy Scholarship and American Legion Oratorical Contest.

Many local American Legion Posts have scholarships, as well, and you can easily find them by searching Google or elsewhere for American Legion Scholarship Massachusetts (or your state, city or town).

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College Cost Reduction Act of 2007

The College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 (H.R. 2669) will provide the single largest investment in higher education since the GI bill. And it will do so at no new cost to taxpayers, by cutting excess subsidies paid by the federal government to lenders in the student loan industry.

The bill will cut interest rates in half on subsidized student loans over the next five years.

Student loan payments will be made more manageable for borrowers by guaranteeing that borrowers will not have to pay more than 15 percent of their discretionary income in loan repayments, and allowing borrowers in economic hardship to have their loans forgiven after 20 years.

Federal loan limits will be increased to provide borrowers with additional assistance in paying for college and to help them rely less on costlier private loans.

The maximum Pell Grant scholarship will be increased to a maximum of $5,400 over the next five years, up from $4,300 now.

Eligibility limits will be expanded to include and serve more students with financial need.

The bill will provide upfront tuition assistance to qualified undergraduate students who commit to teaching in public schools in high-poverty communities or high-need subject areas.


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