Posts filed as “US student finance”
The curse of student loan debt: owe while you’re young, live when you’re old
Student debt and dead-end jobs have put many young Americans in dire circumstances outside their own control
Once upon a time, we invested in our young people so that they could enter the world without debt. Now, we turn them into deadbeat debtors before they're old enough to legally buy a drink, left far behind their financial betters.
The truth this week came courtesy of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and...Read more.
Want to fix the US student loan crisis? Put colleges on the hook
Some colleges have higher default rates than graduation rates, proof that we should evaluate institutions' risk as well
The question of student loans is taking on an increasing urgency everywhere but Washington.
Rates on federally subsidized loans doubled to almost 7% on July 1, thanks to Congressional bickering and dithering. The latest attempt to roll back the rates failed to get out of the Senate earlier this week, when sponsoring...Read more.
Want to fix the US student loan crisis? Put colleges on the hook
Some colleges have higher default rates than graduation rates, proof that we should evaluate institutions' risk as well
The question of student loans is taking on an increasing urgency everywhere but Washington.
Rates on federally subsidized loans doubled to almost 7% on July 1, thanks to Congressional bickering and dithering. The latest attempt to roll back the rates failed to get out of the Senate earlier this week, when sponsoring...Read more.
Student loan debt is stealing our future
The current student loan set-up is not good for our long-term financial health, as a generation in debt weakens our economy
Last week, Senator Elizabeth Warren debuted her inaugural legislative effort, a bill intended to stop the cost of federally subsidized student loans from doubling from 3.4% to just under 7% on 1 July. Warren's solution? A one-year temporary fix that would allow students and their parents to borrow money for...Read more.
Internships: why paying for experience is bad business
It's no longer enough to be willing to work for free – now you need to pay for the privilege of working for no salary
Psst. Want a job working for Miami Heat basketball star LeBron James? There's a nice internship in online marketing and another in content development currently being advertised on his website. If you are interested, you best get on it quick. Applications are due Tuesday.
Salary? Funny you...Read more.
Internships: why paying for experience is bad business
It's no longer enough to be willing to work for free – now you need to pay for the privilege of working for no salary
Psst. Want a job working for Miami Heat basketball star LeBron James? There's a nice internship in online marketing and another in content development currently being advertised on his website. If you are interested, you best get on it quick. Applications are due Tuesday.
Salary? Funny you...Read more.
Why ‘financial literacy’ is a bunch of hooey – and why the banks promote it | Helaine Olen
Companies and colleges say that if we all understand our finances, financial crises won't happen. This is simply untrue
April is National Financial Capability Month. You know what that means. We will be subject to many a tedious lecture, telling us how the financial crisis would not have happened if only those darn, irresponsible Americans knew how to handle their funds. And, of course, we'll believe it.
Almost all of us are...Read more.
Why you don’t need life insurance to protect against your child’s debt
It's easy to tell someone to save for their children's college, but higher education costs more than double since the 1980s
These articles … they are all the same. They open with bereaved parents, moms and dads dealing with the death of a young adult child. There is Angela Smith, whose son Donte Newsome, 25, was murdered in 2008. Or David and Rose Prior, whose son Andrew, 23, died after getting...Read more.
Should you pay off your US student loan debt quicker than scheduled? | Helaine Olen
Don't get ambitious about your student loan bill. Build up a decent-sized emergency fund first
So you want to pay down your student loan debt quicker than scheduled. Should you?
When my editor assigned me this piece, I called Zac Bissonnette, the twentysomething financial guru and author of the New York Times bestseller How to be Richer, Smarter and Better Looking Than Your Parents. Zac, who I consider a friend and,...Read more.
About Helaine Olen
I am the voice of The Bills, a column about the intersection of money and life, at Slate. At Inc., I contribute to the Spread the Wealth personal finance column. My work on politics, economics, workplace culture and women’s issues has been published in numerous other print and on-line publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Salon, Pacific Standard, and The Los Angeles Times, where I wrote and edited the popular “Money Makeover” feature.
I'm the author of the critically acclaimed book Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry, and The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to be so Complicated, which I co-wrote with Harold Pollack.
What else? I’m a passionate bibliophile, a fan of 1970s pop music and a lover of rummage sales. I live in New York City.
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