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Education Loans – The Great, The Good and The Total Waste
Education is very important factor in self development and enhancement of success. StartupWizz.com best reviews are submitted by students who had startup ideas or started a business and became successful entrepreneurs. The best startups and great companies were founded by college students. Bill Gates the founder of Microsoft founded his company while attending Harvard where he later dropped out to focus on his company. Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple also attended college and later dropped out of college to build Apple. We also have to mention Google and Yahoo those great companies that were founded by graduate students.
The U.S education loan system has been a great source for students who don’t have the financial means to achieve their dreams of obtaining their education. Many students who achieved success and established their high paying careers owe their success to the government funded education loans. Education loans are widely available to full time students with good academic standing. Obtaining an education loan is not hard, students first need to get accepted into a program of study to attend as a full time, then fill the proper applications with the financial aide office at their college. Moreover students also apply for the loan online with the department of education. Students have to maintain a full time status and passing grades as a condition to maintain the flow of money from the education loan.
Students can borrow money to pay college tuition and living expenses while attending schools. U.S College education is expensive, and cost has been rising over the rate of inflation for the past 30 years or more. Most colleges estimate the cost of attending their programs between $20,000 to $40,00 per year, and that number can grow higher for some private colleges.
Despite the great benefit of the education loan program for many students, other students didn’t enjoy the same success, even worse they end up with a very bad case of financial ruin. In this article I will try to explain the three categories of students who borrowed money to full fill their dream of obtaining the great education.
The Great
In this category students use the education loan system provided by the department of education to pay for school. The fact that college graduates make more money than those who have high school diplomas makes it wise to finance college education even by taking loans with fixed interest rate. For the long term, students in this category will get a very good return on investment. Soon after graduation they will make more money. College graduates will increase their earnings by an average of one million dollar over their life time.
In this category students study high paying professions such as medicine, law and dentistry. After graduation most doctors and lawyers become high earner and for medical doctors in a high demanding field they will be able to repay their loans and increase their earning over time. Also in this category any one who made a good use of the education and was able to obtain a good paying job with the government or the private sector or those who became successful entrepreneurs.
The Good
This category is any one who borrowed money to finance their education and after graduation they found an average job and start earning more money. They earn enough money to maintain a good standard of living while repaying their education loan. This category of students made a good return on investment from their education because they used their college degree to find a job to earn more money. Examples of majors in this category are Engineering majors, natural sciences and nursing.
The Total Waste
This category are those students who borrowed money to pay for college and after graduation either they were unable to find work, or they were able to find jobs that pay the minimum. In this category those unlucky students borrowed more money to finish their education. Majors of study that belong to this category are fields that have low demand and low paying salaries . Examples in this category are those who studied History, social studies and English majors, or those who went to vocational schools and promised to get rich quick. For those who studied low paying majors and borrowed $100,000 in loans, it will be hard for them to make their loan payments, and that if they were lucky to find jobs. The payed salaries in these fields are $30000/year in average.
What makes things worse also the recession and the high U.S unemployment rate of over 14% which makes it harder for newly graduates in the low demanding fields in this category to find jobs of any kind. Many former students in this category still owe big amount of money on their loans, and they are struggling to find work while the interests are mounting.
How to Manage Your Education loans?
Education is a great investment and also a great self fulfillment.For those students who can’t afford to pay for college education, education loans become their only choice. It is important for students and and their mentors to understand how education loans work. Furthermore they should pay close attention to these points:
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- Education is an investment and as for any investment students should know and research their potions well.
- Students should determine what type of education they really want and how to achieve the best return on investment .
- Students should borrow the minimum and responsibly, and if they have a part time job while attending school they should keep it if they can, and not depend fully on loans.
- Remember there are only six months grace period after graduation, then after that loan repayment will start. The higher your loan is the higher your monthly payment will be.
- Unlike other banks and credit cards loans education loans can’t be erased or forgiven with bankruptcy. These type of loans are directly or indirectly supplied by the government.
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MBAprojectsearch.com
mbaprojectsearch.com is a startup that provides freelance opportunities and internships for MBAs(students and alums). It’s completely free for both MBAs and businesses. This startup is created by students who wanted to supplement the internship by giving MBAs more opportunities to make real-world connections with employers. The site also features full and part-time jobs. .
What’s so great about this business is that it has over 1000 total projects, jobs, and internships, and it posts between 10 and 20 new ones per day. Currently, the database of students is expanding exponentially, and have students from across the country (HBS, GSB, Darden, Columbia, Tuck, Ross, MSB, Fuqua, Tippie, Wisconsin, Booth, Kellogg, Stern, Babson, Wash U, etc.) and world (international students from Sauder, LBS, IESE, Oxford, and Indian School of Business students).
Funding4Learning – A Crowdfunding Platform
Technology is helping millions around the world. The latest trend is crowdsourcing, where a lot of people around the world pool their resources together to complete a task. Funding4Learning takes the immense potential crowdsourcing has to offer and makes it possible for people to contribute towards the education of students who are unable to meet their expenses.
Working as a coordinator, Funding4Learning allows anyone to start a fund raising campaign. The persons starting the campaign are required to state in clear terms the goals of the campaign and the funds which are necessary for their needs plus any information they wish to let others know to make them understand the need of contributing. A reward system must be offered to the contributors although Funding4Learning does not ensure that it is actually realized.
The website uses Paypal for payment processing and takes a 5% commission on every successful campaign.
What they say about themselves
Funding4Learning is the first worldwide crowdfunding platform dedicated entirely to facilitate the financing of studies and educational projects around the world. The numerous financial restrictions and lack of funding for education, specially in emerging countries, is a major problem that hasn’t been addressed by both institutions and the media. Anyone can create a campaign where they tell their story, set a funding goal in accordance with the tuition fee, and offer interesting rewards to contributors. Funding4Learning allows users to create campaigns, share it with the online community through social networks, engage fans, track information about contributors, and collect money.
Why it could be a success
We can think of several reasons why this could be a success but the first thing which comes to mind is the noble idea. Helping students with their finances can make a difference in their lives by allowing them to concentrate on their studies rather than trying to make ends meet.
Knowledge Notebook – Making Learning Fun
Have you ever wondered about the best medium and technique there is for people to learn? I think when presented with visual data, I seem to focus more and learn a concept easily and quickly rather than reading it in text format. No wonder professors prefer the use of presentation slides in the lectures these days. Students too, take notes in classes which usually result in a lot of cluttered ideas and they are usually a headache to sort out and review.
Several software applications are available which help to organize and file the notes so that they can be of use later. We are going to talk about Knowledge Notebook. This software lets you take notes like you would in any word processor application. The notes can be filed using multiple tags. Now this alone would not make it stand out from the crowd.
What makes Knowledge Notebook great is the ability to make connections between different notes either using a visual or a textual approach. Helping you organize your notes into different categories, allowing you to create flash cards for quick memorization of ideas and examining and grading your learning by taking quick assessment tests makes it a truly unique application.
The price tag is $38, which in my opinion is a little high, specially for students on scholarships and lower financial status. Maybe they should incorporate some kind of support for these students as well.
What they say about themselves
A software that accelerates student learning. The starting point or the focus is on learning instead of the activity of note-taking. For business people and journalists the application is simply for note-taking.
Why it could be a success
Easy to use and can help in the final days leading to the exams by presenting a clean, summarized and comprehensive review material. Overall a solid application although I am not too enthusiastic about the price.
Babbel – Learn and Improve Language Skills
I’ve given this site a thorough testing as I’m a bit of a language-learning fanatic. I tried it with Italian, which I speak well, and with German, which I’ve almost forgotten, to see how it would work for beginners and skilled students. It strikes me as an excellent language learning resource for a few reasons. First of all you can try it out for free to see if it’s helpful to you, secondly the rates are incredibly reasonable compared to other language courses, and thirdly it also has a social networking side so you can chat with and friend people in other countries who speak the languages you want to learn.
The actual learning methods are fun. I tested German for beginners and was taken through the opening class, which combined instructions on the basic ways to greet people with simple sentences you would use every day. This was taught using step-by-step fun methods – listening to the words and phrases while looking at pictures, then clicking on the pictures on the next screen to match them to the right phrase. These phrases were then jumbled and I had to put them in order, and also words were provided as anagrams which had to be rearranged by clicking on the letters. Each time the word or phrase was then given in voice. By the end of the lesson I had had fun and the method really put the words and phrases into my memory.
With Italian I tried a slightly higher level and was presented with similar methods but the phrases were more advanced. They were still the types of phrases you would need when travelling or meeting people for business reasons. The more advanced lessons included extra tasks including writing about set subjects although I’m not sure how those would be corrected.
This site would be handy not just for adults but also to help children with languages they’re learning as the voices are all native speakers. Along with the lessons there are sections with a complete vocabulary of the most important words, both basic and advanced, and a section with useful sentences.
Even as a free member you can test one class in each of the languages (German, French, Italian and Spanish are available) and also join the social network side of the website. The community is very friendly with chat going on continually and you can join in with whoever is in the chat room or go into private chat. You can also just watch and mark yourself unavailable. There’s an option to filter the members by age and language so you can find contacts to friend and communicate with to improve your skills, and it does look like a community where good international friendships could be made with people genuinely studying languages and wanting to talk to others to mutually improve. The price is 8.95 Euros per individual month, reducing to 5.95 Euros per month for 3 months membership, or 4.95 Euros per month for 6 months.
TranslationsPal – Making Translations Quick and Affordable
Online translation services have made it possible for everybody to work in various languages for international communication. This is particularly important as the internet community is global and easy translation makes it possible to use it to full advantage for business, study and friendship. From automatic services, mainly Google Translate, to professional agencies, everything is available so that languages don’t need to be a barrier. It may seem there’s no gap in the market, but TranslationsPal takes a slightly different approach to the others, making it possible to find a translator quickly and at an affordable price.
The system works by ‘crowdsourcing’ the work to translators who register with TranslationsPal. The organisers quickly give a quote for the work if it’s a lengthy document, otherwise there are standard rates for shorter translations. The system can even be used for extremely short communications such as emails, correspondence, instant messages, chat and social networks. For many of these Google Translate would be good enough, and it works instantly if you type your message in one language and select the one you want it to be translated into. However, Google Translations will give a word-by-word literal translation that’s easily understandable but may contain errors. When dealing with business or academic contacts a perfect translation could be preferable, even for emails and chat.
Crowdsourcing should mean that a translator will be available immediately to deal with the task. Rates are reasonable and paid by Paypal or credit card, and there’s a 30-word free trial for new users. It seems like an excellent approach for when translations are needed urgently, for short communications where you want to sound like a fluent speaker or competent professional able to have an interpreter, and also for longer documents at a fair price.
Translators can also register for work on the website, where their qualifications and experience will need to be supplied, and priority is given to those with the right credentials when work is allocated. Payment is less to translators without qualifications, native speaking ability or experience. As a client I would want to know the translator allocated was a native speaker and would want lower pay rates to non-native and less experienced translators to be reflected in my charges.
GameClassroom – Educational Games for Children
This is a fun site that combines enjoyable games with learning that fits in with schools for the years from nursery to year/grade six. It’s designed with the attractive colours and images that would appeal to children and it looks like a standard computer games site. Each game is aimed at helping with skills – particularly English language and maths. The games include some brain-training type intelligence activities, needing hand and eye co-ordination. Others are more specifically for the maths and English classes taught in schools.
Racing cars are used to teach fractions, ability with numbers and patterns comes into stacking and other games needing calculations. Basics, such as months of the year for nursery-age children, lead up to more complex games including story starting techniques and prompts to get children writing. Along with the games there’s a homework help section with more detailed information and guidance on the subjects children will be studying for these important 7 years. Parents have been willing to pay for this kind of series on CD so the website should be a useful and entertaining resource, and something parents can do with their children to help them understand their studies.
Socially!