Borrowers flooded the Department of Education and lenders with phone calls as they rushed to beat the deadline to consolidate student loans before interest rates rise.
The variable interest rate on federal student loans will rise nearly 2 percentage points after midnight Thursday. Some borrowers could save thousands of dollars over the lives of their loans by consolidating at the lower rate.
The unusually sharp increase has prompted a wave of last-minute inquiries, causing back-ups for banks' 800 numbers and at the Department of Education's Direct Loan Servicing Center, where at least some calls weren't getting through Wednesday.
Department spokeswoman Susan Aspey encouraged borrowers to file electronically -- the department added nine Internet servers for extra traffic -- or to call at off-peak times. The center will remain open until midnight Pacific time Thursday.
Borrowers can generally apply for consolidation loans online, but the process can be tricky and they often end up phoning lenders with inquiries.
"The volume is tremendous," said Jennifer Darwin, a spokeswoman for Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia Corp., which said call volume was up 51 percent compared to a year ago.
A spokeswoman for Charlotte-based Bank of America said callers should expect to be on hold an hour or more, even though the bank has added staff to field calls.
Other companies said their preparations worked. Mark Brenner, president of San Diego-based College Loan Corp., said 97 percent of calls were being answered within 30 seconds.
At Collegiate Funding Services in Fredericksburg, Virginia, executive vice president Clark McGhee also said most queries were being answered, thanks to extra staff and overtime, despite several times the usual volume. Pennsylvania's Higher Education Assistance Agency had managers answering calls, which were at more than twice the usual volume.
Some lenders bombarded students with reminders encouraging them to consolidate, but it didn't prevent a last-second rush.
"You'd be surprised how many students out there have no idea what interest rates have been doing and what it means for them," said Matthew Steingraber, vice president of marketing at Academic Financial Services in Tampa, Florida, where volume is about 50 percent higher than normal.
Buddhism and Christianity were each founded by one person, and then eventually grew into two of the largest religions in the world. Each religion had different reasons
Recent studies show that the number of individuals who default on their student loans has been steadily increasing as well. Statistics from the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) show that between 2004 and 2009 only 37% of federal student loan borrowers were able to make uninterrupted payments; it is an annual average of 7.4% (Cunningham, and Kienzl). According to IHEP, for every one borrower who defaulted, two ...
This paper is a comparison between two very different religions. Specifically Christianity and Buddhism. Coming from opposite sides of the globe these two religions could not be any farther apart in any aspect. I will discuss who Christ is for Christians and who Buddha is for Buddhists. I will also get into the aspects of charity, love, and compassion in both religions and I will be looking at the individual self and how christians see resurrection where the buddhists feel about the afterlife. One thing to keep in mind is that the two religions are very different but they seem to have a very similar underlying pattern. Both believe that there was a savior of their people, Buddha and Christ, and both believe that there is something good that happens to us when our time is done here on earth. This is a very generalized summarization but in order to go in to depth I need to explain the two religions more to fully convey this theory.
Student loan debt makes up a large portion of the debt in this country today. Many defaulted loans are the demise of high interest rates, poor resources to students in educating them on other avenues and corruption in the governmental departments that oversee education and financing. There are many contributing factors that lead to the inability to pay off student loans which need government reform to protect the borrower’s best interests.
The article, of the extreme student debt crisis, written by James B Steele and Lance Williams, is a disturbing truth fact. The student loan industry is not there to help the students get ahead. Its only goal is to line the pockets of private investors, banks and the federal government.
Every member of this class, this university, this collegiate atmosphere, has most likely accumulated debt to achieve higher education. I certainly had the feeling that entering into the University of Massachusetts as a freshmen this year would involve relatively little debt which I would pay off upon graduation–a simple affair in which I received an education for a fair price. Yet, looking even at the comparatively “small” expenditures I have to deal with, examples of educators, students, and parents all paint a portrait of the devastating and deceiving nature of debt involved in the collegiate system in this country. Systemically, culturally, and personally, the system of debt associated with virtually every modern college experience of all but the highest socioeconomic echelon wrings the resources of the average college student dry.
Luiselli, James K. "Verbal Language and Communication." Teaching and Behavior Support for Children and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Practitioner's Guide. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. Print.
...ed instruction to teach use of speech-generating devices to students with autism in social game routines. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 27(1), 26-39. doi: 10.3109/07434618.2010.546810
As Graduation comes near we all like to believe that our careers begin debt free behind that glass door, and we turn the knob and all our hard work will have paid off. When in fact, the glass door shatter and the student faced with the reality of paying back student loans. There is little dispute today that the number of students who have student loan debt has increased.
While a bipartisan bill passed last August reversed the interest rate hike on federally subsidized Stafford student loans, reducing the rate from 6.8% to 3.4%, the rate change only affects future student loans and does not address the $1 trillion student debt that is currently weighing on college graduates throughout the country (Matthews). Additionally, government subsidies have the perverse effect of encouraging colleges to increase tuition to capture mor...
“Student loans can turn what should be a blessing—an education—into a burden” (Dave Ramsey). Student loans can cause many graduating students to feel lost and helpless because they have so much debt after graduating. Because of student loans, college students think they can just get through college and pay the loans off easily after they graduate since they will be making money. However, sometimes it isn’t that easy. You can graduate college without taking out one single loan!
Department of Education, less people are enrolling in college. People are feeling more secure after the 2008 recession, and assume they might not need a college education to support themselves. But people were struggling when the 2008 recession hit, especially those without college degrees that helped them get jobs, and it is always a possibility that this recession may hit again. As stated above, this rising cost of tuition may also cause prospective students and their parents to decide against a college due to its high tuition price-tag. For those students who do decide to attend college, they are forced to take out loans provided by either the government or their university, which has a large interest rates. In a recent study done by Project on Student Debt, it was reported that in the graduating class of 2015 from public and for nonprofit schools, about 68% had student debt, averaging around $30,100. This is a 4% increase from the 2014 class. As of 2016, the debt in America just from student loans is almost at $1.3 trillion, the second highest debt, first being the housing debt. These two debts will continue to increase, as college graduates are pushing off buying their first home, mostly because they cannot afford it. “Almost half -- 46 percent
Even though society has distorted the ideals feminism was founded upon, some of the remaining true roots still hold true. While women are gaining equal opportunities in society, they need to not diminish the importance of working together with men to form a functional society. The widespread idea of quotas needs to be analyzed. People should be accepted into college or hired for a job because they are the most qualified, not because of their sex. Society has demented feminism as a harmful dogma because it has been an excuse, almost a cop-out by women who do not want to work for their acceptance. Both men and women need to realize the necessity that exists for each other to make society work.
Therefore the major differences of Salvation between between the Christian and Buddhist soteriology is the difference between “Amazing Grace” and “Amazing Non-selfness”, and that Christ claims to be humanity’s saviour whilst Buddha claims to be humanity’s teacher for salvation,
Employees had to be efficient since time for BillCutterz.com equates to money so the more calls employee made the money they make.