Our economy is crumbling, and things just got worse for Bachelors degree-hopefuls, especially those in Massachusetts. Last year, the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority secured over $500 million in educational loans. This year, they’ve announced that they will not be offering loans for the upcoming academic year.

None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. They didn’t cut their $500 million budget to, say, $250 million. They exed the loans altogether.

MEFA secures loans for 40,000 students who live in Massachusetts, or who attend school there. Unfortunately, this year, the financing authority could not secure the money. Executive director Tom Graff blames “disruptions in capital markets.” So, just like that, 40,000 students are sh*t out of luck.

MEFA is the first to make headlines, but any financing authority could also be treading on thin ice. Which means that students across the country could be forced to drop out of college, or sell their souls to finance a degree that can cost upwards of FORTY GRAND per year at top-notch schools like Carnegie Mellon, Tufts, NYU, and Notre Dame.

When I was in college, I played my cards right, and managed to get through my degree with almost no debt, and decided to pursue a Master’s, rather than join the work force right away. With our declining economy, I am currently paying dearly for that decision. Read More »

Because no one in the CC office wants to believe that Christian Bale is the type of guy who would flip out at his sister and mother randomly, we’ve been following this story every step of the way (I mean, it’s a matter of possibly kicking him out of our fantasises forever…it’s important). Here’s what we’ve learned this morning:

1) His mother used to be a clown. Legitimately.
2) He may or may not have a short temper (which may be due to the fact that he plays tortured dudes all the time)
3) His sis allegedly asked him for a loan of 100,000 pounds (roughly $200,200), and he said no
4) His mom allegedly insulted his wife, and Bale went all “Oh no you DIDN’T!” on her ass
5) Bale’s family “never wanted to ruin his night” but felt they needed to “teach him a lesson”

Aside from saying what he had for breakfast the day of the blow up, reporters are doing their best to dig through Bale’s past and find some deep, dark poison in his soul or something. Our hypothesis? The guy has a bad temper, has been stressed out for a while, had a giant fight with the fam, and because he’s a celebrity that “row” turned into some kind of Battlestar Galactica implosion in the media.

So yeah, Beautiful Bale isn’t out of our fantasies yet…we just may reconsider challenging him to a rousing game of Battleship…because that sh*t gets heated.

Standford University announced that it will be joining schools such as Harvard and Yale in the effort to reduce the tuition burden for middle class families by giving full financial aid to anyone whose family earns less than $100,000 a year.

The rising cost of tuition at private universities (frequently over $30,000 a year, not including room and board) often hits middle class families harder than most people realize. Families making a middle or upper middle-class income are usually ineligible for federal aid or tuition assistance from their school. According to the Project on Student Debt, students who take out loans during college have an average of $22,000 in debt upon graduating from a private university.

Experts say that this is part of major shift in what colleges consider to be the “needs” of middle class students. Unfortunately these generous admissions packages are only available for students attending schools with massive endowments, like the ivies and other long-standing institutions with generous alumni.

Hopefully, as endowments increase across the board, some of that wealth will trickle down to the people who need it most: students!

I know I’m worth it, but is my degree? College is numbingly expensive — I’m not even a senior and I’m already 50k in the hole. All this just so I can (probably) land a meager entry - level job when I graduate with my liberal arts degree. Yeah, you need to give a little to get a little, but I’ve lost count over how many times I’ve woken up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, worrying about my loans.

Well, good news! Apparently, the value of a liberal arts degree is up. The average grad’s salary rounds to about $33,000 a year. That’s almost enough to live in New York City…

The situation is better for those with more mechanical minds (and degrees). Chemical engineering majors earn about $60,000 out of school, and computer science majors aren’t far behind.

And, of course, there’s my brother the petroleum engineer who, at 23, is earning more in a year than I will probably earn in my life. There may be blood in oil, but there is also money. Lots of money.

I rue the day I end up living in his basement. Read More »