» Although that number has dropped from 2011 — by 7% according to the Department of Education — an increasing number of parents are taking out loans for their childrens’ pre-college education. Your Tuition Solution, a market leader, reports that loan requests are up 10% from 2011, with their average loan size up to $14,000. Roughly 20% of the new demand for loans comes from families making $150,000 or more, according to the National Association of Independent Schools. Loans repayment periods can range from 2-7 years, carry interest rates anywhere from 4-20%, and in some cases don’t have to be paid until the student graduates college. Of course, that route leaves parents paying for grades K-12 and college simultaneously.
I may be poorer in my wallet, but psychologically I feel I have more.38-year-old Palestinian Ayman abu Hussein • Discussing how, despite the fact that he and his wife are both working and he has a second job, most of his family’s combined income — 60 percent — goes to paying back mortgages, loans and other kinds of debt, something which was rare in the West Bank until recently. Before, you needed three cosigners — or to be rich — to be able to get a mortgage. Now, upward mobility with the help of consumer debt is becoming more common. The region’s difficult political situation makes loans like this somewhat volatile, along with unique cultural factors — specifically, it’s difficult for lenders to repossess property in the region due to community pressure — but banks in the region are nonetheless moving forward. Fascinating.
This is an investment of taxpayers’ money that’s gone bad. After eight months of investigations we have a right … to say, ‘what about the internal communications inside the top advisers to the White House? Let’s see them.’Rep. Cliff Stearns, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight • Discussing his plans to subpoena the White House regarding Solyndra, the energy company that the government loaned hundreds of millions of dollars to in 2010, only to see the company go belly up just over a year later. Reports seem to suggest that Obama staffers had close ties to the company, leading to the current situation. “It appears to us, disturbingly, that there is a close relationship between the investors — the people who were wealthy donors to the Obama campaign — and the people that were involved with Solyndra,” Stearns said. “That disturbs us all and we’d like to see the communications to make sure that is not true.” source (via • follow)
Well, that lived up to @Reuters’ pitch: “Check out Reuters.com right now for a stunning set of images of a man in Greece who lit himself on fire after denied a loan renegotiation.” Holy cow. Click for more, obviously. Note graphic content. (Nodas Stylianidis/Reuters)
Haiti has not had a good year. Many people are struggling to get by and need help to survive. For this reason, microloans have become very popular among small-scale entrepreneurs looking to get by, but even they are having trouble in the wake of absolute destruction of much of the country:
» However, they’re still fighting: These firms seen to understand how important their services are to Hatians, so they’ve used various methods to raise funds to offer the high-risk loans. While they’re a ways off from, say, India’s broad microlending program, they are expanding their work so that they can offer a wider variety of services to the people that need it most.
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