Everyone knows that college costs too much now days and President Obama is doing something about it. Proposing his Race To The Top program for colleges, he spoke on the campus of the University of Michigan to a packed house.

If colleges want to continue to get top level funding for aid programs, they would have to demonstrate that they provide an affordable education system that includes good value. Colleges wouldn’t be able to just keep raising their rates anymore without a subsequent reduction of grants and aids coming from the taxpayers.

Perkins loans would be increased from $1 billion to $8 billion under Obama’s proposal and there would be some grant competitions as well that aim to increase the incentive for colleges to keep their tuition down. Obama grants in the amount of $1 billion  and 55 million would be up for grabs in such a competition that would be similar to his Race For The Top program for the lower grades.

Another good thing he outlined was a requirement that all colleges offer a clearer picture of their costs and financial aid packages. One thing that is very difficult today for both students and their parents is how to accurately determine just how much each college would cost and the benefits of each. When you have a state college costing x amount of dollars and another costing double that, it is very hard to figure out what you get for your money. Obama’s new “shopping sheet” proposal will help make things clearer.

One bad thing is that all of President Obama’s education plans he laid out today must be approved by Congress. With the record Congress has of passing the President’s legislation, that makes it unclear whether they will go along and pass these important, long overdue changes.

Today’s colleges must start putting the students first and that means a return to the days when a higher education was affordable. If our future is going to be bright, we need to make sure college prices hold steady or start going down so that more students can get the education they need to be productive adults. Obama recognizes this and hopes his new vision will be shared by Congress so that these measures can be enacted.

Today President Obama is making more news by announcing new rules for student loans in this country which will be changed in 2012 to make things easier on the millions of students who have school debt. This was actually set to go into effect in 2014 but he wants it to start next year.

Under the plan, the maximum repayment amount will be reduced from 15% to 10% of a person’s annual discretionary income. Student loan relief is becoming a much bigger need in America as the cost of going to college continues to rise year after year. Students find themselves graduating with increasing amounts of debt into a world where unemployment rates are rising as well. In addition to lowering the percent that needs to be repaid each year, this new act will forgive the remaining debt a student has after 20 years instead of the 25 years set in place right now.

Additionally, any borrower that has a loan from the Family Education Loan Program (FELP) AND a loan directly from the government will be allowed to consolidate the two. This will result in a lower percentage of interest for the consolidated loan and will help millions of students pay less each month.

This new Obama student loan plan is something that is way overdue as our students continue to find themselves in a deeper financial hole each year. By giving them some loan relief, Obama is showing that he understands their needs and hopes that they will understand that he is doing everything he can to help them out.

The next couple of months is the time of year when everyone is thinking about and planning for their trips back to school. Moms, single moms, college students, community college students, and everyone else who is trying to get an education is adding up the numbers and trying to figure out ways to pay for tuition. Scammers know this and that is why you have to be careful.

You should be especially suspicious of any back to school grants and loans that also use the “Obama” name because there are no “official” programs that carry his name. Yes, he supports everyone getting an education, yes he would like grants and loans to be easy to get, and yes he would like to increase the dollars everyone can qualify for in their quest for quality learning. However, there is nothing that officially has his name attached to it. So, if you see the Obama school grant, the Obama mom’s grant, or anything like that advertised you should do extra research first before you sign up or send in money.

It should also be noted that all United States grants are FREE and you should not have to pay money to get them! If you agree to pay someone to help you understand them or help you figure out which ones to apply for that is your decision but you should know that all grants are free.

Scammers and people who are less than honest know that this is back to school season and it is a good time for them to try to trick people into paying for help and services. Sometimes grants, loans, and scholarships can be very confusing and that is why people will try to take your money and guarantee they will get you one. Make sure you understand that no one can guarantee they will get you financial help and that is especially true for grants and scholarships.

Everyone agrees that the cost of higher education now days is outrageous. Most young adults today who want a college degree are faced with figuring out how to pay for it and that usually means borrowing money and graduating with A LOT of debt. It’s a tough choice for students who have been told all their lives that a college degree is vital for a career and yet now they find that the price of one is almost out of reach.

For-profit colleges are those that give you training in a specific area such as welding, auto mechanics, cooking, or some other skill that you can use to go out and get a job right away. They are not the traditional 4 year college where you study all sorts of things and then decide what you want to major in.

But right now it doesn’t matter what type of college you go to in terms of money because they will all be EXPENSIVE. People everywhere are looking for school grants and government funds they can get to help them pay the way. Women  are looking for back to school grants for moms while others are looking for stimulus education grants that might lessen the financial burden. Even community colleges are too expensive for many students.

To tackle this problem, at least on the for-profit side, President Obama and his administration have put forth new regulations to try to protect students from paying and borrowing money for a degree that might not be worth what they think it is. You see, many of these degrees from “for-profit” colleges aren’t really that helpful in getting a job and students are going in debt to get them.

Right now in 2011 the numbers show that these “for-profit” colleges teach about 12% of all students in higher education but of all the student loans that are in default, 26% come from students going to those for-profit colleges. Furthermore, of all the student loan dollars that are in default right now, a whopping 46% of them come from these for- profit students. These are disproportionate numbers and President Obama is trying to change that with his new regulations.

Many for profit colleges do get federal student aid which is our tax dollars and in order to continue to get it, each school is going to have abide by new regulations that are supposed to better protect students. Unfortunately though, it seems both Liberals and Conservatives are unhappy with this legislation and feel it is only a first step. Some feel it doesn’t go far enough in protecting the students and others feel that it will mean some lower income students will never be able to get that vocational education they need.

Students and people wishing to go back to school are a big part of our countries future. Everyone agrees about how important education is but it is just too expensive. It is not right that students have to search for government loans and grants just to have a chance to go to school and end up in debt anyway. Hopefully this is just the first step and President Obama will soon address the out of reach college tuition costs all our young people are having to pay now.

There is a lot of spam on the Internet as well as information that is not official or accurate. If you are looking for information on school grants or grants for moms going back to school, you might have noticed that it is hard to find any real information online. Most of the websites you click on when you do a Google search will give you the run around and you won’t be able to learn anything.

You need to find the official government websites and those always have end in “.gov”. Any website that has the URL that ends with .gov is an official government website and the information on it can be trusted. For instance, for school grants and federal student aid you can go to http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ where you can apply for the FAFSA.

If you want to learn anything about Pell grants or any other type of federal school program or aid, you should go to the department of education website that can be found at http://www.ed.gov/. Notice again that the link to that website shows it ending with “.gov” and that means it is an official government website and all the information on it should be trustworthy.

There are other websites that can be official that DON’T end in .gov such as https://www.salliemae.com/ for student loans. Not every website having to do with grants, school loans, or other government information has to end with .gov but it is a good thing to look out for and know that if the site you are on does end with .gov, it is the real thing.

That election has sent everyone in the news trying to figure out how things will change now that the Republicans can block most anything they want if they really feel like doing so. Many say that there will be no health care reform now or at least it will be much different than it was going to be.

The President has many things on his agenda such as his Obama student loans proposal that would shift college loans away from private institutions and into the domain of government control. Regardless of whether you think this would be a good or bad thing, one has to wonder how this change in Senate seats numbers will affect what he chooses to move forward with and what he chooses to abandon.

The Massachusetts election has shown first hand how people are upset with how things are going in this country. Some people think Obama is doing too much and others think he is doing too little. Many voted for him to end the war and to put money in people’s hands and get them back to work. None of those things have happened and so they are angry. Other people voted for him to push through health care, gay marriages, and other such things which haven’t happened yet either.

If you are looking for Obama school grants, Obama debt relief, or some other form of assistance from the government, you might be confused where to get it. Obama made it sound during the election that he was going to help the poor and the people who needed help but unemployment is now around 10% which is very high. People need school loans and debt relief to pay off bills and they are suffering badly. New jobs are needed desperately but they don’t seem to be coming and nothing seems to be being done about it.  

With the just completed election, one has to wonder what the President is going to choose to tackle in 2010 and whether Obama government grants and Obama money will ever be available to those who need it like single mothers. Will he try to get another stimulus bill out to the people or will he decide to take a different course of action? Are we going to see real change and real help from the government in 2010?

After seeing so much being advertised about the Obama moms return to school grant, I decided to see if it was real. What I found is that there is no specific program or special grant that is just for moms and there is no Obama return to school program. If you want free money from a college grant, you might sign up for the free drawing at Scholarships4Moms as you will have a better chance there of getting money than you will of getting a nonexistent Obama grant for moms.

Why then, is there so much hype about this and how have women come to believe there is special school grant money set aside just for them? It turns out that President Obama did make a speech a while back where he emphasised the importance of moms going back to school. It was all part of his push to encourage students to study hard and do their best. In that speech he said many things and among them were encouraging words to women to return to school and complete their education. All presidents make speeches like this to appear as though they are pro education and to get good publicity.

Somewhere along the way, that speech Obama gave about moms returning to school has gotten twisted around to read that there are new Obama back to school grants for moms. Perhaps this has been perpetrated by advertisers or it has just happened because so many women want it to be true. Either way, we now have many moms and women going online searching for something that they have been lead to believe exists but doesn’t.

This does not mean that there is nothing out there if you want to get money to return to school. It just means that there is no specific Obama school grants program that is new. What is available are the usual Pell Grants and the amount these grants give has been raised. Pell grants though, are rarely enough to pay the full price of tuition that colleges charge nowadays.

There are other grants and school loans that women, men, moms, and dads can apply for and many of them have gone up to match inflation. Going back to school is always a good idea if you can find a way to afford the tuition so you shouldn’t be discouraged from trying. Unfortunately though, there is no new grants for moms returning to school from Obama like you might have thought there was.

The Obama stimulus bill that was passed earlier in the year had about $5 billion in new funds earmarked for things like Head Start. Additionally it had about $41 billion in grants to local schools. The problem is that these Obama school grants are not things you can just go out and get. They are all divided up between the schools and in order to get them, the schools have to show a certain level of competency and achievement.

This means that someone hoping to go to go back to school or college on a new Obama school grant might not be able to get one like they hoped they would. Just like everything that comes from the government, these school grants are wrapped in layers of regulations and conditions which make them very difficult to understand. When was the last time you understood anything that came from a politician? Just renewing a driver’s license these days can be major pain.

Back to the Obama school grants from the stimulus bill: Some states may not even qualify for this school grant money because of the way they keep data. Being accountable is great but it is very frustrating for the common person who just wants to go to school and can’t because the state they live in does not have schools that keep their data just the way Obama wants.

President Obama also has his “Moms Return To School ” grants program which can give moms tuition money to go back to school. You can apply for that or any other school money that you can find and often you can do it through the Internet. Understanding exactly all the hoops you have to jump through might be difficult though.

Having the schools and states compete for this stimulus school grants money is a good thought but like anything the government does, do we really trust the outcome? For the single mom or dad that just wants some help with some back to school grants, it all doesn’t mean anything. People who want grant assistance for their education should be able to apply for something concrete and understand why they do or do not qualify. It seems whether you qualify for the new Obama school grants or any other kind of financial aid may depend a lot on where you live and how well your state’s schools are doing.