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.

Federal unemployment benefits have been extended for the first two months of 2012 (through February) but you have to make sure you go to your state’s website to find out if you qualify for them. Unemployment benefits are a state by state matter and they all have different regulations, procedures, and forms you need to fill out.

Make sure you only file for unemployment at official state sites that end with .gov which means they are government websites. This is very important because all legitimate state government websites that have to do with unemployment will have that .gov extension. Don’t give your name or file information to any other websites that make promises that they will help you get unemployment benefits. Most importantly, don’t ever pay money. Filing for unemployment benefits is free and any website that charges is NOT legitimate.

Many websites want your name and email address so they can try to sell you something later. Some websites will give you a free eBook or something else that is free as an incentive for you to sign up. This does not always mean that they are shady or a scam but it does mean that they want your name on their mailing list so they can try to make money from you later on.

Unemployment scams are online and they target people who have lost their jobs and are desperate. They prey on people’s fear by making it sound like only they have the solution and many people fall for this trick. It is easy for anyone to build professional looking websites that look legitimate so it is easy to be fooled. All you need to remember is that for unemployment benefits and extensions, you must go to your state unemployment office or to their website that ends with .GOV!

12/17/2011 - The Senate just passed a bill that will extend unemployment benefits for 2 more month for everyone that was going to lose them at the end of this year. If you have been out of work for more than 6 months, you were looking at having them end once the new year started. But with this new short term extension that was just passed, you will be eligible for 2 more months of payments.

As with many things in Washington, the extended unemployment benefits was part of a larger package that included payroll tax cuts, a pipeline, medicare and other things. It’s too bad they can’t vote up or down on one thing at a time rather than politicizing everything and grouping them together.

This will all start up again in February as both Obama and the Democrats battle with Republicans about what to fund, what to extend, and what to cut. You need to continue to pay attention to the news to see whether next time they can pass legislation that will extend unemployment benefits for a longer period instead of this two month band aid.

First of all, each of the 50 states handles its own benefits so you need to start there. Go to Google Search and type in your state followed by something like “extended unemployment benefits” and that should get you to your state’s department of labor website. Once you are there, read everything you find carefully so that you can better understand what is happening in your state. Many states have updated information on their websites but again, each state has its own rules, dates, and programs so it is not the same for everyone.

Most states give you between 24 and 26 weeks of unemployment compensation and it varies state to state because some have more money than others. After you have used up your state unemployment benefits you have to qualify for extended emergency unemployment compensation (EUC) from the Federal government of up to 99 weeks. Those additional weeks are what everyone is stressing about because that runs out at the end of 2011. If you lost your job during the second half of 2011, you probably won’t qualify for the federal extended benefits unless something is done to pass new legislation.

As of today 11/21/2011, Congress has NOT voted on any extensions and NOT passed new legislation that would keep the emergency unemployment compensation going into 2012. However, all hope is not lost because on November 3rd 2011, the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act was introduced which if passed, would extend the federal unemployment benefits program all the way through 2012. With the Democrats in control of the presidency and the Senate, hopefully this extended benefits crises can be averted so that those who need the extensions into 2012 can get them.

Remember, there may be filing deadlines, eligibility periods, different tiers of benefits, and all sorts of other rules that you have to try to sift through to understand what is going on in your state but that is the first place to go to find out all the up to day information that will apply to you.

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.

If you are a homeowner who would like mortgage relief, President Obama is trying to make it easier for you. Today he will be announcing some changes to the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) that will make it easier to get accepted into the program.

Refinancing now when interest rates are so low is something that many homeowners can greatly benefit from. Being able to secure a lower interest loan may be the difference between being able to keep a home or being foreclosed. FHFA which is the Federal Housing Finance Industry has put out this important PDF which goes over the changes you need to know to see if you can qualify for assistance from HARP. Your very first step is to determine whether your mortgage loan is owned by Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae because it needs to be to qualify. If it is not owned but guaranteed by either of the two, that would qualify as well.

One of the main changes to HARP is that there will no longer be any loan to value limit on a fixed rate mortgage to be accepted under HARP. Homeowners who have adjustable rate mortgages have to have their LTV under 105%.

These changes to HARP will be in the works during November and December of 2011but may not be available until the first quarter of 2012. President Obama does not need approval from Congress for this so you don’t have to worry about bipartisan bickering which would stall it.

The Home Affordable Refinance Program was intended to help people in need to be able to get better interest rates on their mortgage so they could keep their homes. States like Nevada, California, Arizona, and Florida have been the hardest hit during this foreclosure crises and have seen home values go down the most there. These new enhanced HARP rules will make refinancing a real option for more homeowners in their time of need, something the government should be doing.

President Obama just announced that ALL troops will be coming home from Iraq by December 31st, 2011. We will finally see the end to the Iraq war as he promised during his campaign in 2008. This is great news for families who have loved ones serving in Iraq and for all Americans as well.

Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have been in negotiations for months and now they have finally come to the agreement that this course of action is best. The war has been going on now for more than 9 years and this will put an end to a conflict that saw more than 4,400 American troops killed along with more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians losing their lives.

Making this announcement and pulling our troops out of Iraq by 2011 should also help President Obama in the polls. This news is a welcome breath of fresh air in a year where there has been so much negative news surrounding the bad economy. Both Democrats and Republicans should embrace the end of the Iraq war and now get back to more important things like finding ways to put our country back to work, getting students into college without having to incur so much debt, and fixing the home foreclosure crises.

President Obama is going to face many months of fund raising before the 2012 election. Along the way you will read stories of dinners with big donors and other events that are closed to the public: you have to be rich and a big contributor to get into those unfortunately. He will travel on Air Force One to state after state, meeting with crowds, and collecting money for his re-election campaign as well as the Democrat party.

Maybe you’d like to contribute too but don’t have the cash to get into one of those fancy affairs. So where do normal, every day people go to donate money to Obama’s 2012 election campaign? How can you help Obama get re-elected?

The best place is President Obama’s official website where you can make your pledge and pay with any one of the usual credit cards. You can also set up a recurring donation and have the same amount deducted from your credit card each month until you cancel. For Americans living overseas there is a place for you to give too and all you need is your credit card number and a passport number.

The law says that you can only give up to $2,500 for any one federal election to the Obama re-election campaign. What that means though, is that you can really give $5,000 because there is the primary election and then the 2012 general election. If you have that kind of money, make sure you donate $5,000 and don’t be confused about the $2,500 amount you hear talked about in the news all the time.

Of course, most people don’t have that much to give but still want to help out by giving what they can. And for any amount you are able to donate, the Obama presidential re-election campaign will undoubtedly be grateful. If you want to see this country continue down the path Obama has envisioned, give what you can starting right now.

More and more people these days are getting rid of their landline phones and going exclusively with cell phones. Almost everyone has a cell phone now and why pay for a land line that you hardly ever use?

This has become an increasing problem for debt collectors because as the law stands now, they are not allowed make computer generated (robo-calls) to cell phones to remind people they owe money. Collection agencies have their hands tied behind their backs when it comes to contacting households that owe money and only have a cell phone number as a contact.

In response to this problem, President Obama has proposed new rules that would allow robo-calls to cell phones from collectors trying to recoup money owed to the government. This would allow more people to be contacted and presumably more money to be collected. Right now, it is clear our government needs to be able to collect on all of its debts and allowing these cell phone calls would help greatly, at least in the mind of the President.

There is a problem though, as the debt collection industry has long been under the microscope for the way it goes about collecting money owed. Consumer watchdog groups and the FTC have monitored the collection tactics of many companies which in some cases can be described as harassing and threatening. These consumer groups are fearful that Obama’s new regulation will, if passed, open the doors for more strong armed collection tactics as debt collectors start calling cell phones for the first time.

Some Democrats are unsure how to proceed as they want to support the President but many of them do not want to align themselves with the debt collection industry in any way. It is a difficult decision which has come about by the advancement of technology and people’s switching over to cell phones from the traditional landline phone that has been around since the telephone was invented.

President Obama spoke to the nation and Congress last night proposing a new $450 billion stimulus package to try to get America back to work. For anyone currently without a job though, the most important part of the plan is the part that DOES extend unemployment. Yes, Obama has officially proposed extending federal unemployment benefits for 2012 and now it is up to Congress to pass it.

With such a large number of people out of work in this country, UI extension is vital to give them hope. It is taking many people longer than the 20 to 26 weeks the states give to find a job and they need the federal extension to apply into 2012 to keep them out of bankruptcy. This is a worse economy than most of us have ever seen and if there ever were a time for government help, it is now.

Obama’s Jobs Act is designed to be a stimulus to the economy by pumping money into certain areas to create jobs and relieving some tax corporate tax burdens in hopes that it will encourage hiring. As long as companies refuse to hire more workers, the economy will never recover. Much of his proposed plan involves giving businesses incentives to hire which is EXACTLY what we need.

So now that Obama has come out and outlined his American Jobs Act, it is up to you the people to call your representatives in Congress and tell them to pass it. There will undoubtedly be a lot of bickering and political posturing that goes along with this bill and so you need to get involved and let your representatives know how you feel. That is why they are there: to represent YOU!