The Sun Dollar

Student Loans. If you are lucky, you wont need one. But, not everyone is that lucky.

Recently, I read an article written by CNNMoney.com discussing the burdens of paying off private student loans. In some cases these college grad's had to leave the country because their payments were to high to be paying every month.

One grad named Chris graduated with $160,000 in dept and his monthly payments came to $2,400 a month. Lets be realistic, no college grad will be making more than $2,400 a month while paying for rent and bills.

Thus, Chris and others fled the country.

I do not reccomend leaving your family, friends, and loved ones because your dept is too high: therefore, here are some reccomendations that CNNMoney.com found:

• "If your income isn't sufficient to repay a federal loan, you can apply for an economic hardship deferment or forbearance which would suspend or reduce your monthly payments. To find out if you qualify for these programs, check out the hardship calculator at http://www.finaid.org/."

• "If you have federal loans through the Direct Loan program, you may qualify for an income contingent repayment plan. In this case your payments are based on your income and your debt load ."

• "These steps must be taken before you default on your loan. If your loan is already in default, you won't qualify for deferments or forbearances. If you can't resolve an issue, contact the Federal Student Aid Ombudsman at http://www.ombudsman.ed.gov/ or call 1-877-557-2575."

• "If you have defaulted on a federal loan, you can rehabilitate yourself. It will require you to make nine to twelve full payments of some agreed-upon amounts within a certain time period to the Department of Education. For more information on this, contact the Department at 1-800-621-3115."

• "And there's another way to get help if you're buried under student loans. Talk to a non-profit counselor."

• "The counseling session should be free of charge. Make sure you ask if the agency works with student loans. And in addition to helping you with your student loan payments, these agencies can work with you to manage your spending and your budget. If you are put on a managed debt program, there is typically a small fee. To find a non-profit credit counselor in your area go to the National Foundation for Credit Counseling at www.nfcc.org."

This is a short video that might help you understand how all these huge companies failed and why the government had to bail them out. Basically all in a "nutshell"





(Jacky)

So I know some of us are still in college and the thought of buying a house is still far far away, but still it's good to know about these things.

Well, according to a brief story written by the Orlando Business Journal on a recent study released by Urban Land Institute and Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP , it says that the future of the real estate industry is looking grim.

The real estate markets are supposed to hit rock bottom in 2009, so for those of you who are graduating next year: taking out a loan to buy a house might not be such a good thing, because there will "continue to be drop in property values, along with additional foreclosures and delinquencies."

This comes as bad news during these times where many people have already lost their homes.

The report also goes on to state that those who will benefit from these failing real estate markets are foreign "cash-rich" buyers who will take advantage of the weak dollar and buy off "trophy properties in major cities."

On the upside...(yes! there is an upside) those who are savvy investors will be able to cash in on the "inevitable recovery" sometime during 2010, or so they predicted.

So there is a quick rough preview of what our future looks like. Perhaps renting is the best thing we can do for now.

What do you think?

(Jacky)

As I wrote a few weeks ago, one focus of our blog will be the future of Business students.
I found this video that summarizes some fears Pennsylvania business students have about their future on Wall Street.

But the faltering economy is not only an American problem. One proof that the US financial crisis impacts people all over the world is this podcast about German business students who are equally worried about their future.

Katherine

The crisis around the country is not the only worry we have, but also right here in our Golden State. Did you know that Arnold Schwarzenegger asked the federal government for 7 Billion dollars to help out with the financial crisis.

Video by AP



Jacky

Here is another interesting and short video ,by AP,about how the economic situation is affecting college students.


Jacky

Here is a brief video conducted by AP about the rising amounts of Vanishing Jobs

In addition to what Kerstin wrote, here is another cool website that gives tips out to kids, parents, and teachers about how to use and spend money wisely.

There is a decrease of money sent to Mexico due to the recent economic failure. This is something that really impacts Mexico because for the most part, Mexicans who move to the US move here to secure a healthy future for their kids and themselves, and to send money back to Mexico.

I know this personally because my Dad and Mom both send money back to my grandparents but lately they too are unable to send as much money back to their parents.

According to a story done by BBC "This money is the country's second largest legal source of foreign income after oil revenues."

This is a huge amount of money lost in Mexico.

(Jacky)

I was sitting around the other day and for some reason Daryl Hannah popped into my head, but more importantly Daryl Hannah's character in the movie "Wall Street", where she played Charlie Sheen's love interest. (Sticke with me, this post does have a point.)

So I then begun to think about Charlie Sheen's character, and how it was so easy for him to be successful in the stock market, despite the fact that he didn't have any experience in the business. This made me wonder-is it really that easy to make money in the stock market? Granted that I was taking my prime example from a movie...but you constantly hear about people making money more than people losing money, save for our current conditions.

But yes! I've found a website that allows you to simulate what it would be like to actually play the mark. This way you can get a feel for the market environment without losing any money.

Have fun!


-Kerstin

The historic 700 billion dollar bailout plan for Wall Street is officially approved. Within hours after the House voted in favor of the bill yesterday, President Bush signed it into law. But not too many on Wall Street seemed to be impressed by the result of the vote. Yet again, Wall Street closed lower than on Monday when the original proposal failed and the Dow Jones fell 777 points within one day.

One of the reasons for the lack of improvement might have been the release of new unemployment figures. The Labor Department states that employers cut another 159,000 jobs in September. We can only hope that the bailout bill will stimulate the economy enough to change the continuing downturn. But hopes are not very high, especially because the unemployment rate is traditionally higher in winter months. We will have to wait and watch if the bailout plan can give a boost to the ailing economy. Stay tuned...

Katherine