student

Business

U.S. Business Schools: Foreign Student Enrollment Down Amid Covid, Visa Rules

By Gertrude Aziz 2 days ago

Stanford University on March 9.

Photographer: Philip Pacheco/Getty Images

The number of foreign students entering America’s top business schools is down sharply amid the Covid-19 pandemic and tight visa rules, even as overall enrollments and applications are up—a bad sign for U.S. programs that depend on international MBA candidates for diversity and full tuition.

International students in the entering class of the top 20 U.S. MBA programs, as ranked by Bloomberg Businessweek, declined 14% from last year. That followed a 1.2% decrease from 2018, according to a Bloomberg Businessweek Best B-Schools analysis of admissions data. If all the elite programs were jammed together, foreign students would make up 29.5% of the class that began at most schools in August or September, down from 34.9% two years ago.

The decline comes as dimmer prospects for networking—and earning—take some of the shine off the American MBA.

Foreign

Money

IU student Carolina Morales channels Nicaraguan heritage into handmade jewelry

By Gertrude Aziz 2 weeks ago

A budding hobby was soon transformed into a small business for IU junior Carolina Morales.

Like many other students, Morales was struck hard by the news of campus shutting down in March. She was a sophomore then, studying social work. She lost her job at the IU campus daycare with the shutdown.

“I was absolutely devastated because I don’t have the greatest home life so I was struggling to think of ways where I could make money and not have to work in a public and crowded environment,” Morales said.

That’s when Morales decided to take an unconventional route to earn an income during the coronavirus pandemic — creating jewelry from the safety of her home. Her Etsy store, NinaMora Shop, launched in August. NinaMora Shop features collections of handmade jewelry made with clay.

Personal

Should you roll your student loans into your mortgage?

By Gertrude Aziz 2 weeks ago

When you combine mortgage and student loans, there are some pitfalls. Learn about the risks as well as alternatives. (iStock)

For many Americans, the coronavirus has created unprecedented financial challenges, which may make repaying your loans feel like even more of a burden. If you’re trying to make debt payoff easier or otherwise looking to cut corners during these troubled times, you may be considering combining multiple debts, including a mortgage and student loans.

While it is possible to combine your mortgage and student loans into one big debt under certain circumstances, this isn’t always the best option as there are some considerable risks and downsides. There are also some other alternatives for providing more flexibility in your budget

Is it smart to roll student loans into mortgage?

Usually, the process of combining your mortgage and student loans involves taking out a cash-out mortgage refinance loan and then

Finance

Debunking the student money myths

By Gertrude Aziz 2 weeks ago

Having a great relationship with money takes much patience, trial and error. It’s unique, personal and usually depends on the lessons learnt from a student’s first teachers: their parents.

But because financial literacy is not widely taught in schools across the UK, university students are usually left with the daunting task of maintaining good credit scores or avoiding debt on their own.

There’s also a taboo around talking about money, especially if it’s done negatively. So many students often shy away from it and shield their money problems from others.

So how should students manage their money and what exactly do you need to know to develop a better understanding of personal finance?

Make a budget

Having a budget allows you to establish a realistic spending plan for your money. It creates boundaries, and ensures you always have the funds for the things you need and the things that are

Insurance

How do I repay my student loan

By Gertrude Aziz 2 weeks ago

The interest charged on the loan could make the difference between paying it all off before 30 years, and having a debt balance left at the end.

3. How the interest rate works

Interest starts accumulating when you first take out the loan, so your debt builds up through university.

The interest rate works on a sliding scale. For Plan 2 it ranges from the RPI (retail price index), a measure of by how much prices rise and fall, to RPI plus 3 percentage points. RPI is currently 2.6pc, so the maximum interest you would be charged is 5.6pc.

The scale is dictated by earnings. Those earning under the relevant repayment earnings threshold, so £26,575 for current graduates, will be charged RPI only. It stops increasing when you start earning more than £47,835, at which point it’s capped at RPI plus 3 percentage points.

The rate each year is based

Personal

Student deals from Udemy, Cult Beauty and adidas

By Gertrude Aziz 1 month ago

Every penny counts when you're a student, so be money-savvy with these handy discounts (The Independent) — Every penny counts when you’re a student, so be money-savvy with these handy discounts (The Independent)

After an extremely long summer at home with the family, we’re all craving our own personal space and independence.

Thankfully, it’s almost time to go back to uni. If it’s your first time, making new friends, learning new subjects and joining sports clubs are just a few of the things everyone is looking forward to at the beginning of the new autumn term. While for existing students, it’s moving into new homes and reuniting with friends.

University is a time for exploring new ideas, freedom, knowledge, independence, making friendships that will last a lifetime as well as having fun! It really is no wonder why many people cite university as being the best years of their life.

Despite all the excitement, moving away from home for the first time (or again) and starting a

Finance

White House Virus Coordinator Birx Praises UA, Student Efforts

By Gertrude Aziz 1 month ago

TUSCALOOSA, AL. — White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx had high praise for the University of Alabama and its students as part of her trip across the south visiting with university and community leaders, which stopped in Tuscaloosa on Friday.

A world-renowned global health official, Birx was appointed to the Office of the Vice President to aid in the government’s response to COVID-19 and can regularly be seen speaking during White House press briefings on matters related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Birx spent her visit to Tuscaloosa meeting with students, UA administrators and local elected officials, which comes roughly eight weeks after her roundtable meeting with Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey.

“I think what we have found across a series of, particularly the SEC schools where we’re concentrated in this trip, the schools that prepared and had a plan,” she said, pointing also to her visit to the University

Finance

How she paid $180K in student debt with monthly interest almost as much as her rent

By Gertrude Aziz 1 month ago

One-third of adults age 30 or younger have student loan debt, with the median burden hovering at $17,000. In Debt Diaries, we introduce you to those who took on their debt and came away with a better understanding of themselves. Their testimonials offer hope — and tools — to show that you, too, can overcome debt.

Cari Swanger is a clinical pharmacist in Seattle. She and her husband, Tom, recently celebrated paying off her $180,000 in student loans in three years utilizing tools she accessed through online finance company SoFi.

Debt Diaries featuring Cari Swanger (ABC News Photo Illustration // Photo Courtesy Cari Swanger)

How Cari’s student loan debt began

I started taking out student loans and just continued through the end of pharmacy school. That was about four years, but the total, $180,000, ended up being a lot more with the interest rate from when I took them

Finance

Massachusetts Development Finance Agency — Moody’s places the rating of Mass Dev. Fin. Agency Provident Commonwealth Education Resources II Issue UMASS Dartmouth Student Housing Project Bond Series 2018 under review for possible downgrade

By Gertrude Aziz 2 months ago

Rating Action: Moody’s places the rating of Mass Dev. Fin. Agency Provident Commonwealth Education Resources II Issue UMASS Dartmouth Student Housing Project Bond Series 2018 under review for possible downgrade

New York, September 01, 2020 — Moody’s Investors Service, (“Moody’s”) has placed under review for possible downgrade approximately $132.185 million of outstanding Massachusetts Development Finance Agency Revenue Bonds, Provident Commonwealth Education Resources II Issue, UMASS Dartmouth Student Housing Project, Series 2018.

RATINGS RATIONALE / FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE OR DOWNGRADE OF THE RATING

The review for possible downgrade is based on weak housing demand evidenced by an occupancy rate of 20% for the inaugural Fall 2020 semester for the project. A total of 246 beds (of which 228 are revenue producing) have been leased out of a total of 1,210. Weak demand is driven by the shift to mostly online instruction at the affiliated university due to … Read More

Finance

LAUSD’s liberal student attendance policy raises eyebrows

By Gertrude Aziz 2 months ago

History teacher Alice Lee had near full attendance for the first day back of online classes last week at Eagle Rock Jr./Sr. High School. Teachers have had to learn new rules for taking attendance. <span class= — History teacher Alice Lee had near full attendance for the first day back of online classes last week at Eagle Rock Jr./Sr. High School. Teachers have had to learn new rules for taking attendance. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Taking attendance at Los Angeles schools amid online learning is more complicated — and a lot more liberal — than students simply responding “here” when their name is called.

In a policy that has raised flags among some teachers and principals, but appears to be permitted by state law, students in the nation’s second-largest school district have several relatively easy ways to be counted as present for a day of school:

If a student does nothing more than send an email, text or talk to a teacher on the phone at any point in the day, the student will be counted