Indian Health Service Loan Repayment Program

The Indian Health Service (IHS) estimated 2012 budget includes over $20 million dollars for the IHS Loan Repayment Program for health professional educational loans (undergraduate and graduate) in return for full-time clinical service in Indian health programs. The funds will support over 400 competing awards averaging $44,510 per award for a two-year contract. One year contract continuations will receive priority consideration in any award cycle. Applicants selected for participating in the Fiscal Year 2012 program cycle will be expected to begin their service period no later than September 30, 2012. The first award deadline is February 17, 2012. For more information go to the loan repayment program website – http://1.usa.gov/wuJB3X

Completed applications may be submitted to the IHS Loan Repayment Program, 801 Thompson Avenue, Suite 120, Rockville, Maryland 20852. Applications for the FY 2012 LRP will be accepted and evaluated monthly beginning February 17, 2012, and will continue to be accepted each month thereafter until all funds are exhausted for FY 2012. Subsequent monthly deadline dates are scheduled for Friday of the second full week of each month until August 17, 2012.

 

Native American Scholarship Booklet

The below link is a scholarship information booklet for Native students, to encourage and promote postsecondary education for Native students, to promote networking opportunities for Native Americans, and to raise awareness and appreciation for the contributions made by Native Americans to our society. I share this resource with the hope that you would also seek compassion about young people who need guidance and support toward finding the quality of life. You may duplicate and distribute this free booklet. ~Rosie Dayzie, email: rosie.dayzie@gmail.com

http://www.coquilletribe.org/documents/NativeAmericanScholarship.pdf

 

Resources for Student Financial Aid

Many Alaskans who are thinking about education after high school wonder how to pay for it but find it difficult to find reliable information that is organized and helpful. So, you will be glad to know that Senator Murkowski has updated her website to provide good resources for students, prospective students, and parents who are searching for a way to pay for college and career education.

At http://murkowski.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=FinancialAid you will find resources for planning ahead, different sources and types of financial aid, ways to turn public service into a postsecondary education, and options for repaying federal student loans.

Keep in mind that the deadline to submit your Free Application for Federal Student Aid is June 30th. The deadline to apply for the Alaska Education Grant is April 15th.

 

2010-2011 Paying For College

This is nationwide directory of college scholarships for all students, high school students and continuing college students, and college staff contacts.

2010-2011_Payi.pdf

 

UAF FINANCIAL LITERACY DAY at UAF on February 1st

UAF FINANCIAL LITERACY DAY at UAF on February 1st!

Event is open to the public, to UAF students and to high school students!

Workshops on finances!!! Including: budgeting, planning for retirement, writing scholarship essays, and avoiding credit.

There will also be a financial fair from 10:00AM-1:00PM in the Wood Center. Doyon Foundation will have a table at the event. There will be other scholarship agencies attending to provide information as well.

 

Harvard University Announcement

No tuition and no student loans.

Harvard University announces a new policy which states undergraduate students from low-income families will pay no tuition. In making the announcement, Harvard’s president Lawrence H. Summers said, “When only ten percent of the students in elite higher education come from families in the lower half of the income distribution, we are not doing enough. We are not doing enough in bringing elite higher education to the lower half of the income distribution.”

If you know of a family earning less than $60,000 a year with an honor student graduating from high school soon, Harvard University wants to pay the tuition. The prestigious university recently announced that from now on undergraduate students from low-income families can go to Harvard for free… no tuition and no student loans!

To find out more about Harvard offering free tuition for families making less than $60,000 a year, visit Harvard’s financial aid website at: http://www.fao.fas.harvard.edu/ or call the school’s financial aid office at (617) 495-1581.

 

How to Find Cheaper College Textbooks

By TARA SIEGEL BERNARD

You might call it the college student’s first lesson in exploitation: paying $100 for a textbook, then getting a mere $12 when reselling to the campus bookstore at the end of the semester.

College textbook prices rose about 6 percent, on average, every year — that’s twice the rate of inflation — from 1986 to 2004. And there’s nothing more infuriating than paying the sticker price on textbooks (well, with the exception of tuition itself), when many other books are available at a discount. The cost of buying the textbooks can easily add up to $1,000 a year or more.

Thankfully, federal rules that went into effect in July may help ease the pain. Publishers can no longer bundle their textbooks with accompanying materials like workbooks, and they must reveal their prices to professors when making a sales pitch. Colleges, meanwhile, are now required to provide students with a list of assigned textbooks during course registration, which allows for more time for shopping before classes begin.

That’s especially important now because there are an increasing number of ways to save on books if you buy or rent them online. This Times article from last year provides a lot of helpful information. But we also spoke with Nicole Allen, textbook advocate at the Student Public Interest Research Groups, for some more tips:

Read the rest of this article at www.nytimes.com by clicking here.

 

Student Loan Forgiveness

See a great article by Clark Howard of CNN regarding student loan forgiveness at http://clarkhoward.com/topics/student_loans_rates.html.

 

AlaskAdvantage Success Center FAFSA & Repairing Credit workshops

See below flyer for more information on “Understanding your Credit” workshops and FAFSA form assistance. For more information, contact Mary Ellen Havens, Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education, Outreach Division, at 907.269.7995.

Become Credit SavvyCombined012010.doc

 

Financial $ense Day – Monday, Feb. 1 University of Alaska Fairbanks Campus

The UAF Financial Aid Office is sponsoring a free public financial literacy event. Sessions are open to all and focused on information for future and current students.

Please go to this link for more information on sessions throughout the day or more information below

http://www.uaf.edu/finaid/workshops/index.html

Financial Aid

FINANCIAL AID WORKSHOPS

The Financial Aid Office holds workshops throughout the year to help new and continuing students through the processes of applying for available educational funding. All workshops are free and do not require registration.

Financial $ense Day – Monday, Feb. 1
The UAF Financial Aid Office is sponsoring a free public financial literacy event. Sessions are open to all and focused on information for future and current students.

10-11 a.m.
Session Title	Instructors	Location
Writing a Scholarship Essay	Julie Parshall, UAF Financial Aid	Wood Center Conference Room B
Living Paycheck to Paycheck	Roxi Dinstel, UAF Cooperative Extension	Rasmuson Library Room 502
Creating a Budget	Chris Conway, Northwestern Education Loan Association	Rasmuson Library Room 340
Paying for College	Christina Campbell, AK Commission on Post-Secondary Education	Brooks Building, RSS Gathering Room
Planning for Retirement	TBA	Rasmuson Library, Kayak Room
11:15 a.m. – 12: 15 p.m.
Finding Summer Employment	Alice Palen, UAF Career Services	Rasmuson Library Room 502
Writing a Scholarship Essay	Julie Parshall, UAF Financial Aid	Brooks Building, RSS Gathering Room
Student Loan Repayment	Chris Conway, Northwestern Loan Association	Duckering Room 406
Educational Exchange Programs	Joe Alloway and Megan Allen, UAF Office of Admissions	Rasmuson Library Kayak Room
Debt Management	TBA	Rasmuson Library Room 340
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Paying for College	Christina Campbell, AK Commission on Post-Secondary Education	Brooks Building, RSS Gathering Room
Cost of Credit	Roxi Dinstel, UAF Cooperative Extension	Duckering Room 406
Get Started Filing Taxes	TBA	Rasmuson Library Room 340
Banking Basics	Wells Fargo	Rasmuson Library Room 502
1:45-2:45 p.m.
Job Realities: Salary After College	Alice Palen, UAF Career Services	Wood Center Conference Room B
Basic Investing	Krista Stamper, Wedbush Securities	Duckering Room 406
Understanding Credit	Chris Conway, Northwestern Education Loan Association	Rasmuson Library Room 340
Avoiding Credit Cards	TBA	Rasmuson 502

 

Free Technology for You

GoogleSites – Create your own  website, Intranet or collaborative site for free. This is also called a wiki site. You can invite others to co-author your GoogleSite, create a library of documents and links, host videos from You Tube and elsewhere, include a shared calendar, and much more. All free. 

Free Malicious Software Removal Tool - from Microsoft. If you think your computer may be infected with malicious software, this tool might help.

CutePDF - this is a free alternative to Adobe’s version. If you need to send PDFs to others, this is the way to go. No cost to you whatsoever.

Photoshop Lite - If you need to use a photo editor but just can’t justify expense of buying Photoshop, use this free online version. It doesn’t have all the features of the purchased version but it seems to have enough and you can store your images online too.

GOOG-411 – This is Google’s free 411 service. Why pay up to $1.95 or more for this service when you don’t have to?

BlogSpot and WordPress – These are the two premier free blogging platforms. The content manager and the hosting is free. Express yourself – for free. Our blog is hosted by WordPress.

Flickr (by Yahoo) and Box.net are two more storage sites for photos, but these are online applications. You can link your photos to your websites or blogs rather easily. You can also control who sees your photos: everybody, just your family, maybe friends too, or just you.

Google Docs - this is a free online competitor to Microsoft Office. You can do word processing, presentations, and spreadsheets – and all are compatible wtih Microsoft Office. Also you can build forms and automatically store the data in a spreadsheet. What is even better is you can collaborate with others in preparing or presenting. Great alternative for people on a budget.

AVG Anti-Virus - If you want good virus protection for your personal computer but can’t afford to buy software, this program will do the trick for you.

Open Office – Want a robust alternative to Microsoft Office and know your files can be opened by Microsoft users? This is a longstanding free productivity suite. More powerful that Google Docs ( see above). You download it to your computer.

FreeMind - free mind mapping software. Helps you organize your ideas and the relationships between them

Picassa - also by Google is a free photo organizer, which automatically organizes your image files into its own library of images. All this is stored on your computer. You can edit photos too and create web albums.

If you want to stay in touch family or friends who live far away from you, you don’t have to pay long distance charges. You can talk through the Internet on Yahoo Chat, MSN Chat, or services like Skype. All you need is a microphone.