| Rutgers president meets with students on stadium expansion
If Rutgers can not obtain a crucial $30 million loan from the state or private sources to renovate its football stadium as planned, it will have to scale down its vision, university president Richard McCormick said this evening. But during a meeting with student leaders, McCormick managed to sound optimistic that the $30 million may yet materialize. If that happens, Rutgers will raise the remaining $70 million needed by issuing 30-year-old bonds to be paid off by revenue generated from the renovated stadium, he said. In the meantime, the Rutgers Board of Governors removed from its Thursday agenda a vote on the proposed $100 million expansion, McCormick said. Rutgers' plans for its football stadium in Piscataway, unveiled this summer, include adding 12,000 seats, club seating and a dining club.
Local Financial Services Industry Laying Off By The Hundreds
Financial services, a growth industry for the local economy in recent years, has been cutting staff at a faster rate this year as the upheaval in the mortgage-lending sector continues. On top of cuts inflicted at mortgage banks and brokerages, the student loan industry is cutting staff in reaction to changes in the federal subsidies granted to private lenders. Through the end of September, 1,500 jobs have been pared from the payrolls of San Diego financial services employers over the previous 12 months, according to the most recent report from the state Employment Development Department. Most are related to the national slowdown in the housing market. For example, Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co. cut about three-fourths of its staff starting this year, to 1,000 from 4,000 at the end of last year.
Rules for student loans get tighter
Now the credit crisis is spilling over into college-student loans.
Sallie Mae, the nation's largest lender to college students, will no longer make private education loans to students who are higher credit risks, so-called subprime borrowers. Private student loans, which carry higher interest rates than federal loans, help bridge the gap between tuition costs and federal aid.
Sallie Mae's change will hurt for-profit education companies because they rely on students' access to private loans more than non-profit colleges and universities, student-loan experts said. On Tuesday, a number of education stocks, including Hoffman Estates-based Career Education Corp., experienced big sell-offs on fears that the schools could see a decline in enrollment.
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Bucking the Tide on Private Loans
As the scandals and debates over private lending have grown in recent months, conventional wisdom has held that private loans are a necessary evil. Sure, students and their families are taking on debt that is typically more expensive and more risky than federally backed loans. But as long as families feel that college costs are otherwise beyond their reach, private loans will continue to become more popular. .
June 2006
The average college graduate leaves school with almost $20,000 in student loans and $2,000 in credit card debt, notes the Chicago Tribune in a Sunday financial piece. And parents, who do not qualify for financial aid and have little tuition reserve, are often left with $50,000 or more in debt for each graduate. Ante up the cost of three or four kids and the sum gives new meaning to the term: mid life crisis. There is no relief in sight for the next generation. With the outlay of a college education expected to increase at five percent a year, the average annual cost of a private college in 15 years is pegged at $51,664. Factor five percent a year to the already nose bleed cost of sending a child to Harvard, MIT, Boston College or Boston University, and you’re bracing for an annual expense of $90,000 by 2017.
Hathorn v. Halter
Not a good answer mind you, but at least an attempt. By law the funds should have been returned by the Exploratory committee not rolled into Halter's other campaigns. If nothing else sounds like Hathorn has forced them to scramble to take corrective action, and put a $600,000 dent in their warchest. .
ACCUSED: Scottish Labour Leader Wendy Alexander. Picture: Gordon ...
It is wrong of opposition parties in the Scottish Parliament to scaremonger over the future of funding for vulnerable groups or special projects. The money is there and Cosla confirmed nearly a month ago that spending on those areas will continue. "The new relationship with local authorities in Scotland is being replicated by Labour in London and applauded by local authorities of all persuasions. "The only people who won't work constructively with local government are Labour's Scottish Parliament leadership. "It seems the isolation of Wendy Alexander is spreading - she is at odds with the UK Government, with Scottish Labour MPs and with Scotland's local authorities. "Let's hope the New Year brings a more constructive approach to Scotland's new politics from Ms Alexander and her parliamentary friends." But Andy Kerr, Labour's Shadow Secretary for Public Services, insisted the previous executive's policy had guaranteed funding for vital projects.
Cleveland suit smells like a pig
Running a pig farm is a sloppy business. Lagoons of manure put a stench in the wind and may even contaminate the neighbors' wells. "Creating a public nuisance" is what they call it. And for pig farmers, public- nuisance lawsuits can be a cost of doing business. Last week, the city of Cleveland filed a public-nuisance lawsuit against some of the biggest pig farmers I know: 21 investment banks and lenders whose subprime-mortgage- lending practices have allegedly turned Cleveland into a sty. "The city has become the poster child for the national foreclosure crisis," the city's lawsuit reads. "An average of 20 Cleveland homeowners faced the grim reality of foreclosure every day in 2007." After suffering more than 7,500 foreclosures last year, Cleveland now has "entire streets, blocks and neighborhoods" of abandoned homes that have become "eyesores . . .
Housing starts fall 24 percent
In Florida and across the nation, home builders are selling land, cutting jobs, slashing prices and offering substantial incentives to buyers to survive a downturn that analysts say will worsen in 2008. But even drastic measures aren't helping some of the harder-hit companies.
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Japan Prices Jump, Factory Output Falls
The Bank of Japan has looked for a rise in consumer prices as a sign the country has fully emerged from years of deflation, a continuous spiraling down of prices that deadens economic activity and brings down wages. Still, the central bank has been cautious to hike rates too quickly amid concerns over the U.S. subprime loan crisis. .
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