Yahoo! News: Education News

Obama Tackles Student Loan Debt This Week: Will It Make a Difference?
For-Profit Colleges: Worth It or Worthless?
Obama moves to ease student loan burdens, urges Congress to act
Here's How to Make a $4-a-Day Food Budget Taste Delicious
Cuba: 8 arrested in school exam cheating scandal
Florida governor extends in-state tuition to undocumented students
Free, Cheap Ways High School Teachers Can Learn This Summer
Presidential checklist: jockeying for position
2016 campaign checklist: Hillary Clinton

Obama Tackles Student Loan Debt This Week: Will It Make a Difference?

Posted: 09 Jun 2014 04:02 PM PDT

President Barack Obama, surrounded by college students at a White House event, signed an executive order on Monday making it easier for up to 5 million people to pay off college tuition debt. In an existing repayment plan that Obama announced in 2010, borrowers pay no more than 10 percent of their monthly income in payments, but it is only available for those who started borrowing after October 2007. Obama's new order expands that program by opening it to those who borrowed any time in the past. "I'm only here because this country gave me a chance through education," Obama said.

For-Profit Colleges: Worth It or Worthless?

Posted: 09 Jun 2014 03:54 PM PDT

For single moms, military veterans, or blue-collar workers looking to upgrade their skill set, the growing number of for-profit colleges promising a valuable diploma on a flexible schedule seem like the answer to their hopes for a better life. Instead of a quality education and a path to a higher tax bracket, though, students who enroll in schools such as DeVry Institute and the University of Phoenix often find themselves with a degree that's nearly worthless, saddled with student-loan debt as high as six figures, and unable to find a better job to repay it. "They're going into debt for an education that's not giving them what they need," said Mary Alice McCarthy, a senior policy analyst for higher education at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank. Operating at the lucrative intersection of ambition and commerce, for-profit colleges and universities can function more nimbly in a global marketplace than can traditional nonprofit institutions granting four-year degrees, according to Steve Burd, a senior analyst with the foundation's Education Policy Program. With more jobs requiring a college degree, the industry has exploded in popularity, enrolling millions of students and raking in several billion dollars in profit each year.

Obama moves to ease student loan burdens, urges Congress to act

Posted: 09 Jun 2014 02:59 PM PDT

By Mark Felsenthal WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Monday signed an executive order making it easier for up to 5 million people to pay off college tuition debt, and scolded congressional Republicans for opposing legislation that would lower student-loan borrowing costs. The action, which does not take effect until December 2015, will allow more people to limit repayments of federal student loans to 10 percent of their monthly incomes. The administration will also try to lower student costs by renegotiating government contracts with companies like Sallie Mae that service student loans, he said. Senate Democrats have proposed legislation that would allow millions of Americans to refinance both federal and private undergraduate student loans at lower interest rates.

Here's How to Make a $4-a-Day Food Budget Taste Delicious

Posted: 09 Jun 2014 01:05 PM PDT

But going viral isn't the intent of this online effort, which Brown developed as the final project for her master's degree in food studies at New York University. Plenty of people may want to cook good food on the cheap, but Brown's target audience is the many Americans who rely on food stamps to get by—living on just $4 a day.

Cuba: 8 arrested in school exam cheating scandal

Posted: 09 Jun 2014 12:39 PM PDT

HAVANA (AP) — Eight people are under arrest in connection with a scandal involving the illicit sale of university entrance exams, Cuban authorities said Monday after thousands of high school students were forced to retake the test.

Florida governor extends in-state tuition to undocumented students

Posted: 09 Jun 2014 10:59 AM PDT

By Bill Cotterell TALLAHASSEE Florida (Reuters) - Florida Governor Rick Scott, who promised a crackdown on illegal immigration four years ago, signed legislation Monday allowing children whose parents came to the United States illegally to pay in-state tuition at Florida colleges. Earlier efforts to extend in-state tuition rates to undocumented students at public colleges and universities had failed, with opposition from leading Republicans. Scott, a Republican seeking re-election who previously opposed the measure, skirted the issue of illegal immigration in a news release that focused instead on tuition costs. "Signing this historic legislation today will keep tuition low, and allow all students who grew up in Florida to have the same access to affordable higher education," he said.

Free, Cheap Ways High School Teachers Can Learn This Summer

Posted: 09 Jun 2014 05:00 AM PDT

Many organizations offer free or low-cost professional development opportunities for high school teachers locally, nationally and online. Last summer, Jim Schneider, a school librarian at Schenectady High School in New York, participated in a free, weeklong summer teacher institute at the Library of Congress in Washington.

Presidential checklist: jockeying for position

Posted: 09 Jun 2014 03:43 AM PDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Here's a look at the who, what, when and where of the 2016 presidential contest at the cusp of summer. Why? Because more is going on than you might think two years from the event.