It’s becoming increasingly difficult for parents and students to pay for college tuition.

If it wasn’t for Pell Grants, Tuition Aid Grant (TAG) and the Education Opportunity Fund (EOF), 24-year-old Vanessa Denis would have graduated from Montclair State University with tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

“My high school was a college prep school and they explained all of the options to us,” Denis said. “I probably would have gone to a community college for two years, done really well and then finished my last two years at a university if I didn’t receive the funding I did.”

As an in-state student Denis was lucky enough to have the option of staying at home with family since her aid didn’t cover room and board. During her sophomore year she decided she wanted to try out dorm living and took out a loan of $4,500 to cover the cost. But most college graduates aren’t as fortunate as Denis. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 66 percent of undergraduates received some type of student aid for the 2007-08 academic year. The average tuition, room and board for the same academic year was $17,102.

New York University Assistant Vice President of Office of Admissions, Shawn Abbott, says 60-70% of incoming freshman receive federal financial aid.

“Even though we award millions [in financial aid] each year, it’s not nearly enough for us to meet the full need of our freshman class each year,” said Abbott.

Perhaps this country is long overdue for reevaluating the rising costs of tuition.

Long gone are the days where middle-class Americans could work hard and save for their children’s education. In the Institute for Higher Education Policy’s most recent figures, a 2003-2004 study found that 70 percent of Black students had a remaining financial need after grants had been rewarded, and about 54 percent borrowed loans to meet that need. Paying for a college degree has become a burden for both the parents and their children. Obtaining a bachelor’s degree should not be a legal I.O.U. indebting young adults to the federal government for years to follow one’s education. But that is exactly what is happening.

Thankfully there is financial aid for the 66 percent of American’s who cannot pay for college out of their pockets. However, financial aid isn’t necessarily free money.  More times than not financial aid is dispersed in large sums through subsidized and unsubsidized loans. And when additional funds are needed to cover the remainder additional private loans or Parent Plus, loans are taken out to cover the rest. And not all Black students qualify for Pell Grants. Those who don’t qualify for Pell Grants or aren’t the first generation to attend college are usually left to fend for themselves in terms of securing money for school.

In “A Lesson on Wealth Pt. 2,” I wrote about the difficulties of building wealth when graduating from college already in the hole. Building wealth requires the ownership of homes, land or businesses. Paying back loans for 10-20 years is not conducive to ownership.

It is up to guidance counselors, parents, church members and mentors to assist Black youth with college preparation. Scholarships are a great way for minority students to cut tuition costs. Searching for scholarships though takes time and should be done as early as possible. Grants are also viable options to supplement scholarships. Parents should begin saving for their child’s tuition as early as the child being one month old. Through savings bonds or certificates of deposits parents can put away a set amount per month while the money accrues interest over the years. These are only a few steps to take to ensure young adults aren’t solely reliant on financial aid.

What are other helpful tips for potential college students who want to have minimum reliance on financial aid?

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Read more on education in our featured section, The Education Zone

The article talks about the website, Seekingarrangement.com, which is home to “college tuition sugar daddies.”

The pieces focuses on a young, New York college student who signed up on the website and ended up meeting a man from mostly affluent, Greenwich, Ct.

The Huffington Post reports:

A month prior, faced with about $15,000 in unpaid tuition and overdue bills, Taylor and her roommate typed “tuition,” “debt,” and “money for school” into Google. A website calledSeekingArrangement.com popped up. Intrigued by the promise of what the site billed as a “college tuition sugar daddy,” Taylor created a “sugar baby” profile and eventually connected with the man from Greenwich. (“Taylor” is the pseudonym she uses with men she meets online. Neither she nor any of the other women interviewed for this article permitted their real names be used.)

In her profile on the site, Taylor describes herself as “a full-time college student studying psychology and looking to meet someone to help pay the bills.” Photos on the site show her in revealing outfits, a mane of caramel-colored hair framing her face. But unlike other dating sites, where a user might also list preferred hobbies or desired traits, Taylor instead indicates preferences for a “sugar daddy” and an “arrangement” in the range of $1,000 to $3,000 a month.

Read More At The Huffington Post

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NEW YORK — The story was compelling when it was first broken several weeks ago by the New York Daily News — a 13-year-old Black whiz-kid named Autum Ashante accepted to the University of Connecticut, only to have that acceptance rescinded, and her fraught father calling for justice.

But the story might be a work of fiction.

Original New York Daily News Story on Autum Ashante’s acceptance

The University of Connecticut spokesman cited by the Daily News as having confirmed Autum’s acceptance, Richard Veilleux, tells NewsOne that he never told the paper’s reporter any such thing.

Tanyanika Samuels reported in the Daily News that Autum — described as a home-schooled genius — had been admitted to UConn and would be enrolling in the fall. Samuels later published a follow up story reporting that UConn had rescinded Autum’s acceptance. In the article, Autum’s father, Batin Ashante, said the university told him that she was not “academically ready.”

Veilleux and Michael Kirk from UConn’s communications office tell a different story.

“She applied, and her application was denied. It was not accepted. Nothing was ‘rescinded,’” Kirk wrote in an email to NewsOne.

Veilleux gave credence to Kirk’s statement, telling NewsOne: “When the Daily News called me, I spoke to Lee Melvin, our vice president for enrollment management, and he told me that Autum had not enrolled at the university. I passed that information to the Daily News.”

That information was never mentioned in any Daily News story.

In the Daily News‘ original news break of Autum’s acceptance, Samuels never quoted any UConn official to confirm Ashante’s story. The story only cited Autum and her father.

In the Daily News’ subsequent story reporting UConn’s alleged reversal, Samuels wrote: “UConn Spokesman Richard Veilleux confirmed Autum had been accepted to the school but said university officials were still waiting for the family to formally enroll.”

Though Veilleux is cited, he and Kirk categorically deny that Veilleux ever said that.

New York Daily News’ director of communications, Jennifer Mauer, told NewsOne that the Daily News “stands by the original story,” and that Veilleux did indeed confirm Autum’s acceptance to Samuels. When Samuels was questioned by phone on the matter, she referred all inquiries to Mauer.

When asked if he could produce a document to prove Autum was accepted to the university, Batin Ashante didn’t answer. Instead, he maintained that UConn is “closing ranks” because of the potential success of a petition, started by UConn alumna Josephine Minnow, to sway the university’s alleged decision to rescind Autum’s acceptance.

“I’m done with you and all media,” Ashante told NewsOne. “I’m saying [expletive] UConn right now.”

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The students complied and, true to his word, Edwards will fulfill his promise. The good deed is expected to cost him around $1 million.

Over the weekend, Edwards tweeted:

As the 2nd most hated man in Clev & a man of my word, today I will honor a promise made to 100 students in Cleveland years ago. The last of my Advance 100 students will graduate from my program and head off to college on scholarships that I will provide them with. Guys, enjoy and embrace your new beginnings and remember your promise to me, to reach back & help someone else along the way.

READ MORE AT BLACKVOICES.COM

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Winter break is a great relief from the mundane routine that is college life. You get to be lazy for a month, non- proactive and maybe even fit some sleep into your usually hectic schedule. The problem with all this fun is that sometimes you get too stuck in the luxury of doing nothing and then you have to get back on the grind. Snapping yourself out of it can be tough, but we have the solution to this problem. Here are five ways to get back on the grind, when school kicks back into session.

1.Get a Holiday Job or Internship
This is great time to get a job and make some extra money. Stores are hiring like crazy during the holiday season. We all know how expensive college can be, so why sit around and gain the freshman 15, when you can work and save money to pay off some of that college debt. Working will keep your brain active and your body use to performing at a certain level of activity. An internship is also a good way to keep you active. You will gain work experience for that future resume you will have to make, in order to gain employment after college.

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2. Create a Workout Routine
Getting in shape is a great New Year’s resolution and a good way to shake the stress from the finals you just took. Working out is a good way to  keep your stress levels down when you return to school. It will keep your body in shape, you won’t gain weight during the holidays and you can carry your workouts into the new semester. Try some new workouts that vary from the usually gym type exercises. Yoga, Tai Chi, Pilates and running are all great workouts.

3.Stay Educated
Most people take this opportunity to just be lazy and catch up on a season of their favorite television show. I think the best solution to prevent brain failure during the winter break is to take a winter break class. Another solution is to email one of your professors, so you can order your books ahead of time and read them before the semester begins. Keeping your brain active is a sure way to succeed in college. The more you use it, the better it works.

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4.Volunteer Somewhere
This is the season for giving and sometimes the best gift you can give is your time. There are a number of people and places that have more to worry about than college finals. Volunteering not only humbles you, but it also makes you open minded to the world around you; it will also give back to the community.

5. A Week Before Class, Try Waking Up Early
Your body is full of cells that have memory just like your brain. So waking up early is something that you usually program your body to get accustomed to. A week before you start school, especially if you have early morning classes, set your alarm to seven or eight am. This will help your body get use to being proactive during that time of day.

Two years after its cancellation, “The Wire” has been given the respect given to authors like Dickens and Shakespeare, Hemingway or Langston Hughes. It has been given its own class at Harvard. Not only has it been given an undergraduate class at Harvard, but in this spring, “The Wire” will be taught at Harvard Law School by one of its most prestigious professors, Charles Ogletree.

Ogletree had a conference at Harvard yesterday to announce the course and had actors, Jamie Hector and Michael K. Williams, who played Marlo Stanfield and Omar Little on the show come and speak, along with Donnie Andrews, who was a notorious Baltimore criminal, who was the inspiration for Omar Little.

They discussed The Wire as a reflection of America that is hardly seen. Reverend Eugene Rivers claimed that every Black person should see it. The panel discussed the elements of “The Wire” that related directly to sociology, the drug war, lack of jobs, city politics education and the media, that “The Wire” covered in its five seasons.

It was amazing to hear how close the actors where to their characters. Michael K. Williams said the hardest thing he had to do in the show was to kill Idris Elba’s character, Stringer Bell. He said he felt conflicted about doing it and felt that it promoted Black on Black crime by having one of the smartest characters on the show be killed, one he felt a close connection to not only as a fellow actor, but as a character as well.

Williams said that when his character was killed it was like his best friend died and that for a while he answered to the name Omar more than he answered to his own name.

Jamie Hector described his character Marlo as a sociopath, but said that the students in his Brooklyn theater group “Tomorrow’s Future” described Marlo as a businessman. Hector also said that in his view, despite the fact that Marlo was never convicted, he was defeated in the end after losing his man power and lifestyle.

Both Hector and Williams defended “The Wire” against people who said it promoted negative stereotypes against Black men the city if Baltimore. Hector cited Season 4 of “The Wire” as a way that the program showed how children turn into criminals rather than just displaying the stereotype.

Ogletree did a good job of explaining why Harvard Law School students should learn about “The Wire.” Those students will be the prosecutors, District Attorneys,  and defense lawyers who will have to deal with the policies of the drug war and the over-incarceration of African American males. Some others will become politicians who will be in charge of giving jobs and funding schools. If not for a show like “The Wire,” many of these people would have no clue about the struggle urban African Americans endure due to the drug trade, inferior education, corrupt politicians and lack of jobs.

Ogletree said that many writers, and actors from “The Wire,”and real people from Baltimore will address the class this spring. He also says he’s trying to open the class up to students from other graduate schools so that future teachers, journalists and businessmen can also learn about how what they do affects the poor and how the poor affect them.

Like Dickens and Richard Wright, “The Wire” provides a fictitious reality that is closer to the truth and reveals more about society than most journalism or history books. Ogletree’s class will be one of the first classes to give the television show sociological, political and academic analysis, but surely not the last, as the show will stand as a time capsule of our society for centuries to come.

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I don’t quote Ronald Reagan often, but the annual sight of parents taking new freshmen to college always reminds me of one of his sayings. Negotiating arms-control agreements with the Soviet Union, Reagan said that his principle was, “Trust — but verify”: We wouldn’t sign a treaty with the Soviets if there weren’t a basic foundation of trust — but make sure they’re keeping their end of the agreement, and be prepared to act if they aren’t.

That’s also my advice for parents of entering freshmen: Trust — but verify.

September will mark my 41st year as an observer of college students. I taught literature and English composition for 20 years at Morehouse and Spelman colleges in Atlanta and served for seven years as president of Dillard University in New Orleans. Now I’m president of the United Negro College Fund, following the progress of the 20,000 or so freshmen who attend our member colleges and receive our scholarships, and I see statistics from students at all schools.

Read more at TheRoot

Click here to view photos:

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This fall, Mary J. Blige will be among the freshman class at Howard University in Washington.

The 39-year-old singer announced on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that she just received her GED and is now eying a Bachelors degree as part of HU’s class of 2014.

“The city of New York gave me my high school diploma … and now Howard University has accepted me,” she stated.

So far – no word on her major or how she’ll attend classes.

Watch her announcement below.

The terrorist race threat at Hocking College is at level red in Nelsonville, Oh.   Diverse Issues in Higher Education is reporting that some of the black students have withdrawn permanently from the college out of fear of being killed.  Apparently, the FBI has been called in to investigate a threat of a black student massacre.  There was a threat written in a bathroom of the school dormitory, Hockings Heights, that read, “Black students would be killed Feb. 2.”

The report also said that some students have been put in temporary housing for those who fear violence against them if they remain in the Hocking Heights dorm.  Professors have made exceptions for students who plan to stay away this week and will let students make up missed classwork.  The report states that according to students, this is not the first time there has been viscious racist remarks written on the walls before.  But, this time the threat was pernicious enough to cause for extreme concern.

The school spokesperson, Judy Sinnott, said she hadn’t heard any previous complaints of “racist taunting” before and went on to say something ludicrous:  “Any time that there are young people, you know, there’s going to be tension,” Sinnott said. “Young people will be young people.”  And yes, it’s true….she is the school spokesperson.

Well, I guess when you have a college nestled in a city at the foothills of the appalachian hills with only 400 black students in a college population of 6,300, you can get an idea of where Ms. Sinnott is coming from.  Not only that, the college sits in a city with a failing economy where heroin addiction is on the rise.