All Posts Tagged With: "debt"
Canada Student Loan debt tops $13 billion
Figure doesn’t include about $5 billion in provincial or personal debt
Federation of Students news release:
Canada Student Loan debt will surpass the $13 billion mark today for the first time in the nation’s history. Total student loans owed to the Government of Canada increases by $1.2 million a day. The $13 billion figure does not include approximately $5 billion in provincial student loan debt or personal debt such as credit cards, lines of credits, bank loans, and family loans. This school year alone, almost 360,000 students required loans from the federal government.
McMaster grad and millionaire not worried about job market
Biochemistry student Poorya Nazari recently won $3 million in a Bahamas poker tournament
Recent biochemistry graduate Poorya Nazari isn’t too worried about landing a job in today’s tough market. Why? The Toronto-area man knows how to play poker.
The 22-year-old, who still lives at home with his parents, recently returned home from a poker tournament in the Bahamas US$3 million richer. He spent about $700 to gain entry into the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, and his investment paid off big time.
“It was pretty surreal, I just couldn’t believe it was happening,” said Nazari, who graduated from McMaster University last week but has long considered playing poker to be his future full-time job.
“I dreamt about doing something like that for a really long time, so it was absolutely amazing.”
Nazari, who had previously won about $80,000 in another big poker payday, said he doesn’t consider his success at the game similar to winning a lottery since poker requires a lot of skill and practice.
Winning the Bahamas tournament was the culmination of days of tough play and not just a few quick hands of poker, he said.
“We played pretty gruelling hours, about 12 hours a day (for) about four or five days,” he said. “It was just absolutely tough.”
Nazari said it wasn’t until the last day of the tournament that he began thinking he could win the multimillion-dollar prize.
While Nazari is still living with his parents at their home in Richmond Hill, Ont., north of Toronto, he plans on getting his own place soon.
Other than that, he said he doesn’t know what he’ll do with his new-found riches.
“Right now I’m just trying to take it all in,” he said. “I really don’t know what I’m going to do and what my plans are for all the money.
“I never thought what I would do if I came across this much money, so I’m going to have to take some time and think things through.”
Nazari will have a chance to earn more cash at a tournament he’s been invited to in Monte Carlo in April.
- The Canadian Press
Universities make big bucks on student credit cards
Bank of America pays $8.4m for Michigan State students’ names and addresses
One wonders about the extent to which Canadian post-secondary institutions have these types of arrangements with credit card providers:
Bank of America’s relationship with the university extends well beyond marketing at sports events. The bank has an $8.4 million, seven-year contract with Michigan State giving it access to students’ names and addresses and use of the university’s logo. The more students who take the banks’ credit cards, the more money the university gets. Under certain circumstances, Michigan State even stands to receive more money if students carry a balance on these cards.
Hundreds of colleges have contracts with lenders. But at a time of rising concern about student debt — and overall consumer debt — the arrangements have sounded alarm bells, and some student groups are starting to push back.
The relationships are reminiscent of those uncovered two years ago between student loan companies and universities. In those, some lenders offered universities an incentive to steer potential borrowers their way.
Student aversion to borrowing
Choice to go debt-free can limit enrollment options and hurt chances of graduation
The Washington-based Institute for Higher Education Policy and Excelencia in Education have released a new report that examines the characteristics of students who are less likely to borrow for post-secondary education.
According to the report, Student Aversion to Borrowing: Who Borrows and Who Doesn’t, students who are adverse to borrowing to finance their education include older, financially independent students who have delayed their enrollment, part-time students, and members of certain ethnic or immigrant groups.
While it might appear advantageous for these students not to borrow and accumulate student loan debt, there is a downside too. In some cases, aversion to borrowing may limit students’ post-secondary enrollment choices and/or negatively impact their chances of successfully completing a program.
The top 3 suggested reasons why students may choose not to borrow for education, even if they have substantial unmet financial need, are as follows:
- Students may attend lower cost institutions or change their attendance pattern so that they face fewer expenses in a given semester and do not need to borrow.
- Students may use other financial resources to pay college expenses and not have to borrow.
- Students from certain racial/ethnic or immigrant groups may have a cultural or familial perspective on debt that encourages them not to borrow.
