Personal Loan Blog

NORTH HIGHLANDS, CA – The employee parking lot at HomEq Servicing in North Highlands was emptying out Wednesday morning as 924 employees learned they would be losing their jobs in a new owner consolidation move.

HomEq Servicing is a loan modification company.

Rumors of the job cuts surfaced Tuesday. Employees told News10 if they talked to reporters, they had been warned they would lose their severance pay.

Wednesday, workers received official word of the layoffs. They were told they would be paid through Oct. 29 on the condition they return to work through Sept. 30 and then left.

Refund anticipation loans are commonly offered by tax preparation services. With this type of loan, you can get your hands on your tax refund before it is processed with the government. Although this might seem convenient, there are several disadvantages to using a refund anticipation loan. Here are a few things to consider before agreeing to a refund anticipation loan.

Interest Rates

Perhaps the biggest problem that most people have with refund anticipation loans is the interest rates that are charged for them. Since you are only borrowing the money for a short period of time, it may not seem like the interest is that high.

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My mission: In one month, learn everything there is to know about the financial aid process, and federal student aid programs so that I can get a jump start on my applications.

Armed with: ejacobs (Student Advocate from FinancialAidForum.com), a variety of web resources that I found from the Student Loan Network, some books and packets, federal student aid guides, the web-o-sphere, and my peers.

Reason: I’d like to go back to school, but I’m not swimming in cash. I recently read that incoming students often underestimate how much financial aid they will get from the government and fail to take advantage of it. I’m

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The Wall Street Journal had a great article yesterday explaining some of the problems that graduate business schools have been facing in regards to decreased applicant and attendance volume over the past few semesters.

The author, Diana Middleton, writes:

Many full-time programs have seen a drop in applications international students, partly due to increased competition from schools abroad and because of increased difficulty securing visas and student loans.

It’s no secret that student loans are more difficult to obtain for graduate students in the past few years due to the credit crunch and slow economic recovery. However, there are more lenders and programs than ever to assist post-undergraduates with their advanced degree programs.

(1) Federal Student Loans

Between the graduate Stafford loans and GradPLUS loan offerings, there is a substantial base of federal loans available to students attending accredited, Title IV-certified academic institutions. The interest rates on both loans are fixed (6.8% APR and 7.9% APR, respectively) and allow the safety of stable, unchanging payments.

(2) Private Student Loans

Although the federal loans have fixed interest rates, private loans have the potential to much lower. At this moment in time, I have seen APRs start as low as 2.8% (August 2010). In addition, private student loans have many benefits and incentives that are not available to federal borrowers such as co-signer release and graduation rewards.

LOS ANGELES – Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced a $1.1 million judgment against longtime Los Angeles attorney Mitchell Roth after he conned 2,000 desperate homeowners into paying him thousands of dollars to file “frivolous and phony” lawsuits that didn’t reduce a penny of mortgage debt for a single client.

“Roth promised foreclosure relief through aggressive litigation, but the frivolous and phony lawsuits he filed instead left 2,000 desperate homeowners in even greater debt,” Brown said. “This settl

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