Here’s a site where the most prized target of marketers - incoming college freshman — can sign up and place a “bet” on their grades. If they get the grades, they make money on the bet. If not, they lose the money they put down. “This (incentive) helps remove one of the large barriers students have to studying and staying motivated over the course of long semesters of college…” explains Ultrinsic Chief Operations Officer Judah Guber, in “Pay for an A?” by Andrew Gelman.

I suspected Guber (who graduated college himself in 2005 with B.A. from CUNY-Queens College) had it wrong. How could just paying for grades somehow provide a magic bullet for motivating students to study harder? But I continued to read, seeking first to understand.

To read the rest of this article, click here.

http://blogs.forbes.com/moneybuilder/2010/08/25/parents-and-teachers-join-national-money-talk-night/

As a parent of a college-bound teen, my own advice:  Educate your kids on the costs of all the “essential” stuff before plunking down the money!  Here’s the link to Steve’s column that parents of any college-bound kid will find helpful:

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/07/16/2089018/ways-to-save-as-you-head-off-to.html

http://www.savvydaddy.com/content/moneyandkids

“Hooray for your common sense approach to funding college.
 
When my daughter was a freshman in high school, I sat her down and told her that as a single mom who worked as a baker, I simply couldn’t afford to pay for college.  So, we worked out a plan.  (more…)

According to the Project on Student Debt, the average debt level for graduating seniors with student loans rose to $23,200 in 2008 – a 24% increase from $18,650 in 2004. What’s more, 67% of students graduating from four-year colleges and universities have student debt. Add to this debt load the inevitable credit card debt kids accumulate and well, it’s getting harder to defend the decision to get a college education if the price is really that high – especially in light of the grim prospects of getting a decent job once you graduate.

Many college students today who take on student debt see no way around this mess. Citing “no parental support” nor access to funding from the university they have chosen, they face only one other option – loans from Sallie Mae.  “A couple of months before I moved East, I examined my finances,” writes Emily Schmitt in her story “Student Loans: A Bitter Financial Lesson.” “I had two options: first, not to go to grad school; and second, to fund most of my education with student loans. NYU ain’t cheap. My tuition runs upwards of $15,000 per semester,” she explained.

Emily took out the loans. Emily felt she “had no alternatives.” Really Emily? (more…)

During the 2010 Chicago Federal Reserve’s Money Smart Week, with a little help from the Money Savvy Pig, an interactive piggybank, Chicago Public School students in grades K – 8 spent classroom time with their teacher-librarians learning about the choices they have for money (more…)