Dunlop relishes new ministerial role in Doug Ford’s cabinet

Simcoe North MPP was named Minister for Colleges and Universities last month; “I think my understanding of the sector will make a big difference,” she says

After about a month in office, Simcoe North MPP Jill Dunlop has settled into her new role as Minister for Colleges and Universities.

The former Deputy Minister for Children and Women has replaced Ross Romano, who was transferred to government and consumer services in a cabinet reshuffle.

Dunlop has attended colleges and universities and intends to continue to do so to learn more about the problems they face.

However, she is no stranger to the way post-secondary institutions work. Prior to being elected MPP, she taught in the Georgian College Social Service Program.

“I think my understanding of the industry will go a long way,” she said. “I was so excited to join this ministry and I think it fits my background in post-secondary education.”

Premier Doug Ford felt the same way and described her as a “good fit” for the position when he called her to inform her of her new role.

“I was absolutely thrilled,” she said. “If he had asked me what I would like to do, I would have said this service.”

Craft professions have been a key focus at Dunlop since she was chosen and she plans to keep them a priority.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an increased need for people to fill these positions.

“It’s something I hear in my own riding and all over the province, and our ministry is a big part of it,” she said.

With so many jobs available – not just in crafts but in a variety of sectors including healthcare – this is a great opportunity for people looking to pursue a second career, “she said.

The province’s investment in micro-skills training could also help, Dunlop said. The government announced in March that it would provide funding from the Ontario Student Assistance Program for micro-credential programs that run no longer than 12 weeks.

The province announced its plans to return to high school in-person learning in the fall, but Dunlop said its ministry will work to ensure resources are in place so that virtual learning can continue if needed.

“They like the hybrid model,” she said of the students.

The province does not require students to be vaccinated before returning to school, but they must wear masks.

“We’re doing everything we can to encourage everyone to get vaccinated,” said Dunlop, adding that she expected pop-up clinics to take place at some colleges and universities during the first week of school.

Many people and organizations will be monitoring Dunlop and their performance in their new roles.

After the cabinet reshuffle, the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) sent a letter outlining their concerns about Romano during his tenure.

“Ford’s dismissal of Romano from his position as Minister for Colleges and Universities follows months of action and community rejections and calls for Minister Romano to resign from OCUFA and sector partners after over 60 programs at Laurentian University under the CCAA (Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act) process, ”the group wrote. “As a result of the CCAA process, indigenous studies and francophone programs were also discontinued.”

That wasn’t the only complaint from OCUFA. It states: “Minister Romano and the Ford government have imposed many unilateral, harmful and controversial decisions …” Some examples have been “a substantial cut and freeze in tuition fees without a corresponding increase in funding for universities” and “support for the Canadian “The efforts of Christian College to call itself ‘university’ despite its questionable academic qualifications and to award degrees in the arts and sciences.

“OCUFA hopes that Minister Dunlop in this sector will be different from that of her predecessor,” the group wrote.

Dunlop said she is reaching out to post-secondary school administrators, faculty members and students to show “government is a partner”.

She also said she was ready to have a conversation with OCUFA.

“I’m here to speak to all of our industry partners,” she said.

source https://collegeeducationnewsllc.com/dunlop-relishes-new-ministerial-role-in-doug-fords-cabinet/

Does campus free speech extend to what students say online?

The balancing of the unrestricted expression of opinion against the promotion of a tolerant public will put the fundamental freedoms that we value in our democratic society to the test, says Prof

This article, written by Dino Sossi, University of Toronto, originally appeared on The Conversation and was republished here with permission:

Professors are vehemently committed to freedom of expression. Many believe that unfiltered, even offensive, utterances are fundamental to post-secondary academic life. But what about their students? Should social media contributions by students be punishable even if they are made off-campus?

This emerging problem in the constant battle for free expression speaks to the dangers of ubiquitous devices, ubiquitous WiFi, and instant communication. Given the potential impact of Bill C-10 on online Canadian language, such as the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which may regulate content we see on social media, it is important to contour the online -Expression to define.

This problem is also related to the rapidly changing demographics at Canadian post-secondary institutions. Namely, the difficulty of judging different speech from even more different students.

Racist students make up 40 percent of undergraduate and graduate students at Canadian universities. Weighing the freedom of expression through dynamic technologies against the promotion of a tolerant public will test the fundamental freedoms we cherish in our democratic society.

The case of a pharmacy student

Kimberly Diei is a PhD student at the University of Tennessee and is studying at the School of Pharmacy. Earlier this year, the university received anonymous complaints about its social media activities – 17+ Instagram posts and tweets (all created under a pseudonym) – including rap lyrics it wrote based on Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s hit song WAP .

The administrators of the University of Tennessee later expelled them for “raw” and “vulgar” positions. Diei appealed and her expulsion was reversed. She then filed a lawsuit alleging the University of Tennessee had violated its freedom of expression without valid educational purposes.

The evolving online communication practices raise important questions:

• What are the limits of student speech?

• How should institutions rate burning social media posts?

• Can we prevent problems similar to those with Diei from occurring again?

Tinker tailors speech: the malfunction test

Tinker v. Des Moines remains the iconic case of student expression. The case concerned young activists who wore black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War. Administrators deported the students until they removed this “obnoxious” clothing. The students resisted.

In response, US Supreme Court Justice Abraham Fortas wrote that students “do not give up their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the school gate,” which guarantees the constitutional protection of student speech in America.

The Tinker standard became the norm. The expression was protected as long as it did not interfere with education.

Later cases refined Tinker’s comprehensive voice protection. Bethel banned sexually vulgar expressions during a school meeting. Hazelwood School District vs. Kuhlmeier gave a school editorial control over sponsored activities such as school newspapers. Morse v. Frederick allowed a school to restrict speech promoting drug use. In the Mahanoy Area School District v. BL is about a cheerleader who was suspended for posting expletives on Snapchat (she had expressed frustration at not getting into her high school cheerleading squad). This case is currently being decided by the US Supreme Court. Significant disruptions remain the standard.

Canada does not have any formal jurisdiction to conform to Tinker, so rules for student expression online vary based on campus guidelines. For example, the University of Toronto Mississauga suggests that faculty, staff, and students who post to institutional accounts use the Golden Rule to manage their posts, along with other prudent recommendations.

Although Diei’s dilemma was not resolved in the process, the University of Tennessee administrators applied the Tinker standard. Anonymous student complaints show that she has unsettled members of her learning community. However, Diei’s postings did not seem to meet the existing disturbance thresholds in order to rightly limit her speech. This seems appropriate given the broad nature of daily online discourse.

“Freedom of thought, belief, expression and expression” are enshrined in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, subject to “reasonable limits”. As such, Canadian post-secondary institutions could follow Tinker’s disorder standard to assess whether student speech should be appropriately restricted.

Despite their justification, Diei’s struggles speak for a different topic. The role of post-secondary institutions in overseeing student communication.

Changing means of communication – online identity exploration

Many people support the opening of academic spaces to new people. However, publicly available digital communications are emerging as a new source of tension.

Academic spaces are used to allow a relatively limited amount of private expression, such as traditional face-to-face interactions in classrooms. Now they are trying to keep up with a much higher amount of online language that is taking place in more and more virtual spaces via social media platforms.

In short, slow post-secondary institutions with a long history in the physical world struggle to respond to incredibly fast-paced social media posts from students in the virtual world. And the university’s faculty may not realize that these online spaces are fundamental to exploring the identity of young people who may inadvertently violate the institution’s inflexible communication norms.

Diei’s difficulties speak to the need for these formal places to respond to changing technological mores. You should also welcome new forms of informal expression that run counter to traditional forms of communication.

Let children be children? – Understand technical language

Many professors likely believe that discussing social media is beyond the scope of the class. Why should the average lecturer spend valuable time discussing student vacancies while teaching?

Diei expressed confusion about what to express online. Younger students may be even more confused about how their expression may violate institutional communication standards.

Given the infinite memory of the Internet, we should proactively discuss online language at all levels of education. Otherwise, students could face increasing penalties as communication continues to become incoherent. Languages ​​intermingle and social media organically creates unique new idioms that differ from traditional academic and professional language.

Youngsters need to understand how their informal expression conflicts with the professional environment they are entering. If we do not discuss how traditional communities communicate, and even question their unforgiving standards, our students could face career difficulties that may only worsen while in our educational care and beyond.

Dino Sossi, Teaching Assistant, University of Toronto

This article was republished by The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

source https://collegeeducationnewsllc.com/does-campus-free-speech-extend-to-what-students-say-online/

It’s not a fair fight – Cybersecurity helps

© Methods machine tools | https://www.methodsmachine.com/

“Close enough” is never the right answer in the workshop. This is especially true for mold makers whose product specifications require precise tolerances, absolute precision and sophisticated toolpaths. Manufacturers serving the medical industry need even more accuracy – an incorrect shape could have dire consequences. Because silicone has a viscosity similar to water once it hits a tool, silicone mold makers go a step further and demand tight tolerances and razor-sharp accuracy to carve intricate paths into small pieces.

“Barriers have to be extremely tight and ventilation is extremely important,” says David Gwaltney, Tool and Mold Manager at Applied Medical Technology Inc. (AMT). “We try absolutely not to adjust or polish the tools by hand because we simply cannot live with the tolerances of manual work compared to what comes from a machine.”

AMT manufactures medical devices at a facility in Brecksville, Ohio. Their products include hospitality and feeding tubes, as well as surgical devices such as retractor kits and smoke / liquid aspirators. In the past, AMT had its plastic injection and silicone molds made by third parties. However, this procedure resulted in imperfect products.

“When we looked at the tools and how they were designed, we saw a pattern of problems,” says Gwaltney. “It was close, we had a lot of secondary operations, which means extra work.”

Between rising costs of flawed tools and managing suppliers and logistics, it was time to switch.

At the end of 2016 / beginning of 2017, AMT decided to bring mold construction in-house. Gwaltney began researching AMT’s needs, which external mold makers were able to do, and researched other medical device and tool makers as well.

© Methods machine tools | https://www.methodsmachine.com/

In all the months that Gwaltney rummaged through asset lists and ratings, meetings with colleagues and producers, there was one constant. One name kept coming up.

YASDA.

Gwaltney came across a YASDA decades ago in the wild while working in a plastic injection molding workshop. “I remembered that, and then I started to look and found out that some of the really good stores are in YASDAs,” he says.

During his research into equipping AMT with high-precision machines, he visited the factory of a machine tool manufacturer in Korea. There he also saw YASDAs.

“They had YASDAs that had all of their spindles and five-axis trunnions working, so they built all of their really high-tolerance stuff on YASDA machines, which I found pretty interesting,” says Gwaltney. “When I did a little more research, I found out that pretty much every machine tool builder has YASDAs in their machine tool factory, that tells you something.”

The rediscovery of machines through research and a visit to another machine tool manufacturer aroused his interest. Soon Gwaltney turned to Bill Chapel, a sales engineer Detroit Technical Center of Methods Machine Tools. While YASDA was a top contender for AMT’s store at the time, Gwaltney needed more evidence.

“I’ve been in this business for over 30 years and seeing is believing,” he says.

Chapel took Gwaltney to see a fleet of YASDAs in a Pennsylvania repair shop. There he spoke to machinists, programmers, operators, employees who make the parts, and the shopkeeper.

“The best feedback is from the guys who do it every day,” he adds. “When we saw and heard that, we made a decision at that point.”

The YASDA YMC 430, a 5-axis machine tool, provided the accuracy and surface finishing required by AMT, Gwaltney said, and the compact design took up minimal floor space.

“The accuracy is just amazing, it’s as accurate as the day it hit the ground in 2017,” he says. The machine can easily maneuver complicated paths in hard-to-reach places.

“Some of our cavity work is so small that we rough and finish at the same time. You can hold most of our pads in your hand, ”he adds.

By moving mold making into the company, AMT was able to increase throughput, accuracy and achieve tighter tolerances while protecting its intellectual property.

“It definitely opened up a lot of possibilities,” says Gwaltney. “Our products are much better, our tolerances are better, and our tools last better just because they start in a better place than before.”

One reason for the success of the YMC 430 is the thoughtful preventive maintenance measures and the level of attention that AMT pays to its work.

“We’re extremely careful with the YASDA, we don’t beat it up in any way,” says Gwaltney. “We only use the best holders, fixtures and tools.”

It was obvious Methods’ Chapel when he was also visiting AMT. “David and his team are extremely proud and meticulous of their work,” says Chapel. AMT keeps its workshop and machines in such good condition that no components of the YMC 430 had to be serviced or replaced.

© Methods machine tools | https://www.methodsmachine.com/

There’s an ongoing joke about cleanliness at AMT, says Gwaltney. “We always tell people, ‘If you got dirty in here, you fell in the parking lot.'”

Even four years after its installation, the YMC 430 AMT is still impressive. There’s no need for accuracy compensation, and contrary to what he’s heard about 5-axis machines, the capabilities of the YMC 430 are not just comparable to adding a trunnion table to a three-axis machine.

“This machine is as accurate as any trunnion machine I’ve seen,” notes Gwaltney.

Accuracy and precision are important, but buying a machine tool is about more. Machine shop owners and managers are making a sizeable investment – they connect with their machine tool supplier and have to trust their suppliers to show up and get the job done.

While Gwaltney considered a similar machine tool during his research phase, the people behind the machine didn’t match Methods’ unwavering commitment to customer satisfaction.

“I think your machine was capable of that, but knowing Bill and Methods made me feel a little better going in that direction,” says Gwaltney. “When you’re this close and talking to YASDAs, it just didn’t make sense to go any other way.”

Methods drew resources from its Detroit and Boston engineering centers to ensure machine installation and training went smoothly.

“We had a really good group of guys who came through and did the setup and training,” said Gwaltney. “That definitely got us on the right foot.”

Since starting out on that right foot in 2017, AMT has exploded into a full-blown marathon. The company has a 124,000 square foot facility and is ready for 110,000 square foot expansion.

AMT plans to increase its production capacity through automation. The ultimate goal, Gwaltney said, is to introduce another YASDA machine and place a robot between the two. “I want the YMC 430’s big brother, the YMC 650,” he says. “That is already laid out in the floor space of the new shop.”

source https://collegeeducationnewsllc.com/its-not-a-fair-fight-cybersecurity-helps/

As Biden mulls vast student debt forgiveness, he’s urged to keep loans frozen

While Biden ponders major student debt relief, he is told to keep the loans frozen

While President Joe Biden holds back extensive student loan forgiveness, as he promised during the campaign, members of Congress are urging him to grant borrowers a stopgap measure.

Federal student loan payments and interest will resume October 1 after an 18-month pandemic hiatus, but lawmakers argue that by then, neither borrowers nor their loan service providers will be ready.

They are asking the Biden government to extend the moratorium – maybe so they can buy more time to convince him with their plan to waive $ 50,000 in student loans per person.

Democratic senators believe they have a pretty compelling argument that could give millions of Americans with student loans extra leeway to deal with expenses and other debts.

Senators: Break of payments has helped millions

Pormezz / Shutterstock

The moratorium on the disbursement of student loans has been in effect since March 13, 2020, in the early days of the COVID crisis.

It was originally supposed to expire after six months, but has been renewed a number of times since then. With the current end date set to September 30th, borrowers and service providers alike are eagerly awaiting to see if they can receive another extension.

In a letter to Biden this week, Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, both of Massachusetts, say that borrowers have benefited greatly from the payment hiatus and have been able to settle credit card and other debts and meet immediate financial needs and support their families.

According to Federal Reserve data, 45 million Americans currently share $ 1.7 trillion in debt. They were spared roughly $ 72 billion in interest charges in the last 15 months of the payment hiatus, the Senators say.

Warren and Markey say loan service providers reported that the moratorium allowed nearly 2.5 million borrowers to pay off their student loan debts in full.

It takes more time, says the legislator

Sarah Silbiger / UPI / Shutterstock

In their letter, the senators say they want to extend the moratorium until at least March 31, 2022 to give Congress time to resolve issues with the state student loan system.

The story goes on

“As the economy recovers from this unprecedented crisis, borrowers should not face administrative and financial disaster while they are just beginning to regain a foothold,” they write.

Warren and Markey argue that not only are borrowers unprepared to repay their loans, but so are service providers – who have never tried to get over 43 million accounts back into repayment status at once.

Senators say loan service providers have told them they are having a hard time getting in touch with all of their borrowers and need time to build their workforce to assist borrowers during the transition.

These issues, lawmakers said, could have a serious negative impact on borrowers, potentially preventing them from reaching other financial milestones, such as taking advantage of today’s low mortgage rates to buy their first homes.

Student loan waivers still on the table

Vitalii Vodolazskyi / Shutterstock

In his presidential campaign, Biden pledged to waive $ 10,000 in student loans for every US borrower. Some Democratic lawmakers, including Warren and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, say this doesn’t go far enough – and they plead for $ 50,000 forgiveness.

While Biden’s latest budget proposal did not include student loan granting, it did not necessarily rule it out. He has already waived approximately $ 3 billion in student loans related to certain circumstances.

About $ 1.6 billion was given out to borrowers who said they were ripped off their schools. Most recently, US $ 55.6 million in debt was cleared for former students from three schools that made students “widespread, significant misrepresentations,” the Department of Education said.

But the $ 50,000 question is still up in the air. Biden’s Education Minister, Miguel Cardona, has reportedly been investigating for months whether Biden’s power to cancel so many student debts per borrower.

What to do if you need relief ASAP

Koto Amatsukami / Shutterstock

If you’re one of millions of Americans grappling with mountains of student loan debt, there are a few ways you can lighten your burden while the administration continues to ponder the issue of comprehensive debt relief.

As a first step, you can consider refinancing your student loan. Student loan refinancing rates from private lenders have fallen to record lows so a refi with a new private loan could cut your monthly payments significantly.

If federal loan waivers were ever waived, personal loans would not be.

If you own a home, you can refinance your mortgage. According to mortgage technology and data provider Black Knight, 13.9 million mortgage holders could save an average of $ 293 per month with a refi.

The best home loan or student loan refinancing rates go to borrowers with the highest creditworthiness. If you haven’t seen your score in a while, you can now easily take a look at your credit score for free.

After you’ve managed your debt, your next step could be to give your bank account a boost – maybe with some low stakes in the stock market. A very popular app helps you build a diversified portfolio with little more than your “spare money” from daily purchases.

source https://collegeeducationnewsllc.com/as-biden-mulls-vast-student-debt-forgiveness-hes-urged-to-keep-loans-frozen/

The Day – When electric vehicles are everywhere, these gasoline cars could become valuable

Detroit – On February 27, 2020 at around 8:30 a.m., the last Chevrolet Impala sedan rolled off the assembly line at the General Motors Detroit-Hamtramck plant.

GM then closed the line, spending $ 2.2 billion and almost two years retrofitting it to start building only electric vehicles under the new Factory ZERO name from the end of this year.

The Impala was a humble car, starting at around $ 31,620. Oh, but that particular cherry red Impala that rolled off the assembly line that day could be worth a lot more in the future, auto experts said.

“It could be a collector,” said McKeel Hagerty, CEO of Hagerty, a Traverse City, Michigan-based specialty vehicle insurance provider and classic car enthusiast brand. “I think the final petrol version of certain models will be very collectable and in great demand … just like the first year models.”

GM and several automakers have vowed to convert almost all cars in the world to electric in the next few decades – or sooner. Not only will the transformation change the daily commute, but there will also be changes in the world of collector cars that create both opportunities and some challenges.

“In 30 years we assume that we will be going on tour with our cars, apart from the question of where do we get the fuel from?” said Harry Clark, a classic car enthusiast who founded Classic Promenade in Phoenix. “Picture this like it is today, it’s not that easy to get propane, you really have to be together to find it. Gasoline will end up being so hard to find.”

A “COMPARED WORLD”

GM has promised to bring 30 new electric vehicles to market by 2025. CEO Mary Barra said the company aims to have all of its light commercial vehicles zero emissions by 2035.

Similarly, Ford has announced that by 2030 it will account for about 40% of global electric vehicle sales. Stellantis said 96% of its nameplates to be sold in the US will be low-emission vehicles by 2030.

But despite these lofty EV goals, there are millions of internal combustion engine vehicles on the streets today, and these aren’t going to go away anytime soon.

“We’re going to be in this mixed world of internal combustion engines and EVs that coexist, and the view from the collector vehicle space is that we don’t worry about that,” Hagerty said. “If anything, we’ll take it, and if it gets more people who want to drive for fun, that’s a good thing.”

THE BIG DEBATE

The upcoming EV invasion raises a new debate: is it better to have the first model year car … or the last of a gasoline model?

“Car companies are very smart marketers, they understand their data very well, they are very good at introducing things,” said Hagerty. “The Ford Mach-E – obviously in the design styling of the Mustang, but it’s an SUV-style vehicle. Is it a mustang? Well, they are just trying to bring that design language into an all-electric platform in the future. “This is what you will see as some automakers sometimes stop a model and then reintroduce it later.”

Take the Corvette, which has been the top-selling car in the world since the 1950s, Hagerty said. When the C7, the 2019 Corvette front-engined model, ceased production to be replaced by the C8, the 2020 mid-engined car, two different types of collectors emerged.

“Some definitely wanted the mid-engine – newest, newest, biggest Corvette,” Hagerty said. “But there were a lot of people who said, ‘I want one of the last C7s because I want the last front-engined Corvette.’ “

The final C7 rolled off the line at GM’s Bowling Green Assembly facility in Kentucky on November 14, 2019, just after 3 p.m. It was a Z06 that Dan Snyder bought for $ 2.7 million at the Barrett Jackson auction, according to the National Corvette Museum website. The penultimate mounted C7 is housed in the museum.

But the first C8, which rolled off the assembly line in January 2020 with chassis number 0001, ended up in the garage of car dealer and NASCAR racing team owner Rick Hendrick in North Carolina. Hendrick paid a staggering $ 3 million for the car. The money will be donated to the Detroit Children’s Fund.

POSSIBLE COLLECTOR CARS

“In the auto world, the car still has to be attractive and limited edition” to be a collector, but it can’t just be the first or the last off the line, Hagerty said.

That means that not all vehicles with the last gasoline rolling off the assembly line will be collectibles, only those with premium options and in good condition will retain their value, Clark said.

“A certain Porsche model or an American car that is as specific as a Corvette or a Camaro – but not all of them, one that is thrashed or not with the right options or the right year of manufacture, they’ll have a hard time getting it find a home for this vehicle, “said Clark.

Here are a few internal combustion engine vehicles that Clark as a collector sees in the EV future:

Porsche cars, especially those with manual transmissions

Every Ferrari

Most corvettes that are fully loaded with low mileage

An early model of the Toyota Prius that is in pristine condition, much like the early Tesla Roadster is now very collectible

Mercedes Benz SLR, SLS Coupés and Roadster

Ford Bronco SUV

Ford Mustangs, including the Shelby versions

Dodge Hellcats and Demons – the high-performance version of the Challenger

Cadillac Escalade, full size fully loaded SUV

Cadillac CTS-V high performance sedans

But the high-volume, daily-moving cars are unlikely to be of much value because there will be a surplus unless they’re in some way historical, like a final Impala rolling off the assembly line of a factory that never build gasoline cars will again. Years later, only those who have a direct connection to a typical mass-produced vehicle with a combustion engine will appreciate it.

“Ford has made tons of Model T and Model A and it’s difficult to find a new owner for them because you have to find an 85-year-old to bond with them,” said Clark.

THE VAN GOGH OF VEHICLES

Then there are the challenges of driving a car, said Clark. In the future, fuel will likely have your home delivered because there won’t be a lot of gas stations, he said.

Then driving the gasoline car may require special permits when autonomous vehicles begin to populate urban streets, he said.

“Society is based on computers that interact and organize, and all of a sudden someone is driving a 1957 Chevy that doesn’t have computers on it, so you’re the wild card now,” said Clark. “You may need to stay away from certain streets in this urban area.”

Still, the rare beauties like a Bugatti or Rolls-Royce will still be appreciated by collectors 75 years from now, even if it is a challenge to find gasoline to drive them.

“These are the Monets, the Rembrandts and Van Goghs,” said Clark. “There are always buyers for Monets, Rembrandts and Van Goghs.”

But the sad reality for most of us who drive our mass market cars is that they will cycle for life and, once they have maybe 150,000 miles, go to the crusher or be recycled for parts.

“All gasoline cars must be recycled over the next 15 years,” said Clark. “But if you have a Corvette now, maybe you keep it and that will become your weekend car” in an all-electric future.

source https://collegeeducationnewsllc.com/the-day-when-electric-vehicles-are-everywhere-these-gasoline-cars-could-become-valuable/

Student loan borrowers may get more time before payments resume

Serhii Shleihel | iStock | Getty Images

There is mounting evidence that student loan borrowers may have more time before having to resume payments.

Most borrowers have had their bills on hold for more than 16 months, thanks to a break offered by the U.S. Department of Education because of the financial troubles caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Currently, these payments are scheduled to start again in October.

However, an extension has been considered, say experts.

“There is a lot of discussion about what to do here,” said Scott Buchanan, executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, a trading group for loan service companies and their affiliates.

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A recent change in student loan processing could work in favor of borrowers.

The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency – which oversees the loans of 8.5 million student borrowers – announced this month that it will not renew its contract with the federal government if it ends in December. All of these borrowers therefore need to be matched with a new lender.

“It would be confusing for PHEAA borrowers to resume repayment on September 30th only to change administrators on December 14th,” said university expert Mark Kantrowitz.

“It would be better to combine both changes so that they occur at the same time.”

There were already signs that the White House is considering an extension.

In an interview with the Education Writers Association in May, Education Minister Miguel Cardona said the government was deciding whether to give borrowers more time beyond September.

Meanwhile, Democrats and supporters are pushing for an extension.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., sent a letter to President Joe Biden in June asking him to keep the payment break in effect through March 2022 in two Hadn’t made any payment for her student loan in years.

More than 120 organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Consumer Law Center, and the Consumer Federation of America, also recently wrote to the president asking him to extend the debt break until the student debt is canceled.

Maintaining the pause until a decision about forgiveness is made would reduce confusion for borrowers and service providers alike, experts say.

Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards

Biden has asked the US Department of Justice and the US Department of Education to review his legal authority to cancel student debt through executive action. These reports are still pending.

The decision on when to resume payments may also depend on how borrowers fare if the country pulls out of the pandemic.

Those with student debts struggled before Covid, more than 1 in 4 were in arrears or in arrears. After more than a year of record unemployment, this pain has only got worse.

The unemployment rate for people with an associate degree was more than 5% in May, compared to 2.8% before the pandemic. Almost 3% of Bachelor graduates remain unemployed, compared to around 2.2% before Covid.

The Congressional Budget Office recently forecast that the unemployment rate among younger workers will improve more slowly than the overall rate.

“The best guess is that the payment break and the interest waiver will be extended if the unemployment rates for university graduates have not normalized as of September 30, 2021,” said Kantrowitz.

source https://collegeeducationnewsllc.com/student-loan-borrowers-may-get-more-time-before-payments-resume/

Cherokee Nation is Offering $150 in Clothing Assistance for All Qualifying Students for Upcoming School Year

Details of Native news online staff

July 16, 2021

TAHLEQUAH, Oklahoma – The Cherokee Nation announced Friday that it is providing $ 150 in clothing assistance to each qualifying Cherokee student regardless of residence or income, with applications being accepted starting Tuesday, July 20.

The Cherokee Nation Apparel Aid Program was established to help Cherokee families buy new clothes for the upcoming school year.

Cherokee Nation Human Services will be accepting applications for the school clothing aid program through August 20, 2021 through the tribe’s online Gadugi portal at https://gadugiportal.cherokee.org.

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“Assistant Director Bryan Warner and I both understand the importance of helping our Cherokee students dress up, and I’m excited to announce that we are extending this assistance to all Cherokee students regardless of where they live for the second year in a row or family income, “said Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr.” We know the clothing aid program will help reduce the back-to-school costs that many families face each year. “

The only requirement is that students must be Cherokee nationals by July 16, 2021. Students must be 5-18 years old during the application period or must be enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade or an equivalent school program. Students can participate in public, private, virtual, or home school programs. Upper secondary students do not qualify for this program.

Applications for the aid program must be complete when submitted on the Gadugi portal. Processing of applications with incomplete or incorrect information may be delayed and applicants can be contacted for additional documentation or clarification after the deadline.

The clothing aid payment can be made electronically or by paper check after the application has been checked. Details on the dates for payment processing will be announced.

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Author: Native news online staff

source https://collegeeducationnewsllc.com/cherokee-nation-is-offering-150-in-clothing-assistance-for-all-qualifying-students-for-upcoming-school-year/