Pricey: The cost of college textbooks has risen more than 100 percent in the past 20 years. Among possible fixes: text-rental programs and increased financial aid. Robert Harbison
With students paying up to $1,000 yearly, advisory panel urges use of digital market.
By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo
Will there be a truce in the battle over college-textbook prices?
Textbooks have become a flash point in the larger frustration over sharply rising college costs. In an attempt to get past finger-pointing, a new report highlights what publishers, policymakers, and faculty are doing, and can do, to give students some relief.
Where to find the fairest prices for student loans
Can you imagine someone ripping you off for a Payday candy bar? Something close to that apparently has been happening at the University of Texas, where the financial aid office maintained a list of the freebies showered on the staff by student loan companies. Payday candy bars caught my eye; however, there were other goodies, including barbecue lunches, lasagna, cakes, popcorn and ice cream.
Prayerful approach: Monem Salam is a deputy portfolio manager for Amana Funds, a fund group that applies Islamic law to its stock picks. 'If Islam forbids it, then we're not going to buy it,' he says. Josie Liming/Special to the Christian Science Monitor
Islamic funds make gains by avoiding financial-services firms and those deep in debt.
By G. Jeffrey MacDonald
The strategy is almost heresy on Wall Street: Find a top-performing investment by seeking out a mutual fund with some of the industry's strictest ethical screening requirements.
Yet that approach, if adopted, would work in at least one case. The Amana Income Fund, which avoids not only alcohol, tobacco, and gambling stocks but also pork producers and lenders who charge interest, received a Lipper award earlier this year for outperforming 180 equity income funds - screened and unscreened - over the past three years.
It's like a summer movie: the incredible shrinking dollar.
Since the beginning of the year, the buck has shrunk 5 percent - the equivalent of a 20 percent annual decline - compared with the pound and the euro.
But the shriveling value of the dollar may eventually help solve one of the most intractable US economic problems: the enormous trade deficit, which hit $63.9 billion in March, the highest level since September of last year.
Graduates may be inundated with offers. Here's some advice from the experts.
By Chris Gaylord | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Elizabeth Hira has seen the pitch many times before.
Since graduating last June from Stanford University, Ms. Hira has received piles of postcards and letters, littered with exclamation points, percentages, and the infamous tagline "consolidate now."
US stock markets are hitting record highs. But why?
New York Stock Exchange: Traders work on the floor. One debate among Wall Street analysts is how long the tide of profits from overseas - and the merger boom - will continue. Mark Lennihan/AP
A slowing US economy hasn't dampened Wall Street. Global markets, mergers are a buffer.
Stock markets in the United States have been setting records lately, despite economic conditions that hardly seem like a recipe for boom times on Wall Street.
Gasoline has jumped above $3 a gallon in price, yet the Dow Jones Industrial Average recently pushed above 13000 for the first time in its history.
Websites are allowing person-to-person loans, cutting out the middleman.
By Simone Baribeau | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
New York
A man dressed as the animated movie hero Mr. Incredible presents himself before a group of lenders. He wants a new gaming system, new wakeboard bindings, and maybe a vacation. Or, as he puts it, "$6,000 to blow for fun." And he's willing to pay 10 percent annual interest for a three-year loan.
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