FAP390: Vampires everywhere, free stuff Friday, rents rising nationwide, The CoffinShakers

Student Financial Aid News
+ A $1.39 billion private loan securitization drove First Marblehead Corp.âs revenue up to $301.8 million from $35.1 million for the quarter ending Sept. 30.
+ The securitization, the Boston-based student lenderâs largest ever, generated $247 million in service revenues, including $173.3 million up-front at the time of the closing.
+ First Marbleheadâs net income for the quarter was $140 million â or $2.23 per share â up from a $5.4 million â $0.08 per share â loss a year ago.
+ First Marblehead powers our Act Education Private Student Loan program
+ How much is a bachelor's degree worth? About $23,000 a year, the government said in a report released Thursday. That is the average gap in earnings between adults with bachelor's degrees and those with high school diplomas, according to data from the Census Bureau. College graduates made an average of $51,554 in 2004, the most recent figures available, compared with $28,645 for adults with a high school diploma. High school dropouts earned an average of $19,169 and those with advanced college degrees made an average of $78,093.
+ Apartment rents and demand are soaring nationwide as the economy produces good jobs and people who might have bought homes a year ago settle for apartments while they wait for housing prices to tumble.
+ You might want to think about asking your landlord about future rent increases and locking in current rent if you can
+ In lighter news, it's Halloween weekend. One University of Central Florida professor has even used the holiday as an excuse to address a need for greater scientific literacy among his students and the general public. Costas Efthimiou, an assistant professor of physics there, developed a Fermi equation demonstrating that vampires and humans could not coexist for any sustained period of time.
+ Efthimiou takes out the calculator to prove that if a vampire sucked one person's blood each month _ turning each victim into an equally hungry vampire _ after a couple of years there would be no people left, just vampires. He started his calculations with just one vampire and 537 million humans on Jan. 1, 1600 and shows that the human population would be down to zero by July 1602.
+ But Efthimiou said heâs been âdepressedâ by the responses he gotten to his equation, which was picked up by the Associated Press. Rather than encouraging the general public to think scientifically, not pseudo-scientifically, he said his work has provoked angry messages from people, who cling to their conceptions that vampires exist and knock his numbers accordingly.
+ One person, Efthimiou said, criticized his failure to account for Buffy the Vampire Slayerâs role in keeping the vampire population in check.
+ Incidentally, I recommend Jon Merz' MySpace serial vampire book, The Courier

Scholarship Update
+ I had to go looking for a vampire scholarship
+ Bat Conservation International Student Research Scholarships
+ $5,000 awards
+ Unrestricted
+ December 15, 2006 deadline
+ More details at our free scholarship web site
+ Only 10 episodes left until our 400th episode and scholarship drawing!

Free Stuff Friday
+ Resume editing tips using formatting
+ Free music at Netlabels
+ Free iPod movie converter
+ Free iPod DVD ripper
+ Firefox revised to version 2.0
+ Free multiprotocol instant messenger
+ 20 more great free fonts

Podsafe Music
+ The Coffinshakers, Halloween
+ Music via the Podsafe Music Network
+ Stop by our MySpace page!

Reminders
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+ Financial Aid Podcast Show Notes at FinancialAidPodcast.com.
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