FAP419: Making beer money with the iTunes Music Store, Christopher Reeve scholarship, end of grant programs, Jon Schmidt

Student Financial Aid News
+ A high school senior from Oregon won a $100,000 scholarship from the Siemens Foundation in one of the nation's premier high school science competitions on Monday for his research in a new area of mathematics called string topology.
+ The research conducted by Dmitry Vaintrob, 18, a student at South Eugene High School in Eugene, Oregon, could provide knowledge that mathematicians and physicists might apply to understand electricity, magnetism and gravity, judges at the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology said.
+ "His work is at the Ph.D. level, publishable and already attracting the attention of researchers," said competition judge Michael Hopkins, a professor of mathematics at Harvard.
+ From Inside Higher Ed: Susan M. Dynarski, an associate professor of public policy at Harvard Universityâs Kennedy School of Government, suggested that the governmentâs student grant programs, including the Pell Grant Program, and the various federal tax breaks for college costs be merged into one mammoth tax credit program.
+ Because the tax breaks she envisions would be refundable (meaning that it would be available even to taxpayers who owe no taxes), delivered to students and families at the time they pay tuition (rather than after the fact, at tax time), and cover tuition, fees, room and board, they would help low-income students who would not otherwise attend college, not just the middle-class students who are the primary beneficiaries of existing college tax breaks like the Hope Scholarship, Dynarski said. The other major advantage of a single program, she said, is that the current maze of grant and tax incentives is too confusing for many low-income families to maneuver, which turns some number of them away from college altogether. (She noted that the publication that explains the tuition tax breaks is 82 pages long.)
+ From NASFAA: A recent Noel-Levitz sponsored research project Engaging the "Social Networking" Generation, found that 72 percent of high school juniors and seniors would like to engage with their admissions and financial aid counselors via instant messaging. More than half of all students surveyed would like the ability to chat online with their prospective school counselors.
+ Trivia: Nigerian email scams are often called 419 scams after the particular section of Nigerian law dealing with advance fee fraud
+ Too good to be true? It is.
+ Smell fishy? It is.

Scholarship Update
+ The Heart of America Foundation's Christopher Reeve Award
+ Presented each year to an extraordinary youth who has demonstrated tremendous courage and compassion in serving his or her community. Nominees should be high school seniors or younger and the awardee must be a high school senior or younger at the time of the award in December. Nominations will be considered from September through November each year by an awards review committee. One award recipient will be selected by the end of December, and will receive a $1000 scholarship for post secondary education.
+ Nominator's name, relationship to nominee, and complete contact information
+ Nominee's complete contact information, including address, phone, email, age
+ Nominee's school name, address and current grade level
+ Length of time doing volunteer work
+ Approximate hours of volunteer service
+ Details of volunteer work for each project
+ What sets the nominee apart from other volunteers
+ Three references with day time contact information
+ Any supporting documentation (i.e. awards, articles, etc).
+ Details at our free scholarship search site
+ Scholarship Points drawing coming up at the end of the month

Beer Money
+ iTunes affiliate program
+ Netflix affiliate program
+ Linkshare affiliate management
+ iTunes is 5% of anything in the store
+ Netflix is $9 per signup
+ Join LinkShare Today!
+ A beer money section will be going into the Fourth Edition of Scholarship Search Secrets!

Podsafe Music
+ Jon Schmidt, Homecoming
+ Example iTunes link: Buy Homecoming for 99 cents in the iTunes Music Store
+ Example redirected link: Redirected link to Jon's song on iTunes
+ Music via the Podsafe Music Network
+ Stop by our MySpace page!

Reminders
+ Private student loans available at any time - visit AlternativeStudentLoan.com
+ Stafford federal student loans at StaffordLoan.com
+ Student loan consolidation at StudentLoanConsolidator.com
+ FAFSA form online filing at FAFSAonline.com
+ Financial Aid Podcast Show Notes at FinancialAidPodcast.com.
+ The Financial Aid Podcast is a publication of the Student Loan Network.

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