7 Reasons Why Junior Farmer Schools Hold Promise for African Youth

“You can study and still not find a job, but if you can farm, you can go and do something for yourself.” Francisco, 15Young people in Africa face many obstacles as they enter the world of work, but a junior farming program is helping to clear their paths.If Africa is to prosper, its young and rapidly growing labor force must prosper – above all in agriculture. Farming is the continent’s biggest employer and biggest potential engine of economic growth.The generation entering the African labor force now is the most educated ever, say the authors of a new World Bank report, but employment opportunities haven’t improved. Few wage jobs exist. Most young people work for themselves or their families on small farms or in household …

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“You can study and still not find a job, but if you can farm, you can go and do something for yourself.” Francisco, 15

Young people in Africa face many obstacles as they enter the world of work, but a junior farming program is helping to clear their paths.

If Africa is to prosper, its young and rapidly growing labor force must prosper – above all in agriculture. Farming is the continent’s biggest employer and biggest potential engine of economic growth.

The generation entering the African labor force now is the most educated ever, say the authors of a new World Bank report, but employment opportunities haven’t improved. Few wage jobs exist. Most young people work for themselves or their families on small farms or in household businesses. Underemployment in the informal sector is widespread, meaning that young people live in poverty or near poverty even when they work hard in fields and shops.

Started by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in 2003, Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools have given life-enhancing skills to 20,000 12- to 18-year-olds across 20 countries. Here are seven reasons for their success in preparing youth to build better livelihoods:

1. The schools bridge the gap between supply and demand for vocational training.

Most young people in rural areas don’t get past primary school. But Africa’s few formal agricultural schools and programs require at least some secondary education. In Junior Farmer Schools, young people who have no other avenue to vocational training learn modern farming skills.

2. The schools complement formal education.

Literacy and numeracy lead to better farm incomes, in part because they provide the foundation for learning modern farming techniques. Since Junior Farmer Schools offer vocational training after school hours and admit only 12- to 18-year-olds, they don’t compete with the formal education system. In fact, some are based in primary schools, where they have helped boost enrollment, attendance and performance.

3. The schools minimize opportunity costs.

Though classes are free, they require a modest investment of time. The weekly commitment of about 10 hours over a few days allows young people to go to school or work full time on a farm or in a household business.

4. The schools build a broad range of skills that enhance productivity.

Young people learn about modern farming practices, including pest management, soil and water conservation, horticulture and livestock management. But farming skills alone won’t enable them to seize opportunities and face challenges and risks in their lives. So the curriculum also builds life skills, such as nutrition, child rights and protection, HIV/AIDS prevention and gender awareness as well as business skills like budgeting and marketing. Vocational and life skill topics are creatively integrated in the curriculum. For example, units on soil fertility are paired with units on nutrition. And participatory learning methods help build critical thinking and behavioral skills, like self-confidence.

5. The schools help bring the poorest and most vulnerable young people into the mainstream of economic and community life.

Rural youth lack access to opportunities, services and networks. This is especially true for girls, young people who are out of school, and orphans. Tragically, Africa’s HIV/AIDS epidemic is creating a growing population of orphans who don’t have parents to teach them farming and other skills. Junior Farmer Schools target young people who tend to be excluded because of their age, sex and social status. Communities select an equal number of boys and girls while giving priority to those who are orphans or out of school.

6. The schools are community-driven.

The Food and Agriculture Organization and its government and U.N. partners provide technical and financial support to schools. But local communities and volunteers run them – sourcing plots of land, recruiting facilitators, selecting young people, assessing training needs, choosing the curriculum and monitoring and evaluating their progress. Communities tailor the program to local needs, assess and improve its effectiveness, and support schools with in-kind contributions. This decentralized approach fosters relevance and accountability while helping to reduce costs.

7. The schools help graduates move on to the next stage of their journey to decent livelihoods.

In their second year, participants apply and build on business skills gained in the first. Teachers guide them through the process of becoming entrepreneurs — identifying opportunities and risks, creating business plans, and connecting with information and resources in the community. Resources may include markets, role models, microcredit, further vocational training in Farmer Field Schools (a kind of adult counterpart to Junior Farmer Schools), farmer groups, and relevant government services and programs.

Of course, young people in rural Africa need an environment of opportunity as well as skills to better their lives. Major new public and private investments are vital — in agricultural research and technology, value chains, access to credit, irrigation systems, and roads for transporting goods to markets.

These investments must come from African leaders, donors in the developed world, and multinational and African companies. To judge by the plans and activities of the African Union, the Global Food and Agricultural Security Program set up by the G-20, and the Grow Africa partnership, the investment outlook for agriculture is promising.

Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools show that investing in the skills of young farmers makes good economic sense, even to poor rural communities. Now it’s time to expand the program so that young people can create a better future for themselves and for Africa.

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California Students Seek Financial Aid In Record Numbers

arindambanerjee / Shutterstock.com Students in the most populous U.S. state, which has long had a reputation for taking care of its college-bound residents, are asking for assistance at record levels. After years of rising tuition and pressure on household budgets, a record number of students across California are applying for college financial aid, the Sacramento Bee reports. Over the last six school years, the number of California residents filing the federal financial aid application jumped nearly 74 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Some local colleges saw even higher increases, such as an 81 percent rise among California State University, Sacramento, applicants. Itâ��s the latest sign that college families have grown akin to mall shoppers when it comes to price: fewer and fewer expect…

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Students in the most populous U.S. state, which has long had a reputation for taking care of its college-bound residents, are asking for assistance at record levels. After years of rising tuition and pressure on household budgets, a record number of students across California are applying for college financial aid, the Sacramento Bee reports.

Over the last six school years, the number of California residents filing the federal financial aid application jumped nearly 74 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Some local colleges saw even higher increases, such as an 81 percent rise among California State University, Sacramento, applicants.

It’s the latest sign that college families have grown akin to mall shoppers when it comes to price: fewer and fewer expect to pay sticker price.

While tuition soared at California State University and University of California campuses during the recession, schools simultaneously provided more grants and scholarships to blunt the impact. The state also continued providing Cal Grants to cover rising costs for lower-income families.

The percentage of UC and CSU freshmen receiving financial aid increased from 57 percent in 2006-07 to 72 percent in 2011-12, according to federal data.

“California did a better job than many states in having our state financial aid programs keep pace with the tuition increases,” said Judy Heiman, who tracks financial aid at the LAO.

In order to receive the financial aid, eligible students have to file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The FAFSA collects data on family income and assets to help colleges determine how much aid students qualify for.

Education counselors are encouraging as many families as possible to submit the application form by the March 2 deadline not only to ensure that they can access long-standing aid programs, but also because the state has devoted $107 million toward a new “middle-class scholarship” for households earning up to $150,000.

The Cal-SOAP Consortium, one of more than a dozen organizations around the state that hold “Cash for College” workshops to provide FAFSA filing help, is offering free help to students who need it.

The FAFSA asks applicants for a host of details, including income, assets and family size. That data is used to calculate how much a family is expected to contribute out-of-pocket and passed on to campuses to determine eligibility for federal, state and campus aid. In the 2012-13 academic year, 2.65 million graduate and undergraduate students based in California filed FAFSA applications, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Starting last year, California began offering a similar Dream Act application for undocumented students who attended California high schools. State leaders in 2011 enacted legislation giving such students access to financial aid.

Universities have expanded the eligible population by providing aid to families earning higher incomes. UC institutions provide scholarships and grants to cover tuition and fees for students whose families earn $80,000 or less.

UC Davis in 2013 created its own Aggie Grant Plan to undergraduates whose families earn from $80,000 to $120,000. Starting last school year, UC Berkeley extended financial aid to families earning up to $140,000.

In some cases, students rely on additional aid for living costs. For instance, CSU tries to use Cal Grants to cover tuition and fees where possible, leaving federal Pell Grants to help pay for housing and food.

Aid packages typically include several layers of financial help. Grants and scholarships require no repayment. Schools may ask students to find a campus job to take advantage of federal work-study funding. To bridge any further gap, students and their parents may have to take out federal or private loans.

After California voters approved tax hikes in 2012 and state coffers benefited from capital gains growth, tuition has remained flat for two school years at UC and CSU. Gov. Jerry Brown has asked the systems to keep tuition flat for a third straight year.

The percentage of California university students receiving financial aid should climb higher under the “Middle Class Scholarship” approved last year by state leaders. The plan, initiated by Assembly Speaker John A. Perez, D-Los Angeles, aids families earning up to $150,000 with children attending UC or CSU. The state is phasing in the scholarship program over the next three school years.

Given that most families qualify for some level of financial aid, high school counselors and California Student Aid Commission officials are trying to ensure families file their FAFSAs this month.

The Cal-SOAP Consortium, a program of the Sacramento County Office of Education and CSAC, is planning another half-dozen “Cash for College” workshops through Feb. 25. All told, organizations statewide hold about 800 “Cash for College” workshops. .

And individual schools are getting into the act. At Laguna Creek High, for example, prizes from tickets to the senior ball and a free yearbook are planned for filling out FAFSAs, said Alycia Sato, one of two head counselors at Laguna Creek High School in Elk Grove.

“We are really trying to get them to do it,” Sato said. “Because if they don’t, they miss out on so much.”

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"Higher court rules Roy Gomm uniform suit not over"

“Higher court rules Roy Gomm uniform suit not over”: The Reno Gazette-Journal has this news update. And at the “School Law” blog of Education Week, Mark Walsh has a post titled “9th Circuit Casts Doubt on Policy Requiring School Uniform With Motto.”My earlier coverage of today’s Ninth Circuit ruling appears at this link.Posted at 11:00 PM by Howard Bashman”Justice Dept. Defends Its Conduct on Evidence”: In Saturday’s edition of The New York Times, Charlie Savage will have an article that begins, “The Justice Department has told a federal judge in Oregon that it did not engage in misconduct when prosecutors failed to tell a defendant that he faced evidence derived from warrantless wiretapping before his trial last year on terrorism-related charges.” Posted …

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“Higher court rules Roy Gomm uniform suit not over”: The Reno Gazette-Journal has this news update.

And at the “School Law” blog of Education Week, Mark Walsh has a post titled “9th Circuit Casts Doubt on Policy Requiring School Uniform With Motto.”

My earlier coverage of today’s Ninth Circuit ruling appears at this link.

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A Love Letter to Shifting Paradigms in Higher Ed

Today is Valentine’s Day. So, in honor of the holiday, I’m going to throw out some love on and props to those things I find pretty cool on the higher ed landscape. But first, a little background. Valentine’s Day — it is believed — began in the late Fifth Century when Pope Gelasius I declared a Christian feast day in honor of St. Valentine and, at the same time, abolished the ancient Roman pagan festival of Lupercalia, which was traditionally held on February 15. Lupercalia was one of the oldest known Roman festivals. It celebrated fertility, and not much else is known about it. Although it’s been co-opted by greeting card and chocolate makers, the holiday has survived under it’s current name…

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Today is Valentine’s Day. So, in honor of the holiday, I’m going to throw out some love on and props to those things I find pretty cool on the higher ed landscape. But first, a little background.

Valentine’s Day — it is believed — began in the late Fifth Century when Pope Gelasius I declared a Christian feast day in honor of St. Valentine and, at the same time, abolished the ancient Roman pagan festival of Lupercalia, which was traditionally held on February 15. Lupercalia was one of the oldest known Roman festivals. It celebrated fertility, and not much else is known about it. Although it’s been co-opted by greeting card and chocolate makers, the holiday has survived under it’s current name for a millennium and half and, as Lupercania, for several hundred years before.

How is it that we, in some form, are still celebrating a holiday that pre-dates the Roman Empire? Because Valentine’s Day has evolved with us, and we have continually adapted it to be (somewhat) relevant in light of our current place in history.

To complete my tortured metaphor, that’s what higher ed needs to do to remain relevant. Over the past few years we’ve seen some signs of such evolution. And I love them.

Happy Valentine’s Day to Free Schools!

People and employers are beginning to understand that the value of higher ed is in the education, itself, not in the diploma handed out. More and more in today’s global, crowd-sourced, freelance economy, employers and clients are looking for mad skills and chops more than a fancy credential.

That’s why I love the idea of non-profits like CodeAcademy. One of several sites that will teach you to code — for free or at a nominal cost — CodeAcademy offers those so-inclined to learn what amounts to a modern trade. Students can then take what they learn, build an app or design a site, and, suddenly, they are viable candidates for paying jobs. What’s truly beautiful about this model is that coding languages are global, so anyone with an Internet connection and Google translate, anywhere in the world, could ostensibly learn this crucial, modern skill.

Another nonprofit that I’m loving — especially for its global reach — is University of the People. With no brick and mortar campus, all instruction at the tuition-free university is delivered online over the Internet. While the school offers degrees (both bachelors and associates) in computer science and business administration, the degrees are not yet accredited. But the instruction is real, and People University has some powerful educational partners including Yale Law School, New York University and the United Nations.

University of the People is at the forefront of offering world-class education to students who may not have access to higher ed in their own countries — or in places where the education matters more that the diploma. The school offers a unique perspective on what the future of education could be and represents a really sweet shift in the traditional college paradigm.

MOOCs Be Mine!

Accredited or not, massively open online courses (MOOCs) rock. They are a fantastic way to simply learn on your own by taking classes sponsored by renowned, accredited universities and taught by their faculty. I’ve enrolled for MOOCs for three semesters, now, and although I have nothing more than an unaccredited electronic certificate to show for them, they have enhanced my life.

That being said, companies like EdX and Coursera offer verified certificates — at a cost of around $50 — that they hope can one day translate into college credits. The courses offered through Coursera and other MOOC providers are not Last February, for example, the American Council on Education (ACE), which advises 1,800 schools on matters of accreditation, recommended that several MOOCs be approved for college credit at its member institutions. The problem is that ACE member schools are not bound by the Council’s recommendations. And, at this point, none of the sites through which MOOCs are offered confer degrees. So, those who enroll in the courses simply out of interest or for the educational value, are getting a tremendous bargain — the courses are free or cheap.

Even if you don’t actually get credit for MOOC courses, you can still translate them into college credits, or at least, college savings. You can use MOOCs to study for credits by exam like CLEP. Or if your school requires you to take placement tests on entry, use the MOOCs to bone up on math and language skills and avoid paying for a remedial prerequisite class.

Yep, these are the things I’m loving about higher ed today. Hope you all are able to focus on some love today, too. Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Macklem: Flexible Inflation Targeting and �Good … – Forex Factory

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Macklem: Flexible Inflation Targeting and �Good� and �Bad� Disinflation – Good afternoon. I want to particularly thank Professor Switzer for inviting me to speak here at the John Molson School of Business. I grew up in Montr�al …

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Student Debt Increases Nationwide

Anna Shuqom wasnâ��t all that surprised to hear that students at Wheelock College graduate with average loan debt of nearly $50,000, one of the highest totals in the country. The Wheelock sophomore figures she will owe at least twice that, even with aid from the school she will not have to repay. â��Itâ��s a lot of money,â�� she said on the Fenway campus recently, frowning at the prospect of the prohibitive monthly loan payments that await her after graduation. â��But the costs keep going up.â�� So does student debt. More than 70 percent of US college graduates last year had student loan debt, with an average of more than $29,000, according to a report by the Institute for College Access & Success, a research and advocacy…

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Anna Shuqom wasn’t all that surprised to hear that students at Wheelock College graduate with average loan debt of nearly $50,000, one of the highest totals in the country. The Wheelock sophomore figures she will owe at least twice that, even with aid from the school she will not have to repay.

“It’s a lot of money,” she said on the Fenway campus recently, frowning at the prospect of the prohibitive monthly loan payments that await her after graduation. “But the costs keep going up.”

So does student debt. More than 70 percent of US college graduates last year had student loan debt, with an average of more than $29,000, according to a report by the Institute for College Access & Success, a research and advocacy group.

In Massachusetts, 2012 graduates of Wheelock and several other small private schools — Anna Maria College, Becker College, and Curry College — had average debts of more than $40,000.

Related

Graphic: Debt from local colleges

The latest figures underline the growing problem of the massive sums many college students are borrowing, debt that follows them for years. Last year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimated that national student loan debt was approaching $1.2 trillion, a 20 percent jump from 2011.

‘Students and families need to know that debt levels can vary widely from college to college.’

“Students and families need to know that debt levels can vary widely from college to college,” said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access & Success.

Students in Massachusetts graduated with average debt of more than $28,000, the 12th-highest in the country. Two-thirds of all students graduated with some debt.

Loan burdens are often heaviest at small private schools with modest endowments, where tuition is high and financial aid — grants, scholarships, and other nonloan assistance — is relatively modest.

At wealthier private schools, such as Boston College, Amherst College, and Harvard University, loan burdens are far less onerous, the report found.

That is because these schools can dip into their endowments to help disadvantaged students.

At Williams College, where the annual cost of attendance is almost $59,000, less than one-third of students graduate with debt, with an average burden of under $13,000.

By contrast, at Becker College, which costs about $43,000 annually, nearly all students take out loans and leave the school with an average debt of nearly $45,000.

At Boston University, Suffolk University, and Babson College, students graduated with average debt of more than $30,000.

The report relied on figures provided by colleges, and more than half of all public and nonprofit private schools responded.

Richard Doherty, president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts, said that students, on average, graduate from private colleges in Massachusetts with only slightly more debt than graduates from public colleges.

At the University of Massachusetts Amherst, for example, more than 70 percent of graduates took out loans, with an average debt of nearly $28,000.

“By and large, there is a tremendous amount of institutional aid,” at private colleges, which for most students substantially lowers the overall cost, Doherty said.

In Massachusetts, many colleges say they have increased financial aid in an effort to ease the burden on students and their families.

Wheelock says it provides assistance to nearly all its students, with an average of $21,200 in aid.

Becker, in Worcester, says it has boosted aid by more than 43 percent over the past three years, but it is a tuition-dependent college with a modest endowment.

For undergraduates who entered Becker this fall, tuition will remain frozen during their four years.

Officials at smaller private colleges say they attract many students from less wealthy backgrounds, who even with generous financial aid packages must borrow money.

At the same time, the schools typically lack the substantial endowments of larger schools.

“They are the least wealthy institutions, and they provide access to and serve some of the financially neediest students,” said Fran Jackson, director of communication for Curry College in Milton, which costs more than $47,000 annually for resident students.

The school has increased financial aid by $7 million in recent years to help students defray the cost, Jackson said.

At Wheelock, many students were unsure how much they would ultimately have to borrow, but most believed it was worth it to attend a strong school.

“It’s one of those things you just expect going to a private college,” said Jessica Hersom, a junior from Maine. “I’m getting a great education here.”

Indeed, many students said cost did not play a major role in their college decision. They placed a higher value on the small, close-knit campus and its Boston location.

That was also true for Shuqom, who is from Brookline but lives on campus. For now, she was content not to worry too much about the mounting debt.

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Reader Mailbag: My Travel Goal

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What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to five word summaries. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.

1. Is diversified debt necessary?

2. Sibling who constantly borrows

3. Debt payoff order

4. Retirement and career changes

5. Living off net worth

6. Personal finance is complicated

7. Struggling in financial quicksand

8. What’s the point of cookbooks?

9. Question about combining finances

10. Unused credit cards

Not too long ago, I picked up a National Geographic Guide to the National Parks of the United States. Since then, it’s rarely left my desk. I’ve found myself flipping through it all the time, reading bits about various national parks and the natural beauty found just within the borders of our country.

As I’ve said before, I love to go camping, as does Sarah. Thus, we’ve decided to make it our goal to camp for at least one night in every national park – or, barring that, at least spend significant time visiting them. Here’s the list of all 59 of them.

We live in the middle of Iowa, so none of them are particularly close. It will take significant traveling to make it to all of them.

Q1: Is diversified debt necessary?

My husband and I are both in our mid 20′s with no debt. We will be looking to buy a home in the next few years. Neither of us have ever had a student loan or financed our cars. We have several credit cards (in the process of cancelling those we don’t use), but we pay them off in full every month.

I am about to start my last semester of graduate school and have been approved for an unsubsidized federal loan. We’ve managed to save more than we anticipated and can actually afford to pay tuition without the loan. Should we cancel the loan disbursement or keep it and pay it off quickly? I’m wondering if the student loan would diversify our debt and put us in a better position when we apply for mortgage loans. Do you have any recommendations for us?

- Donna

If you have several cards and you pay the balance off in full each month, your credit is going to be in very good shape, particularly if you’re never late on your other payments (like your energy bill).

If you are sure you can afford the tuition without the loan, there’s no real reason to get the loan. Since it’s unsubsidized, you won’t gain from taking the loan anyway, so I wouldn’t take it.

If you have several cards you keep paid off and you pay all of your other bills on time, you will be fine when it comes to getting a mortgage.

Q2: Sibling who constantly borrows

My husband and I are in good financial shape. We have no debts except for our mortgage and contribute to our retirement plans. Our problem is with my husband’s younger sister and her husband. They are always spending far more than they earn and when they get into too much debt they go to his parents and ask for more money, which his parents give them.

My big concern is that they won’t have any money left when they’re old. The amount that they give to my husband’s sister is quite a lot and that money is coming out of their retirement either directly or indirectly. If they do find themselves broke when they’re old my husband will jump in and help them out, which basically means we’re paying for his younger sister to be an idiot.

How do I deal with this without blowing up and causing a huge family war?

- Alice

If I were you, I’d sit down with his parents but without his sister and talk about their retirement. Frame it in the context that you are concerned about what their financial needs will be when they’re older and you need to plan for that.

If they’re in strong shape, then I wouldn’t worry about it too much. If they’re saving adequately for retirement, then what they do with their money is their choice.

On the other hand, if they’re not in strong shape, you should strongly encourage them to buckle down with their retirement savings.

There’s very little that you’ll gain from addressing your husband’s sister directly. That will not end well.

Q3: Debt payoff order

I have four debts:

Credit Card 1 – $5,500 at 24%

Credit Card 2 – $1,000 at 20%

Student Loan – $12,000 at 6%

Car Loan – $4,500 at 7%

Which one should I pay off first? Dave Ramsey seems to think I should pay off Credit Card 2 first, but doesn’t it make more sense to pay off the other card first?

- Daniel

Ramsey’s philosophy is that it is more psychologically rewarding to get a debt paid off as soon as possible, which will lift you and encourage you to keep pushing forward. This would point to Credit Card 2, then the Car Loan, then Credit Card 1.

However, the total amount you pay off is minimized if you pay them off in the order of interest rate, meaning you’d pay off Credit Card 1 first, then Credit Card 2, then the Car Loan.

I don’t think either one is really wrong. Unless you are paying them off really, really slowly, the difference in interest isn’t going to make a whole lot of difference. Choose the path that feels right for you and just push as hard as you can. You won’t fail either way.

Q4: Retirement and career changes

I’m a high school teacher, but I’m beginning to think I might not be able to do this another 20 years (which is how long I’d need to work to receive full pension benefits). While I love working with kids, teaching in my state and my content area is changing a lot and not in ways I like. However, I’m scared to make decisions that will move me towards other work because my retirement is wrapped up in the state pension system. While I’ll fully vested, I’d only receive a tiny pension if I left the profession now. Do you have any advice about how to proceed? Clearly, I’d need to save for retirement in other ways, but I’m worried I wouldn’t have enough time.

If it help to know this, my spouse is also a teacher (though he will likely stay in the profession for the 18 or so years he has until retirement), we have two kids, and own our house, mortgage-free. We have no debt at all, and we have healthy college savings account started for each of our children. We have a significant emergency fund saved. We also have 403b accounts to which we’ve contributed about $31k, and we have $24k in a TIAA-CREF account from my husband’s years in private school.

- Melissa

I don’t have an accurate assessment of your age, but I would assume that you are about twenty years from when you plan to retire. Let’s say you’re 45.

If that’s the case, I’d sit down and assess exactly what you would have to do to have enough saved for retirement if you didn’t switch jobs. How much more would you have to save to make it? This will require some retirement calculator work, of course. You should also include your pension in here. I’d use this calculator from Kiplinger’s as a starting point.

Now, let’s say you didn’t have your pension at all – or it’s really tiny. What would you have to save in that case?

That second picture is the one you need to look at when assessing a career switch. Is that second picture actually possible for you and your husband? Can you save that much? If you can, then you should make that leap if you’re unhappy. Even if you can’t, you can talk together about whether postponing retirement for a few years is an option or whether retirement on less money than you expected is realistic.

Q5: Living off net worth

What should your net worth be before you can simply live off of it?

- Darren

This is a really tricky question to answer because most people have a significant portion of their net worth tied up in their home, so that skews the answer.

If I were trying to figure this out, I’d figure my net worth, then subtract from that any assets that I would not want to have to sell, like my home. I would then divide that by 25 and see if that number is enough to live on.

Dividing by 25 shows you what 4% of your liquid net worth is. It’s reasonable to expect your net worth, if properly invested, will grow by more than 4% per year. That way, your net worth should last for a very long time even with inflation being a factor.

Q6: Personal finance is complicated

I get frustrated when reading personal finance advice. There are too many little catches and “gotchas” that make it feel like you can never get ahead.

- Bradley

Most of those details come from people with significant net worth who are trying to squeeze another percent or two out of their money.

For most people, that’s irrelevant – their focus should be solely on getting out of debt and spending less than they earn.

If you’re finding that it’s actually cost efficient to spend a lot of hours processing receipts and studying tax rules to squeeze a single percent reduction in your taxes, then you’ve probably reached a point where hiring a personal accountant would make sense.

My take on most of personal finance is that if it seems overly complicated, it probably is. Most of the big steps people should take are really, really simple ones.

Q7: Struggling in financial quicksand

About 2 years ago I took a big pay cut to take what I thought would be a better job in the long run. They ended up screwing me over and I’m still making about the same as when I started $39,000. When I started I had about $35,000 in Federal Student Loans, $15,000 on a car loan, and $12,000 in credit card debt. Lots of things happened over the past 2 years and now my credit card debt is much higher ($41,500) while my income is only $39,900 per year. I’m weighing my options about what do. The lawyers recommend bankruptcy but that hurts your credit for long time. Debt Settlement companies would reduce the total amount that I pay, but then they charge 21-25% of the debt amount and you end up with a bigger debt because you have to go 90 days without making payments. Debt Consolation is another option, but that doesn’t decrease the debt and they add their fees on top of it. I don’t have a rich family member that can help me out of this mess. I’m extremely stressed out about it and feel stupid for taking this job. What do you suggest? I’ve already started using your money saving techniques but with this much debt it’s not enough. I’m looking for a better job and that might happen but I can’t count on it. Where I live there aren’t many 2nd job options that aren’t already taken. What would you do?

- Gary

You are simply spending more than you’re earning, and without changing that, no thing is going to fix your problem. You went from $12,000 to $41,500 in credit card debt in two years. The only way that can possibly happen is from overspending.

The only fix to this situation is that you sit down and seriously reassess every dime that you’re spending. Do you need the car that you drive? What about your living quarters? How often are you eating out each week? How many of your non-essential purchases are actually worthwhile?

If I were you, the first step I’d take is to cut up the credit cards and learn to live without them. All they’re doing is adding to your problems.

Q8: What’s the point of cookbooks?

What value do cookbooks have in the internet age? I can just Google any recipe that I want.

- Vi

If you view a cookbook as just a collection of random recipes, then the internet absolutely trumps it. Many cookbooks are in fact just that – a bunch of random recipes. Those cookbooks deserve to be relegated to the dustbin.

Good cookbooks still have a purpose, though. Good cookbooks focus as much on technique as on recipes. They show you in detail how to prepare a dish. Good cookbooks are also curated, meaning that they collect recipes that are actually good and have some collective cohesion to them. On the ‘net, the recipes aren’t really curated at all – it’s the Wild West.

To me, the closest thing on the ‘net to replacing a good cookbook is a well-written food blog. Even then, it can be hard to use them as a reference unless they’re exceptionally well organized and have a huge back catalog.

Q9: Question about combining finances

My husband-to-be and I are getting married in April. When is the appropriate time to start combining our finances?

- Melissa

I would wait until you’re married, but I would do it as soon as possible after getting married.

Why wait? If something were to happen that would prevent your marriage, you would seriously regret combining your checking account and adding each other as secondary beneficiaries on your accounts, for example.

Before then, I would encourage you to look thoroughly at each other’s accounts and start planning for a married life together. You should also consider a prenupital agreement, even if it seems unnecessary, because it’s a simple step that can protect you both if things don’t go as you dream.

Q10: Unused credit cards

I have 4 credit cards without any balance and all of which I do not plan on using ever again. I’ve read several places NOT to close them as that will hurt my credit score.

Instead, they say to put a little bit each month on the credit cards (things like utility bills, cell phone payment, etc.) and pay them off right away. This is where I get anxious because I know myself and I know my spending. I know that if I put a little bit each month on the cards, that small amount will grow little by little; and then, BAM, I’m back with over $10,000.00 in credit card debt which I refuse to allow myself to possess. It is so easy to put small, cheap things on the credit cards without noticing how much it actually adds up. Additionally, keeping track of them all is a challenge and slightly overwhelming.

My question is what other options do I have with the unused credit cards? Is it ok to simply let them sit in my closet and grow nothing more but dust? I’ve not had any inactivity fees … yet.

- Nathan

The small amount of benefit that you might get from putting small amounts on several different cards and paying them off isn’t worth the risk here if you’re a compulsive overspender (which is basically what you’re describing).

Your best bet is to do what you describe – stick them in the closet. If you’re ever hit with an inactivity fee, cancel the card. If you ever see some sort of identity theft issue, cancel the card.

It’s not hard to keep track of four balances that should be $0.00. If anything changes on them, then you immediately know something is up.

Got any questions? The best way to ask is to email me – trent at thesimpledollar dot com. Iíll attempt to answer them in a future mailbag (which, by way of full disclosure, may also get re-posted on other websites that pick up my blog). However, I do receive many, many questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours.

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Watch Out For These FAFSA Fails

Applying for financial aid is an annual rite for college students and their parents. It’s tedious and the process is often compared to any number of dental procedures. As painful as filling out the forms â�� electronically or otherwise â�� may be, the discomfort can be exacerbated quite a bit when mistakes slow down the whole process. If you need financial aid to attend college, you will more than likely have to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aidâ��the FAFSA. Practically all public colleges and universities, and many private schools, use it to determine aid eligibility. Like many federal forms, though, filling out the FAFSA is not exactly fun. In fact, it can be downright tedious. The form’s complexity and a lack of…

via Affordable Schools Online:

Applying for financial aid is an annual rite for college students and their parents. It’s tedious and the process is often compared to any number of dental procedures. As painful as filling out the forms — electronically or otherwise — may be, the discomfort can be exacerbated quite a bit when mistakes slow down the whole process.

If you need financial aid to attend college, you will more than likely have to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid—the FAFSA. Practically all public colleges and universities, and many private schools, use it to determine aid eligibility. Like many federal forms, though, filling out the FAFSA is not exactly fun. In fact, it can be downright tedious.

The form’s complexity and a lack of user-friendliness combine to create a process that can be fraught with errors. Errors on the FAFSA can delay your school in determining your financial aid, and that is bad. The good news is that the most common errors can be avoided. This list from Top5.com identifies several errors that are easy to make — and easy to avoid — when it comes to filling out the FAFSA.

Filing Late

We’ve banged this drum before on AffordableSchoolsOnline.com, but it is worth repeating: Submit your FAFSA as soon as you can after January 1. For the FAFSA, the federal government has no filing deadline, but most schools do have financial aid deadlines. Colleges tend to distribute their available aid on a first-come, first-served basis. This means that if you wait to submit your FAFSA, less aid may be available for you, even if you’re otherwise eligible.

Divorced Parents

If your parents are separated or divorced, the FAFSA will look only at the income and assets of the parent with whom you lived the most in the 12 months prior to your application, not the parent who has custody of you. This results in a lot of confusion, and presumably reduced aid eligibility in some cases. Reporting the income of both parents or the parent who has custody on the date of the application can lead to erroneous calculations under the federal methodology.

Blank Answers

The FAFSA does not tolerate blanks very well. When you do not answer a question, what happens is that the algorithm used by the Department of Education’s computers assumes you forgot to give an answer. Rather than assuming a zero, system will report an incomplete application. Incomplete FAFSAs delay your results and require you to resubmit the form. If you come across a question that doesn’t apply to you or should be zero—especially in the income section of the FAFSA, which requires an answer to every question—enter “0″ as the answer.

Filing Your Taxes First

The FAFSA asks for a lot of financial information, including income and other details that you provide on your tax forms. One major mistake that students and their parents make is waiting until they have finished preparing their tax returns before submitting a FAFSA. Doing so can delay your aid determination, during which time the supply of aid funds will get smaller. A better strategy, especially if you experienced no major changes in your financial situation, is to use the previous year’s information, along with W-2s, 1099s and pay stubs to estimate income. Submit your FAFSA with the estimates, then, once you file your tax return, go back and amend the submission.

Dependency Status

No matter how you feel about your circumstances or your parents, if you are an undergraduate student who is 24 or younger, you are most likely dependent for financial aid purposes. Confusion surrounding this status can result in contradictory answers on the FAFSA and, ultimately, a delay and a need to resubmit the application. When a college looks at your FAFSA, only a few select criteria will make you independent under the federal methodology. These are: being 24 or older; having children of your own; active-duty military service; or having your own dependents who live with you. The decision of whether you have independent status is typically made by the college to which you’re applying.

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Counselors Key to Getting Students from High School to College

The challenges facing high school counselors, who are tasked with discussing college and career choices with students, can be difficult. As a piece from the Hechinger Report illustrates, a counselor at Campbell High, in Smyrna, GA, when asking about her students’ goals, was greeted with indifference and wisecracks like “Become a drug dealer.” Later, when asked to sit at computers and go through a questionnaire to help determine what courses of studies and careers would be good fits for them, several of the same students struggle with the words on the screen, English still foreign to them. In spite of all these warning signs, counselors’ caseloads are so big that this may be the only time for at least a year that many of these…

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The challenges facing high school counselors, who are tasked with discussing college and career choices with students, can be difficult. As a piece from the Hechinger Report illustrates, a counselor at Campbell High, in Smyrna, GA, when asking about her students’ goals, was greeted with indifference and wisecracks like “Become a drug dealer.”

Later, when asked to sit at computers and go through a questionnaire to help determine what courses of studies and careers would be good fits for them, several of the same students struggle with the words on the screen, English still foreign to them.

In spite of all these warning signs, counselors’ caseloads are so big that this may be the only time for at least a year that many of these students will ever see her or any other counselor. The best she can do is reach out each fall to Campbell’s 800 first-year students in groups like these, to try to give them an idea of what life might be like beyond their early teens.

Campbell High, in Smyrna, a fast-growing city about 20 miles northwest of Atlanta where one in five children under 18 lives in poverty, began holding the group meetings this year. They’re among several attempts the school is making to counteract a vexing but largely unseen problem nationwide: a critical shortage of competent counselors capable of giving advice to college-going high school students, precisely when the country needs more Americans to get degrees — and when getting into college is more expensive and more confusing than ever.

A single public school counselor in the United States has a caseload of 471 students, on average, according to the American School Counselor Association, or ASCA. In high schools, where counselors are often the primary source of information about college — especially as increasing numbers of students become the first in their families to consider it — each one is responsible for an average of 239 students, the ASCA says. In California, the ratio is an even more unwieldy 1-to-500. A Georgia School Counselors Association survey puts the number in that state at 1-to-512.

To make matters worse, budget cuts are forcing counselors to perform more duties unrelated to their traditional roles, such as monitoring the school cafeteria or proctoring exams, says Eric Sparks, the ASCA’s assistant director.

And if that wasn’t cause enough for concern, what little time counselors have to advise students about college is not as productive as it could be, since most get scant training in the subject before taking on the job, reports Alexandria Walton Radford, a consultant to the U.S. Department of Education who has studied the issue.

The result is an overtaxed system in which many students fall through the cracks and either never go to college, go to institutions that are the wrong matches for them, or never learn about financial aid for which they may qualify.

The average school counselor in the United States has a caseload of 471 students.

Examples range from low-income, nonwhite, and ethnic minority valedictorians and first-generation college applicants who shy away from elite schools to freshmen who rely more on friends and relatives than counselors for advice about college.

Those are among the findings of Radford’s research. She says many high school counselors have no choice but to “talk about the average student,” leaving higher-performing classmates to fend for themselves. And if the parents or other relatives of those students happen to have little knowledge of college — as is the case with many immigrants and nonwhites — they may never learn that elite schools are likely to not only accept them, but offer them financial aid.

“Counselors want to do well, but they’re constricted by caseload and the other duties assigned to them,” says Radford, author of Top Student, Top School: How Social Class Shapes Where Valedictorians Go to College.

This problem arises at precisely a time when the economic downturn has made clearer than ever the link between a college education and jobs, leading to a push at the federal and state levels for more people to get degrees.

The complexity of information coming from colleges makes matters even worse, says Barmak Nassirian, director of policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. There are 4,000 universities and colleges, Nassirian says. And when the huge variety of prices and financial-aid programs are taken into account, “That’s cacophony. It might as well be a random process.”

Counseling should be a source of help in this cacophony. But, he says, “Counseling is time-consuming and labor-intensive. It is perceived … as an administrative add-on and not funded adequately. With overcrowded classrooms, we’re robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

It’s revealing that three out of four private high schools, where parents expect to get their children into good colleges, have counselors who specialize in advising students about their higher educations, Radford says. And counselors in private schools have a median caseload of only 106.

A new Georgia law will require schools to factor in previously unaccounted-for student populations when assigning budgets for counselors — students who are classified as gifted, have learning disabilities, or are learning English as a second language. The goal is to lower the statewide ratio of counselors to students to a still-high ratio of 1-to-450. Sparks, of the ASCA, says other states, including North Carolina, have passed laws to stop counselors from being assigned to other duties. But at a time of stretched resources, money to lower the caseloads “has been limited.”

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Large graphene crystals with exceptional electrical properties created

Celebrities Who Battled Mesothelioma The cancer community is all to familiar…On MyBiologica.comHealth is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person’s mind and body, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain.Alternative medicine is any of a wide range of health care practices, products and therapies, using methods of medical diagnosis and treatments which, at least up to the end of the twentieth century, were typically not included in the degree courses of established medical schools teaching medicine. Examples include homeopathy, Ayurveda, chiropractic and acupuncture.On MyBiologica.com all you are looking for about alternative medicine and health.Coming soon section with best cheapset health insurance offers for self …

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Large graphene crystals with exceptional electrical properties created

Researchers are using oxygen to grow large single graphene crystals on copper. Large single-crystal graphene is of great interest because the grain boundaries in polycrystalline material have defects, and eliminating such defects makes for a better material.

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Nov. 14, 2013 — When it comes to the growth of graphene — an ultrathin, ultrastrong, all-carbon material — it is survival of the fittest, according to researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.The team used surface oxygen to grow centimeter-size single graphene crystals on copper. The crystals were about 10,000 times as large as the largest crystals from only four years ago. Very large single crystals have exceptional electrical properties.”The game we play is that we want nucleation (the growth of tiny ‘crystal seeds’) to occur, but we also want to harness and control how many of these tiny nuclei there are, and which will grow larger,” said Rodney S. Ruoff, professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering. “Oxygen at the right surface concentration means only a few nuclei grow, and winners can grow into very large crystals.”The team — led by postdoctoral fellow Yufeng Hao and Ruoff of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Materials Science and Engineering Program, along with Luigi Colombo, a material scientist with Texas Instruments — worked for three years on the graphene growth method. The team’s paper, “The Role of Surface Oxygen in the Growth of Large Single-Crystal Graphene on Copper,” is featured on the cover of the Nov. 8, 2013, issue of Science.One of the world’s strongest materials, graphene is flexible and has high electrical and thermal conductivity that makes it a promising material for flexible electronics, solar cells, batteries and high-speed transistors. The team’s understanding of how graphene growth is influenced by differing amounts of surface oxygen is a major step toward improved high-quality graphene films at industrial scale.The team’s method “is a fundamental breakthrough, which will lead to growth of high-quality and large area graphene film,” said Sanjay Banerjee, who heads the Cockrell School’s South West Academy of Nanoelectronics (SWAN). “By increasing the single-crystal domain sizes, the electronic transport properties will be dramatically improved and lead to new applications in flexible electronics.”Graphene has always been grown in a polycrystalline form, that is, it is composed of many crystals that are joined together with irregular chemical bonding at the boundaries between crystals (“grain boundaries”), something like a patch-work quilt. …

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