“You see his picture,” Massey said, “so I clicked on it.” The link took her to a new window, where she was asked to enter her name, age and other information about the degree she wanted. The site then produced a list of schools that lined up with Massey’s choices.

Almost immediately, recruiters from for-profit colleges, including the University of Phoenix [3], Kaplan University [4], Grand Canyon University [5] and a couple of local schools, bombarded Massey with e-mails and calls.

“That’s when I would bring up the thing, ‘What about the Obama loans? What about the money for the single moms in the stimulus?’” she said. “And they would say, ‘Well, we’ll call you back with more information about that.’”

They never did — and little wonder: “There is no such thing as an Obama grant for moms,” said Robert Shireman, who until early this month was deputy undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Education. “Moms are eligible for federal financial aid generally — Pell Grants, student loans and other aid — but nothing specific to moms or single moms.” Nevertheless, the Obama mom ads have become “ubiquitous,” he said.

This is an example of one of the ‘Obama mom’ ads.

For-profit universities and career colleges are flourishing in the down economy, thanks in part to a gusher of taxpayer money flowing into the federal government’s Pell Grant program [6] for economically needy students. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have already enrolled in for-profit colleges, which are fiercely competing for new recruits.

The grant windfall has fueled another boom: for online marketers that gather contact information from prospective students and sell it to schools. Just a few years ago, these firms, known as lead generators, fed the subprime mortgage machine. Now they are earning more than $1 billion a year for finding prospective students, according to one industry estimate.

Consumer advocates say they are alarmed by parallels between the subprime mortgage industry and for-profit schools, which also have come under fire for targeting low-income groups and signing up students for loans that can leave them buried in debt. Some schools earn nearly 90 percent of their revenue from federal student aid programs.

Single moms, the critics say, are especially vulnerable.

“In comparison with an 18-year-old traditional college student, a single mom faces unique, often unsurpassable obstacles to getting an education,” said Greg C. Frazier of Community Connections of Jacksonville [7], a group that works with disadvantaged women in Florida. “Frequently she will be lured by the promises of low-cost, easy online courses that in reality do not deliver.”

Harris Miller, president of the Career College Association, said the 1,400 for-profit colleges, universities and trade schools his organization represents object to using misleading or false advertising to recruit students. But Miller said lead generators often are subcontractors a couple of steps removed from a school’s recruiting operation, making them hard to police.

Shireman, while denouncing the ads, said the Education Department lacks authority to crack down on subcontractors. A spokeswoman for the Federal Trade Commission, which does have such power, called the ads misleading but declined to say whether the agency is investigating them.

Vital Market for Career Schools

(Source: U.S. Department of Education)

Mothers are an important market for the for-profit schools. Women account for 65 percent of their students, and more than half have dependent children, according to the Career College Association. In many instances, returning to school could provide mothers with a step up to a better job and improved circumstances for their children.

But women who’ve responded to the ads told ProPublica they felt “targeted,” “victimized” and “insulted” once they discovered the Obama grants do not exist.

When banner ads and pop-ups appeared in her Facebook profile and on the Web site Blackplanet.com, Lisa Jackson, a single mom from Washington, D.C., clicked on the links.

Jackson lost her job as a project manager in a furniture dealership last year and spent a lot of time online looking for ways to escape unemployment. She realized there were no Obama grants for single moms after receiving e-mails from several for-profit schools.

“I feel it’s an insult to my intelligence to some degree,” she said.

The use of President Obama’s name also troubled Jackson, who is African-American.

“Some of these advertisers are playing on the sense that we have our first African-American president,” she said, noting that Obama’s image and name have been used to promote mortgage refinancing in minority neighborhoods. “It’s sad. They’ve used it for the wrong reasons.”

Priya Raghubir [8], a marketing professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, said it’s not a coincidence that marketers are recycling techniques from the subprime mortgage boom. Obama has strong appeal among younger people, minority groups and lower-income households, she said. The same people were disproportionately targeted for subprime loans, according to research [9] by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“For these groups particularly, he is a figure, a celebrity, who is highly liked and also signals something they would like to associate with — the way he has used education to break a number of barriers and get to where he has at such a young age,” Raghubir said.

Watchdog groups, Congress, the Education Department and some investors [10] have voiced concerns [11] (PDF) about recruitment [12]at for-profits schools. A recent report [13] (PDF) by the College Board found that more than half of the students at for-profits graduate with $30,500 or more in debt — compared with about a quarter of private college grads and 12 percent from public schools.

Middlemen in the Recruiting Game

Annual increase in Pell Grant revenue by type of school. (Source: U.S. Department of Education)

Last year’s economic stimulus bill added $17 billion for the government’s need-based Pell Grant program, and an expansion signed earlier this year by Obama is expected to provide around 820,000 additional grant awards over a decade, according to an Education Department spokesman. The money began rolling in during the fiscal year that ended in June, and while public, private and for-profit schools all saw big gains in Pell Grant revenue, the overall increase to for-profits was highest — 70 percent over the prior year.

The University of Phoenix — the largest for-profit school — took in more than $1 billion from some 300,000 Pell Grants alone in 2009-2010, Education Department data show. That’s about what Phoenix’s parent company, the Apollo Group, spent on “selling and promotional” activities in 2009, according to company financial filings.

For-profits spend heavily on lead generation, typically some 20 to 30 percent of their ad and marketing budget, according to Ampush Media, a San Francisco lead generation firm. An Ampush research report prepared in February estimated that higher-education leads were a $1 billion market and said that market was “expanding rapidly” while mortgage leads had only “muted growth.”

Experian PLC, a company that provides consumer credit reports and advice [14], also operates lead-generation businesses. The company once used a video of a woman dancing energetically [15] in front of her computer to funnel people to one of its websites — LowerMyBills.com.

The site was a major source of leads for subprime lenders during the housing boom, according to Sam Rogers, mortgage industry analyst at the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit that monitors lending practices. (The Sandler Foundation, the principal funder of ProPublica, also provides significant financial support to the center.)

Experian used the same video at another of its websites, ClassesUSA.com, which collects information to sell to colleges [16]. Another ad for LowerMyBills.com features a buxom blonde dancing suggestively [17] under the text, “New Housing Bill Passed! $133,000 Mortgage for Under $529/Month!” That same dancing blonde [18] sometimes also linked to ClassesUSA.com.

A third Experian ad is an animation of two young women walking side by side [19], with a banner saying, “Obama Asks Moms to Return to School.”

Steve Krenzer, president of Experian Interactive Media, declined to comment on why Experian used the ads to target both subprime mortgage borrowers and students.

“Here’s an example of an icon of the American financial sector luring unwitting consumers into prohibitively expensive borrowing that they can’t afford and that the taxpayers will have to make good,” said Barmak Nassirian, spokesman for the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, an industry group whose members include some for-profit schools.

ProPublica asked the two other major consumer credit reporting companies, Equifax and TransUnion, whether they had any such ads. TransUnion said it does not engage in direct-to-consumer lead generation. Equifax did not comment.

The most common ads are pop-ups that show up onscreen automatically. ProPublica also found examples of websites that referred to Obama mom grants or loans and provided links to lead generators.

“Barack Obama has made the pledge to help moms go back to school while the government pays for it,” said one [20]. “Unemployed mothers can snatch a college diploma at the comforts of their own home without spending a dime for baby-sitting (sic),” read another [21].

Schools pay anywhere from a few dollars up to $85 per lead, said Daniel Kim, president of a small New Jersey-based lead generation company called MyCS Network. Although some nonprofit schools use lead generators, the biggest clients for higher-education leads are for-profit universities, according to Kim, who has worked in the industry since 2004.

ProPublica contacted several lead generators linked to the Obama mom ads, but all either declined to comment or did not return calls or e-mails. To determine which schools were buying those leads, we asked volunteers from the ProPublica Reporting Network [22] to click on the links, fill out the online forms and report back.

Hana Shepherd, of New York City, received 10 calls and nine e-mails from recruiters within a day of filling out a form. Susan Sawyers, also of New York City, received pages of e-mails.

Top Pell Grant Schools 10 for-profit schools with highest Pell Grants
revenue in 2009-2010. Complete list of all
schools. [23] (Source: U.S. Department of Education) University of Phoenix $1,042,372,700 Kaplan University $211,302,730 DeVry University $207,064,910 Ashford University $162,195,320 Virginia College $92,495,763 Strayer University $88,078,568 Instituto de Banca y Comercio $86,890,443 American Intercontinental
University $83,139,589 Colorado Technical University $81,615,604 Keiser University $64,597,004 South University $54,436,122

The schools included Walden University, Kaplan University, Ashford University, American InterContinental University, Capella University, Colorado Technical University and the University of Phoenix — all for-profit institutions.

Volunteers also received e-mails from two private, non-profit universities: Golden Gate University and the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education. Jennifer Hanlon, director of marketing at 2tor, the company that manages the Rossier School’s online advertising, said she was surprised and disappointed to hear about the ad.

Part of the problem, said Hanlon, is that lead generators frequently farm out work to subcontractors. “It’s frustrating being an advertiser because you contract with one person and they have a group of affiliates they work with,” she said. “You just have to be a diligent advertiser and find out where you’re being seen, and if you see anything on the shady side, you have to do your due diligence.”

A spokesman for Capella said school officials also “periodically review messaging” used by lead generators, and that they had terminated Capella’s “involvement” with several ad campaigns earlier this year after discovering they were “paraphrasing President Obama.” A spokeswoman for Golden Gate University said the school would “immediately” ask any of its lead generators to stop should they find the marketers using Obama mom ads. The other schools did not comment.

At our request, volunteers asked the lead generators and college recruiters about Obama grants or scholarships for moms. While no recruiter claimed the grants actually existed, they generally did not dispute that they did. More often, said Shepherd, “I was told that a financial aid person could assist me later when I asked about the Obama grants.”

A Regulatory Vacuum

At a round-table meeting in Northern Virginia this winter, Education Secretary Arne Duncan was surprised by a question from one of the attendees.

“One of the students participating in a discussion actually asked: ‘Is there an Obama scholarship for moms? Because I’ve seen ads about it,’” said Shireman, who was Duncan’s deputy.

Duncan had never heard of the ads, let alone an “Obama” scholarship for moms. But Shireman had. “I’ve seen the ad myself on my personal e-mail,” he said, describing it as “misleading.” Yet the department lacks authority to stop the advertisements, Shireman said.

“We’re not a general regulatory agency around issues of marketing,” he said. “The Department of Education doesn’t have any direct authority over third-party entities, unless those third-party entities are working for the schools.”

The department recently released draft regulations that would strengthen its ability to crack down on misleading ads, Shireman said. But the new rules apply only to the schools or companies that work for them directly — not to subcontractors.

The Federal Trade Commission does have jurisdiction over fraudulent marketing, and is “actively looking at scams that use news about the economic stimulus package to falsely claim that the package includes money for government grants, home repair, to pay off debts, scholarships,” said Lois Greisman, director of the agency’s Marketing Division.

But Greisman said she could not comment on whether the FTC is looking at any specific entity and could not point to any previous enforcement action involving the Obama mom ads. Blackplanet.com did not respond to our request for comment and Yahoo! declined to comment about ads on its sites.

Miller, the Career College Association president, said for-profit schools have objected to the tactics used by some lead generators. In one instance, he said, schools were stunned to discover that a lead generator was using the promise of free food or housing to attract people to enter their data. “No one thought this was OK,” he said.

Schools often work with a primary lead generator and may require that company to sign a contract giving the school oversight of ad copy. Miller said his group is encouraging schools to hire their own “mystery shoppers” to police lead generators.

But Kim, of the lead generator MyCS Network, said all misleading techniques make the industry “look bad.” They persist, he said, for a simple reason — they work.

“It’s tough because there are these large companies doing it,” Kim said, “and they’re getting these leads to the schools, and the schools think these leads are good.”

ProPublica’s Joe Kokenge contributed to this report.

Several ProPublica readers belonging to our Reporting Network assisted reporter Sharona Coutts with identifying schools buying leads. If you’d like to help ProPublica with its reporting, join our Reporting Network [24].

http://www.freeeducationguide.com/?campaign_id=12076&pid=46777-sfmi

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/federal-pell-grants-for-moms-backed-by-obama.html

http://ezinearticles.com/?Obama-Helps-Moms-Go-Back-to-School&id=2430990

Usually they think that the procedure is too difficult or they might have to show or give securities against it, but it is not like that. It is logical fact that if most of the people would be suffering with debs the economy of the country has to suffer, as people are not in a position to buy anything. That is why they should be first free from debts to secure the economy of their own country. Rather than applying for another loan, it is easier and safe to apply for government grant. Unlike loans, these government grants do not require collateral or any such security.

These relieves can be granted for planning a new business, or to get rid of previous heavy debts. Grants can also be requested to clear off debts incurred due to various reasons such as health care, business expenses, education etc.

Grants are easily given to the people who are able to prove that they are not in a situation to pay off their debts. The social service office studies the financial position of the needy one in detail, outstanding debts and repayment capability of that individual. This is to make sure that the grant is usually given to the real needy people who have no possibilities to pay them at all.

The president wants all moms back in school studying for the degree of their choice, while the government pays for it. There are many of these grants and scholarships available, some as high as $10,000, and the best part is that, unlike a student loan, they never need to be repaid. The money is yours to keep and spend in whatever way you see fit for your education.

The reason Obama wants moms back in school is to prepare for the future of the United States workforce. Women with all types of specialized training and degrees will be needed once the economy begins to improve. The US government understands this and is not taking any chances, so they are assisting those wanting to improve their education with these scholarships and grants.

If you have been thinking about returning to school, now is the best time to go ahead and do it. There are several options for moms to attain a degree, including online college programs, which allow the flexibility for moms to maintain their busy schedules while working towards a degree. If you are curious about what you are eligible for, go ahead and take a few minutes to explore the available grants and scholarships, you will probably be surprised at how many are currently being offered.

I have found this resource Free Scholarships for Moms, and I would like to share it with you.

See how many scholarships you can get approved for. Just enter your name and email address.

Click Here to register for free education money.

You must be at least 18.

As you well know, it is very difficult to be a single mother. You have the responsibility of providing and caring for your children. Many times you do not have any support to aid you. You may well not ever see your college degree. Or, is there now a way for this to happen?

The federal government and many private institutions are now making it easier for single moms to return to school. There are scholarships specifically designed with the mom in mind. These will make paying for your education much easier.

Begin looking to the federal government to provide the help you need. They operate a website that is for single moms looking for help. There are grants available for you. You just need to take the initiative and apply.

After you do that, turn to the university or college of your choice. They will also have a variety of scholarships that may be open to a person in your situation. Check with the financial aid office and get their advice and help. They will be eager to help you meet your goals.

Finally, do not forget to check what may available through non-profit and other private organizations. You may well find scholarships available for some of the qualities that you have. The web and your local library are great places to start.

Don’t wait any longer! Get on the road to higher learning now.

Click Here For Scholarships 4 Moms Instant Access Now!

Because of this necessity to provide for the family, it needs some women with little choice other than to stay at home and do what they can on a daily basis. This administration wants moms to go back to school and is offering thousands of dollars in federal money in the form of a grant for those women that qualify in that want to return to college to get a degree.

Today, online education either full time or part time is possible, it doesn’t require you to leave the house to be able to finish a degree. You can even choose the time suitable for you. Doing your regular household chores and watching over your kid are still likely while studying.

Now is your chance to go back to school for free with the help of Obama. If you think you have what it takes to study again and finish your studies, then act on it immediately. Having a degree will make a difference to you and to your children’s lives.

I have found this resource Free Scholarships for Moms, and I would like to share it with you. See how many scholarships you can get approved for. Just enter your name and email address.

Click Here to Register for Free Education Money!

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Student Voters Look to Candidates for  Answers to Crisis in Student Loans and College Affordability

 

With  problems growing in the student loan industry, spurred both by an ongoing  credit crunch with its roots in the subprime mortgage crisis and by  congressional legislation that cut subsidies to lenders of federal student  loans, the affordability of a higher education has remained at the forefront of  young Americans’ minds this election year.

 

Increases  in college tuition continue to outstrip the rate of inflation. Families, hurt  by mounting unemployment and high gas and food prices, are applying for federal  grants and student  loans in record numbers.

 

Lenders,  crippled by troubles in the nation’s credit markets and by a lack of subsidies  that have made federal college loans largely unprofitable, are dropping out of  the federal student loan business and tightening credit criteria on their  non-federal private  student loans or abandoning these credit-based private loans altogether —  leaving thousands of families scrambling to find a source for their federal and  private student loans.

 

Students  needing private student loans to supplement the federal college loans they have been able to get can’t find  co-signers with credit scores high enough to satisfy lenders’ increasingly  stringent credit criteria. And parents, who historically have been able to  borrow against the value of their house or draw on their investments to provide  the additional financing their college children may have needed, have watched  their stock values and home equity evaporate in the post-subprime housing and  financial breakdown.

 

Making Their Voice Heard — Finally — at the  Polls

 

Against  this backdrop of a rocky student loan landscape and a still-distressed economy,  Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s proposals to boost college accessibility may  prove to be a deciding factor in swaying the emergent youth vote, those ballots  being cast by the normally non-voting 18- to 30-year-olds that have already  proven to be a powerful force on the road to this year’s electoral showdown.

“Frustrated  by feckless Washington, energized by the unscripted, pundit-baffling freedom of  a wide-open race, young people are voting in numbers rarely seen since the  general election of 1972 — the first in which the voting age was lowered to  18,” wrote David Von Drehle back in January, in his piece, “The Year of the  Youth Vote,” for Time magazine.

 

More than  6.5 million voters under the age of 30 participated in the 2008 presidential  primaries and caucuses, making the age group an important demographic for  presidential hopefuls Obama and McCain at a time when national polls show the  two candidates are statistically tied or separated by only single digits in the  race for the White House.

Both  candidates are eyeing the votes of this emerging voting population — “an  estimated 50 million Twittering, text messaging, iPod-toting young voters” — in  the final stretches of this year’s general election, writes The Nation columnist Andy Kroll.

 

Candidates Speak to Higher Education Issues  Affecting Young Voters

 

In their  quest to woo these young voters, the candidates have promoted education  platforms that could give them the edge they need among the country’s 16  million college students and their families.

 

Obama,  the Democratic presidential candidate, outlines a host of national education  proposals that span early childhood education to college; McCain, the  presumptive Republican nominee, focuses on supporting local education  initiatives and expanding virtual learning opportunities.

 

Both  candidates have taken a stand on three issues in particular aimed at promoting  college affordability and accessibility:

 

Federal Pell Grants. McCain encourages  incremental increases in federal Pell Grant awards that would better keep up  with the rising cost of a college education. Both he and Obama supported the  College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007, which raised the maximum Pell  Grant award from $4,050 to $5,400.

 

Federal student loans. McCain backs the  expansion of the Federal Family Education Loan Program, which provides federal  subsidies to private lenders that offer government-backed parent and student  loans as a third-party provider. Obama wants to eliminate the FFEL program and  its subsidies, directing borrowers instead to the government’s Direct Loan  Program, in which families take out their federal college loans directly from the  Department of Education and which he maintains is less costly for taxpayers  than the FFEL program.

 

Public service programs. McCain  supports an expansion of the Teach for America program, which places college  graduates in low-income school districts across the country, under an  accelerated teacher-certification process. Obama has put forth the idea of an  American Opportunity Tax Credit, which would give students a $4,000 tax credit  toward a college education at a public college or university in exchange for  100 hours of public service. Obama also calls for an expansion of the Peace  Corps and AmeriCorps community service programs.

 

Obama Leading McCain in the Charge to Win  Over Youth Vote

With the  general election only two months away, the candidates have little time left to  get the word out to students that they care about the issues young Americans  are facing. And up to this point, Obama has clearly made more of a direct  effort than McCain to specifically target college students and other young  adults.

 

Between  Feb. 1 and July 31, Obama held 32 campaign events in college towns; McCain held  three. And the McCain campaign has yet to publicly announce an official youth  outreach or youth vote campaign director. Obama, on the other hand, has hired  former Rock the Vote political director Hans Reimer. Polls show Obama leading  McCain among young voters by 20 percent.

 

“Obama  has enjoyed impressive support from young people since entering the race, and  the chances of his throngs of voters inexplicably switching their allegiance  are about as good as McCain creating his own Second Life avatar,” Kroll writes.

 

While  young Republicans have complained that McCain hasn’t done enough to reach out  to the voters of Generation Y, the senator’s young supporters haven’t given up  hope.

 

Justin  York, a grassroots youth organizer for McCain in Florida and a junior at the  University of Central Florida, points out that Ronald Reagan, nearly McCain’s  age in 1984, won the majority of youth voters in his re-election bid and that  the first President Bush, at the age of 64, also captured the majority of youth  voters just four years later.

 

If McCain “can chip away at Obama’s commanding lead  among those 50 million young voters,” Kroll says, “it could mean the difference  between the slimmest of victories or a significant loss.”

President Obama sees the need for education. He knows if you have a good education then you can in turn provide a better life for your children. There are a lot of scholarships available.

There is no guarantee that you will get what you applied for, as there are many applications for the same. But never the less one has to try. The Federal Pell Grant gives a grant of about $5100 for low income students. It was earlier $4050.

First of all one has to decide on what course she is interested in doing and which college she would like to attend. After that fill in the FAFSA form and submit it.

If you decide to attend a school or college try and find one close to your house as this will save on travel time.

The American Tax opportunity credit program states that the first $4000 of higher education is free.

Grants for single working mothers or mothers who want to study at home are granted for online courses too. In this way one can continue to work and earn thus there is a flow in income. Also on the other hand a mother can stay at home and learn while being able to care for her children.

Remember the more scholarships you apply for, the better your chances or receiving at least one. Try and try until you succeed. Last but not the least there is an online scholarship of $10,000! Why not try it out now? You may be the lucky mom!