Financial Aid

President Bush -- the 1948 baseball captain and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale -- may unwittingly preside over the unraveling of the Ivy League. This improbable scenario is, with very little attention, already unfolding.Many view the league as a powerful monolith whose stone buildings rest upon billion-dollar endowments. But the league itself, as opposed to the schools in it, is still young. And its one distinctive operational reality may not survive this winter. Negotiations are under way with the U.S. Department of Justice concerning allegations that the league's financial-aid program violates the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.

Speaking to hundreds of Baltimore's business leaders in Harbor East on Thursday morning, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner praised President Barack Obama's handling of the recession and outlined his boss' financial reform wish list, which includes cutting small business taxes and maintaining the federal student loan interest rate. The quickly organized event, suggested last week to the Greater Baltimore Committee, served as a platform for Geithner to attack presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's economic policies.

Maryland regulators approved Constellation Energy Group's sale to Chicago-based Exelon Corp. on Friday, setting the stage for Baltimore to lose its last Fortune 500 company to an out-of-state owner. Exelon promptly accepted the terms imposed by the Maryland Public Service Commission, which means the $7.9 billion deal is one huge step closer to completion. The PSC's approval came with several dozen conditions that largely mirrored concessions the companies had previously promised, most recently under a $1 billion settlement with Gov. Martin O'Malley and the state.

Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a moderately obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar - another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word: SUBVENTION When more than 350 editors gathered in New Orleans last week for the 16th national conference of the American Copy Editors Society, many came on their own dime; they lacked subvention . In a broad sense, the word (pronounced sub-VEN-shun)

The Justice Department ought to have better things to do than badger private colleges about how they distribute student financial aid. Last week the department claimed a major victory against eight Ivy League colleges and universities after bludgeoning the schools into signing a consent decree in which they agreed to stop sharing information about how much financial aid they award to offset tuitions ranging from $18,000 a year upward.Atty. Gen. Richard Thornburgh personally announced the "agreement" -- we put that word in quotes because the schools were facing a ruinous court battle with the government if they didn't knuckle under -- as a triumph of his department's "anti-trust" efforts.

Sindy Mejia, 18, is not unlike millions of high school seniors right about now: She's been accepted to college, but she still has to figure out how her family is going to pay for it. For Mejia, who is from Honduras, the question of whether she'll qualify for financial aid is uppermost in her mind. Yesterday, the Patterson High School senior joined about 20 other students and parents at an informational seminar in Fells Point on the financial aid process to figure out where she stands. The session was part of College Goal Sunday, a program sponsored by an association of student financial aid administrators at several locations in the region this month.

To help those students affected by the increase in tuition and fees at Dundalk Community College, the college has designated an additional $20,000 for student financial aid.Provided through the college foundation and special auxiliary fTC enterprises, the funds are available to full-time and part-time DCC students. No funds will be used from the college's operating budget. The college has also established a deferred payment plan, which will allow students to spread their tuition payments throughout the semester.

The DE-DC-MD Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, Inc. will sponsor College Goal Sunday at 2 p.m. Feb. 9 at the Harford County Higher Education and Applied Technology Center, 1201 Technology Drive, West Wing, Aberdeen 21001. College Goal Sunday invites college-bound students to receive free professional assistance in completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). For more information on College Goal Sunday and to find a list of all locations in Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia, students can call 866-GO2GOAL or visit www.GO2GOAL.

FOR HOUSEHOLDS with college-bound students, January will seem more like the hectic days leading up to April 15, with parents scrambling to get their tax and income information together as they begin the financial aid process. Jan. 1 is the first day that families can submit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, the form that's used to determine what federal aid a college student will receive for the coming academic year. States and many private schools also use the FAFSA for dishing out aid. Even if students and their parents don't think they will be eligible for aid, they should fill out the form, experts said.

Wilde Lake High School senior Roderick Watkins sat in one of the school's guidance offices and listened intently, nodding his head now and then as Velma Green explained the steps of applying to college.The topic: financial aid -- where and how to get it."There's a lot of money out there," said Ms. Green, a counselor with the nonprofit Maryland Educational Opportunity Center, a Baltimore-based group that helps disadvantaged and minority students and adults further their education.In November, the group formed a partnership with the Howard County school system's Black Student Achievement Program to counsel students considering the military, a vocational school, a community college or a four-year university.

I am a proud product of the Baltimore City public school system. My high school years at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute prepared me exceptionally well for the rigorous academic studies that led to a career in medicine, health policy and economics, and now higher education. Unfortunately, my education in Baltimore during the 1970s contrasts sharply with the experience of many urban students across America who are mired in underperforming K-12 school systems that poorly prepare them for higher education and the world of opportunities beyond.

Maryland regulators approved Constellation Energy Group's sale to Chicago-based Exelon Corp. on Friday, setting the stage for Baltimore to lose its last Fortune 500 company to an out-of-state owner. Exelon promptly accepted the terms imposed by the Maryland Public Service Commission, which means the $7.9 billion deal is one huge step closer to completion. The PSC's approval came with several dozen conditions that largely mirrored concessions the companies had previously promised, most recently under a $1 billion settlement with Gov. Martin O'Malley and the state.

[ Editor's note: This blog post initially included Joshua Davis as one of six Dunbar football players signing national letters of intent to play football on scholarship. Davis, who will play at Morgan State, is not receiving an athletic scholarship. He is receiving need-base financial aid, which allows Morgan to not use one of its football scholarships on him, Dunbar coach Lawrence Smith said.] Dunbar football coach Lawrence Smith is getting used to sending a lot of players to college, but he continues to make signing day an special event for the Poets.

[ Editor's note: This story initially included Joshua Davis as one of six Dunbar football players signing national letters of intent to play football on scholarship. Davis, who will play at Morgan State , is not receiving an athletic scholarship. He is receiving need-base financial aid, which allows Morgan to not use one of its football scholarships on him, Dunbar coach Lawrence Smith said.]   Franklin wide receiver Ian Thomas had a few reservations about his intention to sign with Rutgers after Scarlet Knights coach Greg Schiano announced late last week that he was leaving to take over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

First Generation College Bound is participating in the Greater Washington Give to the Max Day event on Nov. 9 through Razoo to help raise money for nonprofits in the area, http://give2max.razoo.com/ . Prizes for nonprofits that raise the most money that day. FGCB will be using the money raised for its College Access Program . The program helps low- to middle-income seniors at Laurel, Central, Potomac, Parkdale and Fairmont Heights high...

By the time you know how much it will cost out of pocket to attend a college, you are far along in the process. Not only have you been accepted by the school, but you've likely waited weeks to receive the financial aid package. But soon an estimate of how much you must pay to attend a specific college based on your family finances will be available years in advance. This can help families search for a school they can afford and give them a better idea of how much they need to save.

As another new year quickly approaches, I've suddenly realized there's no time for making resolutions this year. Why would I abandon this time-honored tradition that offers each of us another chance to get it right? Certainly not by choice, not this year anyway.No, this New Year's Day I'll be busy hunting receipts and making deduction lists, getting ready to attack the 1040 earlier than I ever have. In a normal year, there would be plenty of time to get everything together. But '95 will not be a normal year for us. We have a kid getting ready for college and have to file our first federal student aid application (FAFSA)

Dear Joyce: Paying for college has become vastly more difficult than getting into a good school, but I'm sure you know that. What would I have to do to become an independent student and thus qualify for more student aid? T.O.F.Encouraging children to become, economically speaking, independent students is one of the new wisdoms being snapped up by growing numbers of parents who take one look at five-figure annual college bills and faint.Students on their own who are at least 24 years old -- not supported by families -- have a smaller income, thus qualifying them for higher amounts of aid. There are a number of other fine-print ways to qualify as an independent student and these are cataloged in the new 1992-93 edition of my booklet, "The College Financial Aid Emergency Kit."

Catholic school enrollment continued to decline this year, although at a slower pace than in recent years, according to the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The archdiocese said the number of its students declined 4.3 percent this year. However, the latest statistics, as of Sept. 30, reflect the lowest rate of decline in the past four years. After the archdiocese decided to close 13 schools at the end of the 2009-2010 school year, the schools' enrollment declined 9 percent, according to Sean Caine, a spokesman for the archdiocese.

For much of the early history of the U.S., college was only for a small segment of society, the elite. As the need for more practical education and broader access to higher education became apparent if the United States was going to fully develop its engineering and agricultural sectors to outcompete the rest of the world, the federal government passed the Morrill Act of 1862, which promoted the development of land grant universities in each state....