Obama to propose free community college

George Walker IV

President Obama will propose two years of free community college for American workers Friday, part of what the White House says is an effort to make community college as universal as high school is today.

Obama teased his community college proposal in a video uploaded to Facebook on Thursday and will deliver a speech Friday in Tennessee.

"Put simply, what I'd like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for anybody who's willing to work for it," he said aboard Air Force One amid a three-state tour to preview his State of the Union Address. "It's something we can accomplish, and it's something that will train our workforce so that we can compete with anyone in the world."

The program would require action from a Republican-dominated Congress. "With no details or information on the cost, this seems more like a talking point than a plan," said Cory Fritz, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

The White House said details on the cost and funding would come in the State of the Union Address on Jan. 20 and the president's budget request Feb. 2. But the White House expects 9 million students to participate and save up to $3,800 a year for two years. That would place the cost at nearly $70 billion, though there are questions about building capacity at the nation's 1,100 community colleges.

The federal government would pay three quarters of the cost, at least initially.

In some ways, the community college plan is a bookend to Obama's 2013 proposal to pay for universal pre-Kindergarten through a state and federal partnership. That $75 billion proposal, which relied on dwindling tobacco tax money to provide federal matching funds, never got traction in Congress.

But Cecilia Munoz, Obama's domestic policy adviser, said Obama's pre-K proposal spurred state and local governments to increase the number and quality of preschool offerings, and hopes the college proposal will do the same. "We don't expect the country to be transformed overnight, but we do expect the conversation to begin tomorrow," she said.

Obama, joined by Vice President Biden, will announce the plan at Pellissippi Community College in Knoxville, Tenn. Obama's plan is modeled after the Tennessee Promise -- a state-level free-college plan starting this fall, paid for with Tennessee Lottery proceeds.

That plan, Munoz noted, has support from Republican lawmakers in Tennessee.

Munoz said the college plan would require the cooperation of states, community colleges and students. States would have to pick up a quarter of the cost -- more or less depending on how much they currently fund community colleges.

"Community colleges have to raise their game by establishing standards to allow students to transfer those credits to a four-year degree," she said. "And students must take responsibility for their education, earn good grades and stay on track to graduate in order to earn free tuition."

The America's College Promise program would be available to traditional and non-traditional college students, she said, and would support those seeking the first two years of a bachelor's degree, an associate's degree, or even just job training.

Obama said a world-class education starts with children, but that adults need training, too. "It's not just for kids, we also have to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to constantly train themselves for better jobs, better wages, better benefits."

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Student tuition now officially pays more than states for public college funding

Students now pay more of the cost of attending public universities than state governments, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report, and the federal agency says it's making college unaffordable.

Tuition officially surpassed state funding in fiscal year 2012, the GAO found, accounting for 25 percent of public college revenue. Meanwhile all state sources dipped from 32 percent in 2003 to 23 percent in 2012.

"These increases have contributed to the decline in college affordability as students and their families are bearing the cost of college as a larger portion of their total family budgets," the GAO wrote.

The report was submitted on Dec. 16, 2014 to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the outgoing chair of the Senate Education committee, just as most college campuses were emptying out for winter break. The study looked at the revenue sources for state universities from 2003 through 2012.

According to the Delta Cost Project, many public, four-year universities were already getting more than half their revenue for educating students from tuition by 2008. It's a dramatic shift from the 1970s, when around three-quarters of the revenue for public colleges came from state governments.

The GAO report reinforces a study by the New York Federal Reserve that found state budget cuts drive up tuition at public colleges. However, a Harvard University Institute of Politics poll found many young Americans typically blame colleges -- public and private -- for rising student debt.

Considering the tuition increases, the federal government's Pell grant now covers smallest portion of the cost of college in the program's history.

During that period, state funding decreased by 12 percent, while the median published tuition prices have increased by 55 percent and average out-of-pocket costs have increased 19 percent since FY 2003, according to the GAO report.

"The reductions in state funding to public colleges are even more significant when enrollment levels are taken into account," the report states. "The number of students enrolled in public colleges rose by 20 percent from school year 2002-2003 to school year 2011-2012. Correspondingly, median state funding per student declined 24 percent -- from $6,211 in fiscal year 2003 to $4,695 in fiscal year 2012."

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Awesome video of high school students who found out they got accepted into college

Students prank college professor

Broke grad students are the next debt crisis

Graduate students, not undergrads, are increasingly driving the country’s student debt crisis, and the federal government will likely end up footing much of the bill, according to a study released today by the New America Foundation.

Most studies have historically lumped together undergraduate and graduate debt, leading politicians and media reports to focus primarily on the high price of bachelor’s and associate degrees. But when graduate debt is isolated, as it was in this study, a striking picture emerges.

Around 40% of the more than $1 trillion in outstanding student loans went to financing graduate and professional degrees, the study found. Combined debt levels of the average graduate borrower, according to the study, have surged by $17,000 — from $40,000 in 2004 to more than $57,000 in 2012, adjusted for inflation. For the average undergraduate borrower, that increase was just $7,580, according to separate New America Foundation report.

While the higher debt level is more manageable for medical school student, for instance, it could be crippling for Master of Arts students, among whom the median debt is $58,000.

Some of the study’s more eye-popping statistics pertained to law school students, whose job prospects are famously declining. The level of indebtedness for this group rose by more than $50,000 from 2008 to 2012, with the typical law student now owing $140,000, the study found — a jump that’s unprecedented in any other field, including medicine.

“Most of these degrees are not intuitively worth it. They’re not gateways to the middle class,” says Jason Delisle, the study’s author. “Is a Master of Arts degree really worth $20,000 more than it was in 2004?”

New America Foundation

But thanks to changes in repayment terms, the federal government is likely to end up bankrolling many graduate degrees.

With an eye toward easing debt burdens in the wake of the financial crisis, the federal government began to offer income-based repayment plans and even total debt forgiveness for some students. One especially generous program forgives outstanding loan balances for graduates working in so-called “public service” jobs after just 10 years of income-based repayment plans. Public service sector jobs make up a full quarter of the workforce, according to a study by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, meaning huge numbers of graduate student borrowers will be eligible to have their debts forgiven after 10 years.

“People entering repayment programs with these kinds of loan balances have set themselves up to have the loans forgiven,” Delisle says.

Other data suggests that graduate students are some of the biggest users of the federal government’s debt-easing policies. An examination of outstanding student debt by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that those enrolled in the government’s income-based repayment program had an average loan balance of $48,500 — more than triple the balance of those on a straightforward 10-year plan.

“That data does suggest that graduate students are using the plan more heavily, because the average balance is in excess of normal borrowing,” says Rohit Chopra, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report’s author.

The Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment.

There are a variety of explanations for the sharp rise in graduate debt, from the 2008 financial crisis — which left students with fewer resources to fund their educations — to rising tuition prices. But Delisle also draws a connection to the government’s policies, which he says may inadvertently be making borrowing huge sums easier and more feasible for graduate students.

“The Obama administration says they’re addressing the problem, but it’s also one they’ve helped cause,” Delisle suggests. He points to the example of President Obama’s push to eliminate the third year of law school, which many say is unnecessary and adds too much to students’ debt burden. The administration’s policies also make that the year most likely to be free under loan forgiveness, Delisle alleges, removing an incentive for both students and colleges to advocate for change.

“They’re saying ‘we have a huge debt problem,’” Delisle says, “but at the same time, they’re saying to grad students, ‘Borrow as much as you want.’”

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Debt collectors are gorging themselves on student loans

The cost of college is skyrocketing. The labor market is atrocious. Employers demand a college degree for pretty much any job these days. Yes, at this point, it has become commonplace to note the crushing burden of college debt (the total amount of which is now something like $1.2 trillion). But there's another side to this story that hasn't gotten as much play: the implications for debt collection.

Debt delinquency exploded during the financial crisis, but has since steadily decreased for every type of debt — except that of students. Because the bankruptcy code is badly skewed when it comes to student loans, total debt collection has risen steadily. Students are now the fuel for one of America's more predatory agencies, which is saying a lot.


Here's how it happened, and what we might do about it.

Kevin Drum posted these two amazing charts recently from the New York Fed report on household debt. Here is the percent of each kind of debt that is delinquent. Just look at what's happening to student debt compared to the others:



And here's total debt collection:



Look at the first chart: Delinquency has fallen sharply since 2009 for everything but student debt. Now, look at the second: Total collection is actually up overall, a trend that must be driven in part by the similar increase in student debt.

This jibes with the fact that student debt is treated much more harshly than almost any other kind in the bankruptcy code. It's nearly impossible to discharge during a typical bankruptcy proceeding — it took one guy 10 years in court to get his law school loans partially discharged in such a situation. And student debt can follow people to the grave and beyond, making it closer to indentured servitude than a regular loan. (Though at least we aren't putting broke students into our shiny new system of debtor's prisons — yet.) There's no reason for this discrepancy, of course, it's just a dumb policy from decades ago that now can't be changed because of Congressional gridlock.

That horrible policy, plus the ever-increasing pile of student debt, plus a college degree's outsized role in landing a good job, has created a golden opportunity for amoral collection agencies to make vast sums hounding people who tried their luck with college and didn't make it, for whatever reason.

There has been a bit of progress here and there on this problem. Last year the federal government announced it would stop actively incentivizing atrocious behavior on the part of collectors it employs, and Kirsten Gillibrand has a bill which would allow students to refinance their debt at 4 percent interest if they've got a higher rate.

These are positive developments, but there's really no reason we shouldn't be considering some more fundamental changes to the education finance system. Student loan debt obviously ought to be dischargeable in bankruptcy, just for starters, and we ought to put pressure on the rankings and prestige systems that cause colleges to jack up prices for no obvious benefit to the student. And shoot, why not try mass debt forgiveness, so long as we're thinking boldly? If Wall Street got a do-over after the financial crisis, seems fair for America's struggling students.

Furthermore, why use debt to finance education subsidies in the first place? As with many policy objectives, America has traditionally pushed education subsides through loans and tax incentives, because that allows us to pretend like we aren't spending money when we really are. We should be wary of schools using subsidies to just hike prices and hire a slew of pointless administrators, but to the extent that education is subsidized, we ought to be doing it with straight cash transfers rather than loans, which would be clearer, fairer, and avoid crippling graduates with debt.

In any case, all that is almost certainly impossible for the time being. But as we've seen, debt collection isn't going away, and if any sort of reform ever becomes politically feasible, we ought to aim high rather than tinkering around the edges.

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How young people are left out of the economic recovery

William Andrew/Getty

The latest unemployment figures seem promising for the young, but peeling back the numbers reveals that those without college degrees are being left out of the job market.

From the looks of it, young Americans are finally on their way to economic recovery. The latest jobs figures show unemployment for young Americans—those age 16-34—fell to 10.5 percent in December, down from a high of 15.1 percent in November 2009 and by a full 2 percent since last summer.

A closer look, however, reveals not all young Americans are sharing equally in the labor market recovery. In fact, some young Americans are hardly experiencing a recovery at all. And many that are seeing a rebound in their economic fortunes still have a long way to go.

Happily it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom. There are ways policymakers can help struggling young Americans reclaim their future, starting with making their plight a bigger priority in 2014.

As it has been for years, young Americans with a college degree are much better off than those without one. The stark contrast is evident when looking at labor force participation rates, which is the share of the population that is counted as employed or unemployed. For young Americans with a post-secondary degree, labor force participation rates have been stable since 2010, but for those with some college or only a high school diploma, rates continue to fall. For young Americans without a college degree, it appears unemployment is falling at the expense of labor force participation.

Still, as young college graduates are all too aware, a four-year college degree is no longer a guaranteed ticket to financial success. It turns out that those with a college degree are finding jobs, but increasingly ones that are lower-skill. The result is a rise in underemployment and historically low real earnings. In 2012, young Americans age 18-34 working full-time with a bachelor’s degree earned about $54,300, in real terms. This is only slightly higher than the 16-year record low set in 2011, and in annual terms remains $3,300 below where it was pre-crisis in 2007.
‘It turns out that those with a college degree are finding jobs, but increasingly ones that are lower-skill. The result is a rise in underemployment and historically low real earnings.’

Adding insult to injury is the rising student debt burden, about 90 percent of which comes from a decades old federal aid system that needs reform. Under the current system, college students are essentially stuck in the middle of a game of chicken between generous federal aid and rising college tuition. For example, the “historically low” increase in college tuition last year was still three times the average increase in real earnings for young college graduates in 2012. With average debt levels now at a staggering $29,400 per borrower, many young Americans and their parents are understandably rethinking the value of a college education.

As tough as young college graduates have it, this is still far better than the reality of young Americans without a degree. New PPI research finds that the unemployment rate for young Americans age 16-34 with only a high school diploma, though falling, remains over 14 percent, compared to 5 percent for young college graduates. Worse, real average annual earnings for young Americans with only a college degree were just $32,900 in 2012, still about 4 percent lower than real earnings in 2007.

Fortunately, opportunities exist for policymakers to help. With a concerted effort, we can design policies that directly target young Americans in and out of school and encourage better alignment of the skills of young Americans have with the needs of employers. This may include comprehensive education reform, redefining post-secondary education and training, addressing the rising cost of college and student debt, and promoting investment and asset building activities.

For example, over the next year, the Higher Education Act (HEA) is coming up for reauthorization. HEA could provide policymakers with an opportunity to reaffirm the value of college, by using the administration of federal student aid to encourage alternative forms of higher education. Going to a four-year college is so ingrained in society it seems to be the only acceptable option after high school; there is now almost one four-year college for every U.S. county. As a result, poor performing colleges get a free pass that doesn’t do anyone any favors—especially their graduates.

The first step to helping young Americans in 2014 is to convince policymakers to take their economic struggles seriously. If policymakers use the start of a new year as a new start for young Americans, 2014 could be a better year for all 80 million young Americans. Moreover, it could lay the groundwork for economic growth and prosperity in America for years to come.

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Ten Ivy League alternatives

Katherine M. Zhou

The start of 2014 brings many college application deadlines.

Many high school seniors aim high for prestigious spots at Harvard or Yale — or one of the other six coveted Ivy League schools.

And sure, aiming high is great, but "the Ivies aren't the only game in town," according to Edward B. Fiske, creator of Fiske Guide to Colleges: Beyond the Ivies.

The new ebook features 10 colleges and universities similar in academic excellence to Ivy Leagues that future undergrads would be silly to rule out.

Here's the list of its Top 10 Ivy League Alternatives:

Amherst College
Duke University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Pomona College
Stanford University
Swarthmore College
University of Chicago
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Williams College

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Craziest college traditions

Student with Down syndrome receiving an acceptance letter to Clemson's program for students with disabilities

Twelve obvious things confirmed by science

Brace yourself. These are shocking developments, people.

1. YES, YOUR CAT IS IGNORING YOU
Your tabby recognizes the sound of your voice, but it’s ignoring you anyway. A recent study at the University of Tokyo showed that, although a cat can identify its owner’s commands, it really doesn’t care enough to listen. The reason for kitty’s cold shoulder? Evolution. Unlike dogs, which were bred and domesticated by humans, cats domesticated themselves. They just aren’t hardwired to listen for commands. 

 
2. STUDENTS WHO DO HOMEWORK GET HIGHER GRADES
Economist Nick Rupp divided his class into two groups—those required to do homework, and those who were not. The results were (not) shocking. Kids who took home assignments had higher test scores and retention rates. To the delight of teachers everywhere, Rupp confirmed that “homework plays an important role in student learning.”

3. MEN STARE AT WOMEN’S BOOBS
In an article titled My Eyes are Up Here, Sarah Gervais and her team used eye-tracking technology to confirm what we’ve long suspected—men like ogling at women’s chests. Men spent more time looking at a woman’s body than her face. Their eyes wandered the most if the woman had—surprise!—wide hips, a narrow waist, and large breasts. But men weren’t alone. Women were just as guilty. While guys are gaga for gozangas, women stare to scope out the competition.

4. HIGH HEELS HURT
High heels exaggerate your posture, tilt your hips, and shorten your gait. Some evolutionary psychologists argue they’re part of our primal urge to compete for mates. While that’s up for debate, science has confirmed that high heels are pretty much terrible for you. A study by the Institute for Aging Research found that 64 percent of older women who complained of foot pain had also spent years in high heels, pumps, or sandals.

5. PIGS LOVE MUD
Pigs don’t have many sweat glands, which makes controlling body temperature a problem. So, for the longest time, scientists believed pigs wallowed in mud to keep cool. Although that’s true, a study in Applied Animal Behavior Science discovered an evolutionary twist: Porkers don’t roll in mud because they have just a few sweat glands; rather, they have a few sweat glands because they like to roll in mud. (Put differently, swine never developed sweat glands because their ancestors were always playing in muck!) Now some scientists believe a mud bath simply makes pigs happy. It’s a tautology, but pigs like mud because, well, they like mud.

6. MEN SLOW DOWN WHEN WALKING WITH THEIR GIRLFRIENDS
In the universal battle over who truly wears the pants, the ladies score one more point. Scientists at Seattle Pacific University confirmed that when couples walk together, the guy slows down. Men put on the brakes and slow down seven percent, while their significant other doesn’t speed up or slow down at all. However, when men walked with friends—male or female—their pace barely dipped.

7. CEREAL TASTES BETTER WITH MILK
Scientists at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile did the unthinkable—they added water to corn flakes. They found that the “intermolecular interactions in the flake’s matrix could be weakened by the plasticizer, leading to the solubilization of some components, and . . . a decrease in mechanical integrity.” Translated into English? Water makes cereal soggy. Milk, it turns out, is special. The fat content protects cereal from sucking in too much liquid, keeping it crispy.

8. OVEREATING CAN LEAD TO WEIGHT GAIN
Between the 1970s and now, the average adult in the U.S. gained 19 pounds. Research presented at the European Congress of Obesity in 2009 found that “weight gain in the American population seems to be virtually all explained by eating more calories,” study leader Boyd Swinburn said. Laziness had little to do with America’s tightening belt.

9. MEETINGS SUCK
A 2005 study in Group Dynamics found that meetings are annoying time-sapping killjoys. By analyzing the diary entries of 37 university workers, researchers concluded that meetings make employees stressed and grumpy, hindering even the most motivated workers from getting things done.

10. READING IS GOOD FOR YOUR BRAIN
Your second grade teacher was right. Experts put PhD candidates inside an MRI and had them read Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. At one point, they were told to read for pleasure. Then they were told to read analytically (as if they were studying for a test). In both cases, their brains' blood flow increased. Under each condition, blood flowed to different parts of the noggin. Each style of reading prompted different—and beneficial—brain patterns. “Literary study provides a truly valuable exercise of people’s brains,” said project leader Natalie Phillips. Rejoice, English majors!

11. PARTY SCHOOLS LOVE TO PARTY
It took 14 years, but a team at Harvard School of Public Health finally did it—they confirmed Playboy’s sneaking suspicion. Students binge drank more if their school had a reputation for drinking and partying. The survey of 50,000 students at 120 colleges showed that, although the student body changes year by year, the ratio of heavy to casual drinkers stays the same.

12. THE INTERNET IS WHERE PRODUCTIVITY COMES TO DIE
The Internet is an amazing tool with the power to do the world infinite good. But, wait. Look! It’s a bear riding a bicycle! According to Pew Research, 53 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 29 go online once a day just to waste time. Older adults are even worse. Nearly two-thirds of them roam the Internet for no reason at all. If you’re reading this, chances are you’re one of them.

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UCLA students address the school's lack of diversity

The black students at University of California, Los Angeles, sent a strong message about diversity at their school. Namely, the fact that there isn't much when it comes to African-American males, a troubling fact for one of the state's most elite institutions.

A group of students, led by Sy Stokes, posted a video voicing their concerns about the number of black students on campus, and their message is hard to ignore. Stokes, a third-year Afro-American studies student who identifies as black, Cherokee and Chinese, recites a spoken word poem in the video, citing blaring statistics about the university's diversity issue.

According to the school's enrollment statistics, African-Americans make up 3.8 percent of the student population. In the video, Stokes points out that black males make up 3.3 percent of the male student population, and that 65 percent of those black males are undergraduate athletes. Of the incoming men in the freshmen class, only 1.9 percent of them were black.

In an interview with the Daily Bruin, Stokes said he almost dropped out of UCLA during his first year because he felt isolated and uncomfortable. Although he eventually found his niche in the minority community, he said he wanted to raise awareness about the school's lack of diversity before the university's application deadline on Nov. 30.

“We had to do something to put our issues on the map,” Stokes said.

In an email statement to the school paper, Janina Montero, vice chancellor of student affairs, said administrators acknowledge the need for more diversity and are attempting to work within the state's admission parameters.

“We certainly recognize that the low numbers of African Americans and other underrepresented students on campus does lead to a sense of isolation and invisibility,” Montero said in her email statement. “It is difficult to eliminate this painful imbalance without considering race in the admissions process.”

The state of California voted down affirmative action in 1996 and passed Proposition 209, which banned state schools from considering race, gender, ethnicity or national origins in their admissions processes. Black student enrollment has severely decreased since that provision and critics are saying that has to change.

The students' video adds to the ongoing affirmative action debate both inside and outside of the state, raising awareness about diversity at institutions around the country. Stokes said he feels responsible for spreading the word about the unknown challenges of being a minority student at UCLA and the ongoing lack of diversity on campus.

"Being the cousin of Arthur Ashe, I feel as though it is my responsibility to uphold the strong voices of the Black Bruin community," he said. This school has experienced unacceptable instances of injustice recently, and many people are not aware of what is happening at this university."

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OSU marching band impresses me yet again: Homage to Hollywood blockbusters

OSU's marching band does a Michael Jackson tribute

Fake professor prank

Advice to UVA's Class of 2017

I miss this school so much.

This kid gives an epic convocation speech

How to get free college textbooks

This article comes to us courtesy of U.S. News & World Report, where it was originally published.

College can be a shock to the senses for many students. It can also be a shock to the wallet. Students can easily drop $200 on a single textbook – and that's just one book, for one class.

Arizona State University estimates full-time students will spend $1,000 on books this school year. Ohio State University suggests students budget nearly $1,250 for books and supplies, and the University of Southern California bumps that figure up to $1,500 for full-time undergrads.

Buying used instead of new can help students cut their book bill. Renting in lieu of buying can help students save, too. Budget-savvy students can go a step further by scoring free textbooks.

Finding no-cost options for all of the books on your list may not be possible, but even one or two free books can save students hundreds of dollars. Below are a few resources to start your search for free textbooks.

University library: Sometimes the best place to start is the most obvious. University libraries house thousands of books. What they don't have in-stock can often be requested via interlibrary loan agreements, says Jon Lal, founder of the savings website BeFrugal.com.


Check your school library's online catalog for the books on your syllabi, or go directly to your librarian for help. The sooner, the better, Lal says.

"Go to your college's library ASAP when school starts with a list of the textbooks you need. Have the author names and publication dates with you," he says. "If the library has it, see if you can check it out or if it's to be used only in the library."

Professors often put the textbooks for their courses on reserve at the school's library. These are typically available for short-term loan, sometimes as little as an hour or two, which gives students a chance to complete the assigned reading. Availability of these books is often limited, too, so plan ahead.

Book swap: Textbooks collect dust as soon as the semester ends. While you may tell yourself you will use that intermediate Spanish book again, you probably won't. So why not let someone else use it?

Student organizations at schools such as Georgia College and the University of Florida set up online book exchanges. These sites allow undergrads to list books they have and books they need in hopes of finding a match.

If your campus doesn't have a book exchange, start one. Book swaps only work if students participate, so enlist a student organization to put up flyers and make some noise during orientation.

Project Gutenberg: The oldest digital library in the world offers more than 43,000 e-books, completely gratis. Comparative literature students taking Only Jane Austen at Binghamton University, for example, can find every book on their syllabus via Project Gutenberg.

Titles available on the site span categories such as archaeology, horticulture, microbiology and World War I. Copyrights are expired on all of the titles available for download via Project Gutenberg, so students studying history or classic literature may have more luck than those taking courses such as Hunger Games: Could it Happen to Us?

E-readers: Undergrads enrolled in that course about "The Hunger Games" can still get their book for free. Amazon's Kindle Lending Library allows members to check out e-books for free. While students won't find their Introduction to Chemistry book, they will find both popular and classic titles.

There is a catch, though. To use the Kindle library, students need to own the namesake e-reader. They also need to subscribe to Amazon Prime, which is $39 per year for college students.

Students may find PDFs of textbooks posted online, too, but downloading those copies can get them into murky copyright waters. And even so, searches may bear little fruit.

Despite the outlets available, many students won't find all of the texts they need, financial aid expert Kantrowitz told U.S. News via email.

"Generally, you won't be able to find many free textbooks except for classic literature."

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How long is it okay to live with your parents after college?

Earlier this month, a Pew Research study showed that more young adults are living at home than ever before. A full 36 percent of 18- to 31-year-olds (the group TIME affectionately dubbed the "me me me generation") lived at home in 2012 — a notable hike from the 32 percent in 2007.

The question is: How long is it okay for them to stick around?

Depends on if you're asking the millennials or their baby boomer parents, shows a new survey from Coldwell Banker Real Estate.

The younger generation say it's acceptable for adults to live with their parents for up to five years after college. Parents 55 and older think just three years is acceptable.

One reason young people may have looser standards about shacking up with their parents is that they were hit disproportionately by the recession. While the overall unemployment rate lowered slightly to 7.4 percent in July, the rate for 20- to 24-year-olds lingered at 12.6 percent. Naturally, a high share of those living at home are unemployed: 45 percent, instead of the 29 percent with jobs, says Pew. They're also shouldering much of the country's $1 trillion in outstanding student loan debt.

But despite millennials' economic troubles, a stigma remains. A full 70 percent of all those surveyed by Coldwell say too many adults living at home are avoiding responsibility, and 65 percent say too many are overstaying their welcome.

"The economy is a component in this, but it's also just taking longer developmentally for this generation to grow up and become adults," psychotherapist Robi Ludwig, who worked with Coldwell Banker on the survey, told The Fiscal Times. "Because emerging adults are living at home more frequently, there's been a mind shift and this is the new normal. It doesn't seem abnormal or like you're unsuccessful."

Indeed, parents living with adult children are dealing with their own set of stresses. Kirsten Grind in The Wall Street Journal:

Even parents who can afford to have their kids return home without significant financial strain should be worried about the consequences. When kids move back home with parents, it puts parents in the complicated position of wanting to support their children while trying to help them launch their own lives. The line between support and coddling can be blurry, experts say. [The Wall Street Journal]

The Coldwell survey concurs. Fifty-seven percent of Americans say that when children return home from college it prevents their parents from moving on with their own lives.

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The student loan repayment project that no one is using

The menu of repayment options available for struggling borrowers is a key benefit of taking out federal instead of private student loans, but new data show that many students aren’t taking advantage of the government’s programs.

The details come from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s student loan ombudsman, Rohit Chopra, who posted an interesting breakdown of the $1 trillion in outstanding federal student loans. He found that two-thirds of all direct-loan borrowers are on the standard 10-year payment plan; the remaining third are in one of the special plans that are supposed to help borrowers manage their monthly payments. About two-thirds of those people are in plans that either extend the term of their loan or start the monthly payments small but increase them over time, or some combination of those options. They can make loans more affordable in the short term, but they increase how much total interest a borrower pays over the life of the loan.

Just 3 out of 10 borrowers in the repayment plans are getting the kind of help that pegs a borrower’s payment to his or her monthly income. These income-based repayment plans (known as IBR) are generally praisedby student advocates for making loans affordable and because they forgive the remaining balance after 10, 20, or 25 years, depending on the program. Chopra found that given the average amount borrowers in each program owed, “it’s possible that many borrowers in plans not based on income might be better off with an income-based plan.”

So why aren’t more students using the IBR plans? Chopra says it’s because borrowers don’t know about them and enrollment isn’t as easy as it could be. Publicizing the programs is largely up to the loan servicers that collect monthly payments and are supposed to work with borrowers in trouble. Yet two-thirds of borrowers surveyed by the National Consumer Law Center a year ago said (PDF) that they didn’t hear from their loan servicers before they defaulted on their debt. As Inside Higher Ed has reported, enrolling in IBR can be complicated, and as Bloomberg News revealedlast year, servicers haven’t necessarily been compensated properly to encourage them to put in the extra work.

Two recent changes could improve the situation: The White House streamlined the IBR enrollment process by making it easier to apply online, and in March of this year, President Obama restructured how the government pays student loan servicers to make putting students in IBR programs more attractive. But there are still other potential fixes, including one pushed by the NCLC: automatically enrolling every borrower who falls behind on a loan in some form of income-based repayment. As we know from a host of research, inertia is powerful, so default options become the most common ones. And as the new data show, for many students, that would be a good thing.

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