Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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Fayetteville Technical Community College Offers Information on Ways to Pay for College by HARPER SHACKELFORD you can consider the following: Paying for a postsecondary education (college or • Search for more scholarships and grants. trade school) is an investment. It requires planning. It • Work while attending school. takes money. So talk with your family openly and early. • Change your spending habits. If you're a high school student, you can talk with your school's guidance counselor who has helpful information You can use a credit card to help you establish and build about planning for a postsecondary education. At a credit history, but you must use credit cards wisely. Fayetteville Technical Community College, you can One way to use a credit card wisely is to use it only for contact the financial aid office to receive brochures and emergencies and not spend more than you can afford to pamphlets that will describe all available types of financial pay. If you don't have a checking account, open one and aid programs. learn how to balance your checkbook. While every student wants scholarships and grants, Below are a few more tips to help you save money while not everyone can cover the entire cost of college or in school: career school through those options. Loans can make • Buy used books instead of new ones whenever possible. While every student wants scholarships and grants, not your education possible and affordable. However, • Take advantage of free activities (e.g., concerts, plays, everyone can cover the entire cost of college or career school when exploring your loan options, you should consider through those options. art exhibits) sponsored by your school. federal student loans before any private loans. Federal • Resist impulse-buying. When you shop, use coupons student loans have lower, fixed interest rates, generous and look for sales. repayment plans, no prepayment penalties and no credit checks (except for • Stay healthy to reduce medical bills and loss of class time. PLUS Loans). • Understand your cell phone plan. Stay within your free minutes. In contrast, private loans, which may be aggressively marketed to students through For more information about financial-aid programs, visit FTCC. Our admissions television ads, mailings and other media, are substantially more expensive than federal team will be happy to assist you in exploring your options. You can also find valuable student loans. They generally have higher, variable interest rates that may substantially information about financial aid and other opportunities at FTCC by exploring our increase the total amount you repay, and the interest rate you receive might depend on website at www.faytechcc.edu. your credit score. Private loans can also have prepayment penalty fees. Excerpts from this article were taken from U.S. Department of After exploring the various non-loan and low-interest loan options, another Education, Federal Student Aid, Student Experience Group, Your option is to reduce your cost of attending college. You can start at a less Federal Student Loans: expensive school or community college, such as FTCC, before transferring to a Learn the Basics and Manage HARPER SHACKELFORD, Dean of Enrollment Management. Contributing Writer. four-year college. Credits earned at FTCC in the College Transfer program will Your Debt, Washington, COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly. transfer to most colleges and universities in the United States. Debt adds up D.C., 2010. com. quickly, so keep a watchful eye on it. If you're concerned about too much debt, Justice Filed Political Lawsuit by JOHN HOOD more likely, however, that the goal isn't legal at all. It's electoral. What's the Obama administration trying to do? Democrats are worried about the midterm elections. Because President Obama No, I'm not speculating about the president's strategies for implementing his health is not on the ballot, the 2014 electorate may look more like 2010, care law or besting Congressional Republicans in budget battles. when Democrats got "shellacked" (in the president's own words), Today's topic is closer to home: the decision by Attorney General Eric than like 2008 and 2012, when minority and young voters turned Holder to file a lawsuit alleging that North Carolina's new election law out in historic proportions. Under such a scenario, Republicans violates the federal constitution and Voting Rights Act. could well pick up congressional seats and, in North Carolina, You might think the plan is to get the federal judiciary to strike protect most of their recent gains in legislative and local races. down North Carolina's new voter-ID requirement and other By challenging North Carolina's new election law, the Obama election changes. I doubt that Holder and his legal team have administration is trying to bestow two political gifts. First, the such an unrealistic goal. They know, even if North Carolina lawsuit furthers the immediate narrative that Republicans are liberals don't, that the U.S. Supreme Court has recently upheld turning the clock back on civil rights, a narrative designed to voter ID. Under the prevailing understanding of federal law, boost turnout among the Democratic base in 2014. Second, if such requirements are not the equivalent of poll taxes and do not that gambit fails and the GOP does well in 2014, Democrats infringe on the right to vote. will campaign in 2016 on the claim that Republicans actually The lawsuit's prospects aren't much better on the other succeeded in suppressing the vote! Either way, Holder's actions challenged provisions, including changes to early voting, voter Attorney Genneral Eric Holder are best interpreted as political theater, not as a serious attempt to registration and out-of-precinct voting. There are no federally recently filed a lawsuit against protect voting rights that were never imperiled in the first place. enforceable rights to vote early, register on the same day you vote the state of North Carolina. National and state Democrats have some cards to play for or cast a ballot in a precinct other than your own. If such rights the 2014 cycle. I think this is among their weakest. Most existed, most of the country — including deep-blue states such as New York that have no early voting or same-day registration — would be guilty of North Carolinians, of all races and ages, endorse voter ID as a commonsense protection against voter fraud. Most independent studies show that neither it voter suppression. No one, including the president and his attorney general, truly nor most of the other provisions at issue are likely to have a significant effect on believes this. voter turnout. The only exception, same-day registration during early voting, is Moreover, Eric Holder's claims about North Carolina's new law are exceedingly rare. The chance that a federal appeals court will find it mandatory uninformed. For example, it doesn't reduce the opportunity to cast early ballots. under the Voting Rights Act is vanishingly small. Instead, it provides the same number of hours of early voting as before but does Republicans in Washington have drawn criticism for picking a so during a 10-day window rather than a 17-day window. And to insist that voters federal budget fight they can't win. On voter ID and election law, go to the proper precinct to vote is not only in the interest of smooth elections however, that's exactly what administration but also in the interest of the relocated voters themselves, who would otherwise be blocked from voting in some district or local races that an out- the Obama administration and JOHN HOOD President and Chairman of the John Locke Foundation. Contributing its allies have done. of-precinct provisional ballot wouldn't contain. Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upancominAt best, the Obama administration may hope to beat North Carolina at the trial gweekly.com. court, delaying implementation until the decision is reversed on appeal. I think it is WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM OCTOBER 9-15, 2013 UCW 17