Student Loan Reform 101

What the new law, shoehorned into the health care bill at the eleventh hour, means for college kids.

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Also read: The rest of the 2010 MoJo Mini College Guide, plus the 2009 MoJo Mini College Guide.

Congress reformed more than just health care this year. Below, four ways the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act affects you:

 Your federal Stafford Loan will now be made directly by the Department of Education, saving the government tens of billions it used to pay in administrative fees to companies like Sallie Mae.

 If your parents’ combined income is less than $50,000, you qualify for a Pell Grant (PDF), and your yearly scholarship will increase by as much as $425.

 Community colleges and historically black- and minority-serving schools will get grants totaling $4.5 billion to use at their discretion.

 Once you finish school, your loan payments can be no more than 15 percent of your monthly salary. Students borrowing after 2014 will have to set aside only 10 percent of their paycheck for loans.

Also read: The rest of the 2010 MoJo Mini College Guide, plus the 2009 MoJo Mini College Guide.

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This is the rubber-meets-road moment: the early days in our first fundraising drive since we took a big swing and merged with CIR to bring fearless investigative reporting to the internet, radio, video, and everywhere else that people need an antidote to lies and propaganda.

Donations have started slow, and we hope that explaining, level-headedly, why your support really is everything for our reporting will make a difference. Learn more in “Less Dreading, More Doing,” or in this 2:28 video about our merger (that literally just won an award), and please pitch in if you can right now.

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