Throwing the baby out with the… bathtub? Even though it is called the Freedom School, there is still homework. Barnard steals fancy new financial aid director from… Columbia! Celebrating forks, knives and spoons. Celebrating Keira Knightley’s new period drama. …and the traditional freshman editorial about being satisfied with imperfections. Welcome to the canon.

Columbia joins the “Ivy League arms race.” In a pinch?  Here’s John Kluge’s wallet. Centralized planning, Soviet-style! If a facade falls on 110th street in the middle of the night, does anybody hear it? Burma Coalition shows some saffron muscle.

Although the formal announcement in all of our inboxes is still pending, the Times has already reported the details of Columbia’s big financial aid plan this morning. The main points: Families making $60,000 or less per year will no longer pay tuition, room and board, or fees as of Fall 2008 Grants will replace loans […]

You can watch coverage of their discussion below, including the results from a GS-wide survey about debt and aid—according to GSSC President Niko Cunningham, an average GSer’s debt is three times that of an average CCer. Just another piece of Double Secret Financial Aid News puzzle, which Prezbo is maybe (probably!) solving for us today.

A self-described “mega-anonymous” tipster informs Bwog that CC and SEAS will be annnouncing a “huge” change in financial aid, tomorrow or late today. (GS’s change will be of a more minor nature).  Perhaps Andrew Delbanco might have gotten his wish after all?   Bwog will update with details as soon as some materialize. 

Much in the news today about paying for college and college paying for you. American studies director Andrew Delbanco and former dean of students Roger Lehecka co-wrote a New York Times article about Harvard and Yale’s distribution of financial aid. Our Ivy brethren to the north, in an attempt to make attending college possible for […]

The New York Post  has picked up a story in which Brian Baxter, who graduated from Columbia in 1990, is suing the University, claiming he’s being subjected to “modern-day slavery” in the form of high student loan rates. Citibank—Columbia’s partner in crime and “preferred lender”—is also involved in the suit. Baxter, who likens himself to […]

The other shoe in Columbia’s financial aid boondoggle dropped in Bwog’s inbox this morning: a few weeks after jettisoning former Dean David Charlow, the University has recieved its comeuppance from New York State, which threw the book at us harder than any other school. “We believe Columbia’s employee was acting illegally,” said Attorney General Andrew […]

Bwog returned home to find the following announcement from Director of Media Relations Robert Hornsby in its inbox: “Last month, Columbia promptly brought information received about David Charlow’s relationship with former preferred lender Student Loan Xpress to the Attorney General’s attention and suspended Mr. Charlow from any engagement in the affairs of the University. As […]

The 2006-07 school year has contained multitudes. In fact, it may just be the most eventful year Columbia’s had since… well, the year before. Remember Matthew Fox? The Chung-Diamond “scandal”? “Don’t Be a Pussy”? “Epilogue to Our Crime & Punishment: A Petition“? Bwog certainly does, so step into the Wayback machine – you’re about to […]

Low press briefings, Bwog is aware, are typically not very interesting. This one didn’t disappoint–PrezBo took a few softball questions from a few journalists in his low, almost subsonic tones–but we did get to meet Mr. Kluge himself, a charming old man whose death will bring the University more money than we can really comprehend. […]

We’d heard that there was going to be a super big announcement tomorrow in Low Rotunda. We figured that it had to do with money. We didn’t know it was going to be this much money: according to the Wall Street Journal, media mogul John Kluge (the minority scholarship guy, Forbes’ #25) is forking over […]

In retrospect, how did no one figure out this was going on? EC “excluded” from many seniors’ plans. Repeating a meaningless phrase fourteen times in one article doesn’t make it funny.* From Rajasthan with love.  *Unless that phrase is “purple monkey dishwasher.”  

In a nutshell: Associate Dean of Financial Affairs David Charlow, who deals with financial aid, is in the doghouse for having invested heavily in Student Loan XPress, which Columbia recommends to students for their loans. Here’s MSNBC coverage, and more from 1010 Wins. On campus, CTV got the story first, and Spec was hot on […]

After 20 years of safe subterranean spelunking, admin. to shut off access to fun…oops, dangerous chemicals… …and will make damn sure you stay in your boring science and math classes… …but the utter thrill of manipulating financial aid loopholes remains. Go agency!  Er…go agency? Meanwhile, GS students, as always, find a “nontraditional” way to cheat the system […]