The following is a guest article provided by George Gallagher.

I am no stranger to the student loan industry. I work with cuStudentLoans and have personally digested the thousands of articles, answer websites, and online community discussions concerning student loans.

There is literally an endless amount of information on the Internet trying its best to explain student loans and give advice for any situation you might find yourself in. This overabundance of information has led many debt-holding people to become actually more confused. And quite fairly, as student loans, government regulations, and bank contracts are extremely complicated.

Binksty

However, a new start-up is attempting to fix this problem, Binksty.com. Like the incredibly popular personal finance helper Mint.com, Binksty aims to consolidate your student loan data into an easy to read format and offer you custom-tailored help along the way.

I recently talked to Binksty CEO Brendon McQueen and he graciously gave me a peek into what Binksty has to offer.

The Good

Once you get your Beta invite the first thing you get to do is type in your Social Security number and Federal Pin to help Binksty find your loans for you. If you have additional loans not within the government database, you can use the simple add loan tool to ensure you have all of your loans loaded into the system.

From there Binskty currently offers you two main objectives, to view your loans in various ways and to seek help in what you can do in your situation.

The viewing portion of the dashboard gives you sort options like type, balance, apr, and payment as well as a detailed calendar and alerts system to make sure you are on top of payments. The data is aggregated using Yodlee, which is the same company that powers many of Mint.com’s tools.

Although at first you may think that you are simply viewing data you are already aware of, the different display options really gives you a perspective on what your student loan situation really looks like. For example, the APR filter shows you a bar graph of different interest rates you are paying, and for many a huge disparity might indicate consolidation is a good idea for your future.

The strongest aspect of Binksty is the advice functions. From talking to hundreds of students monthly I find that their questions aren’t always that complicated, but the available resources to answer them on the Internet are often overly complicated. Binksty has persistent advice for you while you browse through your profile as well as a very robust FAQ and advice section. I found very easy to understand solutions to every student loan problem I could think of.

What can I do if I am unemployed? What is forbearance? What can I expect when talking to my actual lender?

All answered with simple, clear, and expert advice.

Binksty also does a great job of looking at your loan profile and suggesting various options that you could benefit from. They don’t give you too many options that indicates the advice is too general, but they give you enough options allowing you to weed out the ones that you’re probably not up for in your current financial situation.

Cons

For a website that has been described as Mint.com for student loans, Binksty does lack a number of features. Granted, this company is still in Beta and Mint.com has been the established leader in online finance management for years, so I imagine we can expect more features in the future. In fact, the CEO Brendan did tell me their are very close to launching the next stage of development, so we’ll have to wait and see what new goodies will be in store.

There is also a definite slant towards loan consolidation. Which, working in the industry I know that consolidation sometimes gets a bad rap even though it can be the perfect solution for a lot of people. And Binksty has to find some avenues for revenue as they plan to keep the service free to users.

Conclusion

With new features on the horizon and the service being completely free I suggest you give it a try. And there really is nothing like it on the Internet today. So if you are looking for a little guidance and loan management, you should definitely give it a spin.

The service is still in Beta, so you’ll be getting in on the ground floor, and the staff is very accessible and can entertain your suggestions for improving the service while they are still expanding its capabilities.

When talking with Binksty it turns out they were fans of CheapScholar and made this handy little link to get you to the front of the line of the Beta Invites: www.binksty.com/cheapscholar

George Gallagher works for cuStudentLoans.org. When not helping students with their student loan questions he likes to write about personal finance and education for a handful of online publications.

You’ve finished this year’s taxes and filed your FAFSA for aid. Looking at your tax return, the question may pop up – what happens when I can’t claim my new college student? How long can I avoid that anyway? Would they be better being ‘independent’? All good questions to make sure that one is both taking the best advantage of the rules and planning for life changes.

Independent students
Taking the questions in reverse, classifying your student as ‘independent‘ is difficult. In general, the classification is designed for those students that really have no other means of support. Right or wrong, the general terms to be independent are students over 24 or having some external determination, such as wards of the court or married students. I’ll assume that most parents don’t want to take these measures (although we may have all considered the ward of the court option at some point in the teenage years!)

Rules to claim your student as a dependent
General rules to claim a dependent start with whether you are providing at least one-half of their support. That is the first step for exemptions, but there are lots of rules and exceptions (even some people that you are supporting may not qualify!).

Specific rules for students:

1. Are they a student? They should be a student for at least 5 months of the year in question (the tax year).
2. They have to be a qualified relative. Children includes adopted, foster, step children or other descendents (grandchildren). Brothers and sisters can count as well.
3. Students can be claimed as children up to age 24. Those over 24 can still qualify if they have less than $3,700 of gross income and you meet all other tests.
4. They must have lived with you more than half the year – living at college can count as living with you
5. They must be classified as ’single’ on their tax return.

Only one person may claim an exemption for anyone, including students. Divorce usually ends up with dependency being decided in the decree. If not, make sure both parents are in agreement on which is claiming the exemption – only one can. The other issue that trips people up is how the student files. Because only one person can claim the student. They should check the box indicating that “someone else can claim you” as an exemption and complete the worksheet. Most students will still end up with either zero taxable income or something much lower than the savings to the parent.

Planning for them to (truly) leave
I always encourage people to think ahead. When your son or daughter no longer meets the rules above, you’ll be losing an exemption. It is important to think about this at the start of the year and not be caught with an unexpected bill at year end. Remember that exemptions are based on the status at the end of the year, so if your student is 25 on December 31 or otherwise doesn’t meet the criteria above on that date, then they are not eligible to be a dependent for the whole year.

The easiest way to adjust for this is by changing the withholding exemptions on the Form W-4. Subtracting one from this number will likely deal with the tax implications. If you are in a situation that involves something more complex or just want to know how much the impact will be, take the current exemption ($3,800 for 2012) times your marginal tax rate. That is the rate at the highest tax bracket you are in. Your tax software usually gives you this on a summary page or you can refer to the federal tax tables.

It also never hurts to check the options. It may be that the exemption could work either way. Maybe your student just finished school and started a job. They still meet the criteria above (24 or under at 12/31, lived with you more than half of the year and a student for five months) but now they have a job and want the most tax savings. In these days of tax software it is possible to calculate both returns with and without the exemption and see which combination works best.

The example would be that the parent may save $1,140 by claiming the exemption where the impact to the child’s return is only $570 (30% tax bracket vs. a 15% bracket). That is a total savings of almost $600! I’ll leave it up to you how to settle it.

Source(s):  Dependents and Exemptions

Today’s guest article is provided by Philip Laube, a CPA in Ohio and the Assistant Vice President for Business & Finance at Muskingum University. He presents and writes about personal finance issues for college students. He can be followed at twitter and on his web site

To My Faithful Readers – please disregard this interruption to your regular CheapScholar.org programming.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I am providing presentations to various groups throughout the midwest region. These sessions will be highlighting how Social Media can be incorporated into Student Financial Service activities on a college campus. I will be covering the basics of Twitter, Facebook, and Blogging (CheapScholar.org).

To The Conference/Webinar Attendees – In an effort to “go green” and limit the number of handouts, below is some additional information for you to reference and utilize as you move forward in your individual social media projects on your campus. If you encounter any questions along the way, don’t hesitate to drop me a line.  Enjoy!

Ways In Which You Can Utilize Social Media On Your Campus

• Communicating Deadlines
• Student Financial Literacy
• Scholarship Opportunities
• Mailbox Alerts – Due Dates
• Sharing Educational News Articles
• Updates & Reminders on Processes and Procedures
• Videos (Campus Christmas Card, Constitution Day, etc…)

FACEBOOK STATS AND FACTS

• More than 850 million active users
• 48% of 18-34 year olds check Facebook right when they wake up (28% before getting out of bed – Smart Phones)
• In 20 Minutes on Facebook:
  • 1,000,000 links are shared
  • 1,484,000 event invites are sent
  • 2,716,000 photos are uploaded
  • 1,972,000 friend requests are accepted
  • 1,587,000 statuses are updated
  • 10,200,000 comments are posted
• Average user has about 130 friends
• Average user spends 31 minutes on Facebook each day
• Guide to setting up a Facebook Fan Page (jpg)
• Start your own Facebook Page here!

TWITTER STATS AND FACTS

• Over 200 million accounts (100 million are active)
• 55% of active users are mobile users
• 460,000 new Twitter accounts opened each day
• 350 million tweets are sent each day
• 36% of Twitter users tweet at least once per day
• Top Twitter Accounts (ranked by followers)
  • Lady Gaga – 21,951,838
  • Justin Bieber – 19,252,306
  • Katy Perry – 16,935,911
  • Rihanna – 15,967,423
  • Shakira – 15,196,983
  • Britney Spears – 14,916,256
  • Kim Kardashian – 14,273,251
  • Barack Obama – 13,569,004
  • Taylor Swift – 12,232,856
  • Selena Gomez – 11,194,355
• Guide to setting up a Twitter Account (pdf)
• Connecting Twitter to Facebook (Facebook updates automatically post on Twitter)

BLOGGING STATS AND FACTS

• There are over 164 million blogs on the internet
• 56% of internet users read blogs
• 80% of blogs are abandoned within the first month
• 68% of bloggers have been blogging for over 2 yrs
• 33% of bloggers are female
• 27% of bloggers update their blog daily
• 64% of bloggers are hobbyists
• Some popular blogging platforms include: WordPress & Blogger

Some Cool (and FREE) Tools That Can Help You Manage Your Social Media

• Social Oomph helps to automate the messages sent to your followers
• HootSuite provides a one stop shop for managing all your social media venues
• Social Mention allows you to track what others are saying about you
• TwitterFeed automatically pushes your RSS feed to all your social media channels
• RSS Graffiti is one of the best RSS feed auto-posters to Facebook

Here is a cool video that displays the impact of social media on the world:

The ebb and flow of lending institutions participating in the private education loan market has been somewhat difficult to track over the years. Back in 2008 we witnessed a large number of organizations dropping out of the industry. However, over the course of the past few years, a good number of lenders have gotten back into the student loan market.

This week (yesterday), U.S. Bank sent a notice stating that as of March 29th, 2012 (tomorrow), they will no longer be accepting loan applications. You can find the notification letter below.

In addition, a source from the financial aid industry recently shared with CheapScholar.org that all of the education loan reps from Chase Bank were let go. This is probably a good indication that Chase Bank will be following suit with U.S. Bank’s exodus from the student loan market.

What does all this mean for students and families? Hopefully these large lenders discontinuing education loans is not a sign of what’s to come with the student loan industry as a whole. While loans are not the preferred method to pay for college, they do provide students accessibility to an education that they may not be able to afford otherwise. If you are a student that has utilized an education loan from U.S. Bank or Chase Bank in the past and need to start the search for another lender, please feel free to utilize CheapScholar’s Private Loan Comparison Tool or visit our Education Loan Resource Center to view all your different options and get helpful tips.

Letter From U.S. Bank To Participating Institutions:

Over the years, U.S. Bank has deeply appreciated the student lending relationship we have shared with your school and its students and families.

We regret to inform you that U.S. Bank is exiting the private student lending business and will no longer accept applications for student loans after March 29, 2012. Please know that this announcement applies to all schools and is not specific to your institution.

Any applications received by U.S. Bank up to and including March 29, 2012 will be processed normally. Loans received by that date that are approved and certified by your institution will be disbursed according to your normal disbursement schedules.

As a school partner, we are asking you to do the following:

U.S. Bank continues to be a proud partner with colleges and universities across the country. Through our on-campus branch networks, our program sponsorships and our lending and financing, we look forward to continuing to serve schools, students and families across the country with their banking needs.

If you have additional questions, please contact us at 800-242-1200, select option 2 and then 2 on your phone.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and we thank you for the business you have done with U.S. Bank.

U.S. Bank Student Lending

WILD: Big-Time Bottle Collection

Taking the time to return your bottles and cans to get your deposit is a no-brainer. I’m talking much bigger here. Think about it—college students almost always have a drink in their hand (not just on Saturday night!). I guarantee every building at your school has one or more receptacles for bottles and cans. You just need to beat the custodian to ‘em.

The best time is usually in the evening. You’ll need a truck or a van, so you might need to get a friend in on this. Most of the time all that’s required is to remove the top of the bin and lift out the bag. Fill up the truck and drive straight to a store where you can return them. Apply that to your grocery bill and you’ll start saving the big bucks. Repeat as often as you’d like.

NOT-SO-WILD: Budget Your Money

I’m sure you’ve heard advice about budgeting before. But it really does help! The problem is that in college your income and expenses tend to vary widely from month-to-month. That’s OK! Even if you’re not staying within your budgets all the time the benefits are still there. Budgeting forces you to keep track of your money. You’ll also be able to reflect on where you spent a little too much money last month. This will help you avoid that frustrating moment when you think, “what the heck happened to all my money?” If you don’t know where to begin, I highly recommend Mint.com.

WILD: Dumpster Divin’

The key to this is finding the right dumpster. Most of them are just what you’re picturing in your head—smelly, filthy, downright awful contraptions. However, there are some opportunities. Think small convenience stores. Places without prepared food and produce. These establishments tend to trash whatever inventory passes the sell by date, which, as we all know, does not necessarily mean it’s gone bad.

For us it was the Wonder/Hostess Bakery Outlet near campus. We would drive over there at night, hop into the perfectly clean dumpster filled with packaged bread and tasty treats, and fill up the trunk. I didn’t pay for a single dessert all of Freshman year.

NOT-SO-WILD: Cut the Cable

This is getting more and more common these days. As much as you might think you’re addicted to ESPN, The Walking Dead, and trash TV, you really don’t need cable television. There is so much perfectly good entertainment available to you on the internet and with a much cheaper Netflix subscription. It will seem sad and terrifying at first, but give it a try for at least a month. I promise you will feel liberated. You can always head to a sports bar for the big game or to a friends to watch that one show you just can’t miss. This will easily save you several hundred dollars a year.

WILD: Lucky Host

Ready to open up your college home? Host a regular pot-luck dinner (once a month works well). This can be a lot of work, especially at first, but it’s college so nobody’s expecting much. And everyone’s always up for a social event. The key to this is the pot-luck aspect. Make it clear that everyone MUST bring something. People tend to over-do-it with this because they get excited and want to make sure there’s enough for everyone. This means leftovers! Now, there might be some people that are stingy and make sure they take their leftovers with them. But most of the time the host will end up with the extra. Be sure to be the one to clean up! If you’re lucky, you could have free food for days.

NOT-SO-WILD: Shack Up!

It can be tempting, especially in your senior year, to try living on your own. Resist this urge! You can do this once you graduate and have a regular income. While you’re in college, however, it’s always worth it to put up with a roommate. You’ll save money all over the place—rent, utility bills, food, furniture and housewares. If you can stand it, you can save even more by moving in with several friends. Lots of students rent out off-campus homes or multi-bedroom apartments. This could be a huge money saver for you so make sure you consider it!

WILD: Closing Time Customer

This one may help you hone your charm and negotiation skills. Most bakeries, coffee shops, delis, and similar corner bistros rely on having fresh food and baked goods everyday. This means that at the end of the day they often end up throwing out the stuff that didn’t sell. This is practically free food! To make it worth your while, make a list of 5-10 of these places around town. Pick a quiet weekday and figure out each of their closing times. Make a route so you’ll hit each just before they close up.

Usually the people working these shifts will be relatively easygoing and ready to head home. Use this to your advantage. Turn on your charm and ask them for the goods for free. If they say no, begin negotiating a very low price. You might find it more effective to buy a small coffee first. If you’re good, you should be saving plenty of money on some delicious baked goods.

NOT-SO-WILD: Brew-It-Yourself

Being a regular coffee drinker can really burn a hole in your pocket if you’re not careful. Put in the effort to brew it yourself. A $3 cup of coffee from Starbucks may not seem like much, but it certainly adds up over time. Even with the expenses of buying coffee, filters, and your own creamer, you’re shaving at least half of the cost off by making your own. More than likely it’s a lot more than that. If you’re saving $2 a day on coffee, that will add up to hundreds of dollars a year. Don’t believe me? Check out the math from The Simple Dollar.

Today’s guest article comes from Carl Phelps, an entrepreneur from Rochester, NY with expertise in digital marketing. He is a co-founder of Confidently, an online community that helps college students and recent grads start their job search, meet employers, and land top opportunities.

The following apps will help students create and stick to a budget

A college student’s smart phone—be it an iPhone, BlackBerry, Samsung Galaxy S, or Android phone—serves a ton of purposes on campus. You can use the camera to snap pictures at your favorite student events, you can use the recorder to take audio class notes, you can use the calculator to try to budget your spending at the campus bookstore and pub, you can use the texting features to communicate with friends and co-students, and you can use the calendar and organizational tools to manage your day and plan the year ahead.

However, when it comes to student financial planning did you know that you’re smart phone can actually help you budget and save money? Because I was a struggling student once myself, I’ve put together this collection of inexpensive smart phone apps that can help students save money while they’re in college…

1. BookCircus (Free – for iPhone)

After you spend money on tuition, meal plans, parking or public transit, and books, you’re going to need to make some money back second year. The easiest way to do that is by selling the year’s previous textbooks. The BookCircus app will help you sell your old textbooks with ease by actually purchasing them from you directly. You can conduct the entire transaction from your phone by simply launching the app, and calculating how much your textbooks are worth when you enter the ISBN number of each book into the app. BookCircus will then provide the amount they are willing to pay if you sell them your books. Once the transaction is complete, the app will even automatically forward you a printable slip with instructions for how to ship them the books. Once the books are delivered, you’ll receive a check for your troubles.

2. Campus Special (Free – for Android & iPhone)

When I was a college student, I spent a lot of money going out to eat. However, the Campus Special app will help dinning out students save by locating the closest deals on food in your local area and even providing directions on where to find them. This app also features restaurant menus, contact information, hours of operation, and even lets you place an order online—directly from your smart phone. You can even look up coupons for every night of the week to plan your lunches and dinners ahead of time—so you’ll know you’re saving each and every time you dine out.

3. i-FinAid ($1.99 – for iPhone)

I approached college with anticipation, but also with fear (of all the debt I was going to dig myself into). However, college doesn’t have to be so daunting! The i-FinAid app will help you plan out every aspect of financial planning for college—including tuition costs, loan options, grants, scholarships, and of course if you choose to get a part time job, student income. The i-FinAid app will help you crunch the numbers before you decide on what college to attend. This app collects and records all of your personal information, including:

• Any student part time income
• Parent’s income
• State of residence
• College tuition costs
• Textbook costs
• Residence costs

And calculates how much money you can expect to spend. This app is ideal for students trying to decide where to go to college because it will give you a good idea of how much tuition and other related-college costs will be at each campus. This way, this you can start saving and applying to the proper grants in order to attend you chosen college.

4. Epicurious (Free – for Android)

One of the worst things that I did as a college student was to eat out all the time. The Epicurious app will keep you contained and saving money in your own kitchen by presenting you with unlimited options for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This app is essentially a cookbook that encourages students to save money by making their own meals at home—rather than eating out all the time. You can search recipes by main ingredient, meal type, or level of difficulty, which is ideal for students who are away from home for the first time and don’t know how to cook.

Today’s guest article comes from Jane Johnson who is a writer for GoingCellular, a popular site that provides cell phone related news, commentary, reviews on popular providers like T-Mobile.

Succeeding in college doesn’t come easy. You need to have the right tools and resources to help you achieve your goals.

In an effort to help our readers be successful in all their literary works (in the classroom, on their blogs, or with personal projects), CheapScholar.org is partnering up with Dictionary.com to provide 10 free one-year subscriptions to Writing Dynamo. This tool is the newest feature of Word Dynamo, Dictionary.com’s online learning experience that combines proven study techniques with engaging games to expand and sharpen curious minds.

Writing Dynamo adds a new dimension to the Word Dynamo experience by offering the guidance of an insightful, comprehensive writing review across a full range of skills. Students, teachers, writers, professionals, English-learners, job applicants, and all who seek to improve their writing can quickly and easily:

• Obtain a complete writing assessment that offers immediate, comprehensive style advice
• Improve voice and word choice
• Remove redundancies
• Perfect sentence structure and length
• Get a high-level assessment of their overall writing skills across six different traits
• Eliminate easy-to-miss errors in seconds with automated proofreading via an online grammar checker

The following represents the many different ways in which you can submit an entry into our giveaway:

• You can leave a comment below
• You can follow CheapScholar.org on Twitter
• You can like CheapScholar.org on Facebook
• You can mention this contest and @CheapScholar on Twitter
• You can subscribe to receive our informative articles via email

Each of the methods above will give you an entry into the giveaway.  So, you could potentially have up to five chances to win one of the 10 free one-year subscriptions to Writing Dynamo…

This giveaway will close on Thursday, March 15th at midnight (Eastern Standard Time). I will randomly select the winners (using the wonders of technology and Random.org) from the entries and announce those winners on this article on Friday, March 16th.

***Winner Update***

Congratulations to the following winners! An email has been sent to you with additional instructions.

MoniqueHasana

R. Green

S. Jackson

M. Balmeo

B. McBride

Chavonne H.

G. Welsh

Angie P.

Amanda (M. Blessing)

Schmidty

Hope you enjoy this giveaway. If you know any deserving people that could make good use of this dynamic writing tool provided by Dictionary.com, please feel free to utilize the “share tab” below to pass this information onto them.

Good Luck!

When it comes to convenience and cost cutting approaches to eating on campus, Ramen noodles are a student’s best friend. They are cheap and they do a great job of filling the bellies of hungry college students across the nation. As a matter of fact, one of the top responses that I have received related to CheapScholar’s “How Do YOU Make College Cheaper” challenge has been Ramen noodles.

The good people at HackCollege have provided the following infographic that highlights some of the more not so well known factoids related to Ramen noodles. Enjoy and please be sure to pass along to your fellow college students.