Results tagged “studentloanxpress”

Columbia University has agreed to let its financial aid office monitored for five years as well as pay $1.125 million to a national fund aimed at financial aid education for students and families in a settlement with the NY State Attorney General's office. In April, AG Andrew Cuomo revealed that financial aid officials at universities had recommended with one student loan organization, as the same officials held stock or other advisory positions at the loan company. Notably, emails between the director of undergraduate admissions at Columbia, David Charlow, and Student Loan XPress were particularly damning, as well as his thousands of dollars in stock options. Charlow was fired last month.

After months of investigation from the State Attorney General's office, Columbia University has finally fired the director of undergraduate financial aid David Charlow yesterday. Charlow had been suspended last April when his "questionable financial ties" to a student loan company were revealed: Charlow was an adviser to Student Loan Xpress, owned stock in the company, and actively encouraged students to use Student Loan Express as a lender. Then the Post printed this excerpt from an email from Charlow to Student Loan Express's CEO Fabrizio Balestri yesterday: "I want by its design to lead the students to [the] best decision in an idiot-proof way." The best decision being Student Loan express.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an attempted abduction at Balcolm and Barkley Aves. in the Bronx, loose horses on Tremont Ave. in the Bronx, and a school bus fire at the toll booth plaza of the Throgsneck Bridge in the Bronx.
• Not showing a lot of confidence in the Ivy Leaguers he was cheating money from, Columbia's student-aid head wrote emails to the loan company he held stock in outlining that he needed an "idiot-proof way" to send students to Student Loan Xpress for their educational loans.
• Get ready for Fleet Week. It begins this Wednesday with the Parade of Ships up the Hudson.
• A fascinating story on the development of DUMBO and how the neighborhood came about its name. It was conceived by a group of drunken writers and artists one night as a way to make the area seem unattractive or embarrassing to people looking to buy million-dollar residences there.
• Bernie Williams met chants of "Bernie! Bernie!" as he received an honorary degree and addressed the graduation ceremony at Iona this weekend. Mets Manager Willie Randolph also received an honorary degree and addressed graduating students, but at Fordham, where his own daughter was one of the graduates.
• Edward R. Murrow High School's renowned chess team, dubbed "Kings of New York" and the subject of a recent book, was beaten by a team of middle-schoolers from Williamsburg's I.S. 318 at the Brooklyn High School Chess Championship over the weekend.
• NY1 looks at the changes that have occurred in Red Hook, Brooklyn over the past 15 years, and the murder of a popular school principal that seemed to mark the community's turning point.

The executive director of Columbia's undergraduate financial aid office was suspended after the school - and NY State attorney general's office - found "questionable financial ties" to student loan company Student Loan Xpress. David Charlow sits on an advisory board for the company (as do two officials from UT Austin and USC who are also under investigation), and received stock options as compensation.