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Feb 26, 2008

Stanford drops tuition for some students

Palo Alto -- In a radical change to its financial aid program, Stanford University will announce today that it will no longer charge tuition to students whose families earn less than $100,000 a year.

In addition, the university will waive room and board fees for students whose families earn less than $60,000 a year.

University President John Hennessy will make the announcement today on campus, university Provost John Etchemendy confirmed late Tuesday.

The university is making the change in the wake of published reports last month that its endowment had grown almost 22 percent last year, to $17.1 billion. That sum had begun to attract attention from lawmakers who want wealthy institutions to do more to reduce tuition costs.

Financial aid also will increase to families that make more than $100,000 a year.

"Thanks to our increasingly generous financial aid program ... attending Stanford will cost less than most private and many public universities," Etchemendy said.

To pay for the new tuition assistance, the university said it will increase its annual endowment payout to 5.5 percent. The new plan, which begins in the 2008-09 academic year, eliminates the need for student loans for qualifying students.

"We are committed to ensuring that Stanford asks parents and students to contribute only what they can afford," Hennessy said. "No high school senior should rule out applying to Stanford because of cost."

Stanford is among dozens of high-end colleges and universities where tuition has grown faster than the rate of inflation and where tax-exempt endowments have increased by more than 10 percent annually.

Last month, after a report from the National Association of College and University Business Officers called attention to the swollen tax-exempt endowments, a prominent U.S. senator began to question the practice.

"They're supposed to offer public benefit in return for the privilege of tax exemption," said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. "If endowments increase by double digits from one year to the next, it raises the idea that maybe these schools aren't using enough of their endowments to help students afford college."

Stanford's endowment is the third largest of any university in the country, behind only Harvard and Yale.

In the past 10 years, tuition alone at Stanford increased from $21,300 to $34,800 - roughly $7,200 more than if it had held to the rate of inflation during the decade.

The university said 3 out of 4 students currently get some financial aid. The new program is expected to reduce the average bill paid by a student's family by 16 percent.

The university said it would continue to take into account a family's assets and overall situation, in addition to earnings, in determining the financial aid it could receive. The university said it would continue its "need-blind" admission policy, guaranteeing that students will be accepted to the university regardless of their ability to pay.

How families benefit

Stanford provided these hypothetical examples to help illustrate the impact of some of the changes to its financial aid program. In each of these cases, none of the families has assets of more than $20,000 beyond their homes.

A family of four in Massachusetts: This family has one child at Stanford, a 15-year-old in high school, a father who works as a teacher and a mother as a freelance graphic designer. The parents have a total income of $54,600, and have home equity of $275,000. The new financial aid program would eliminate the $3,800 that the parents would have been expected to pay in the current school year. Their son would no longer need to borrow $2,000, though he would still be expected to contribute his earnings from work during the summer and academic year. The total scholarship would be $45,550, an increase of $5,250 from this year.

A family of six in Nebraska: This family has one child at Stanford and three others younger than 12. The mother is a homemaker, the father an engineer, and they have a total income of $80,000 and home equity of $155,000. The new plan would cut the parents' payment in half, reducing their total payment to $5,450 from $10,965. Their child at Stanford would no longer need to borrow $1,600, though still would be expected to contribute earnings from school year and summer jobs. The total scholarship would be increased by $7,100 to $40,050.

A family of three in Silicon Valley: This family has one child at Stanford. The father is a software executive, and the mother works as a receptionist. The parents would be asked to draw less from their annual income of $120,000 total and home equity of $560,000. Their parental contribution would decrease by one-third - $8,180 - to $16,135 from $24,315. Their daughter would no longer need to borrow $1,600, but would be asked to contribute the amount equal to the earnings from part-time work during the school year and a full-time summer job. The total scholarship would be $29,400, almost $10,000 more than the previous year.

Source: Stanford University

E-mail Steve Rubenstein at srubenstein@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/20/MNABV5LHM.DTL&tsp=1

Feb 25, 2008

The Oscar Mania, best bargaining tips and other stories

So-in-love: HOT couples at the Oscars 2008

While gowns and accessories were flaunted at the Academy Awards 2008, we could not help but notice how spouses/boyfriends/girlfriends/fiance/live-in partners were also advertised on the red carpet during the 80th Academy Awards.

Take a look at some of the HOTTEST couples in Hollywood today and see if you agree with us… (Story)

In pics: Hot stars at Global Green Pre-Oscar party

Red hot stars make a green entry at The 5th Annual Global Green USA Pre-Oscar party.

As with previous years, the Global Green event strives to promote systematic solutions for the ever growing issue called Global Warming. This for-a-cause event raises all its proceeds for different Global Green initiatives around the world.

Some of Hollywood's A-listers attend this party during Oscar week, and at $5000, remember, its all for a cause. We take a look at some of the stars that walked the "green" carpet at this event. (Story)

25 Great Bargaining Tips -

Your friend bought a pair of chappals from the streets for Rs. 90 while you paid Rs. 200 for the same pair. Well of course you are fuming and feel like you have been cheated, but she got a good deal because she bargained well.

You can get a bargain anywhere, if only you know how to get one.

On the Road

These are a few tips to help you get a good deal when you are out shopping at your local street market.

1. If the seller quotes a price that you know is unreasonable, cut it down by around 75%.

2. When the seller doesn't agree with the price, you need to stick to your quote for some time. Then slowly increase your offer price by around 5 to 10 rupees at a time until he agrees. Keep an amount that you are willing to spend in your head. Don't go above that.

3. When you go shopping on the streets to an area where you normally don't, it's useful to take along a friend who is familiar with shopping there. Your friend may probably have a regular guy who gives her great deals. Plus, she knows how much the goods should cost.

4. When on the street, make sure to leave those diamond rings at home. Don't wear anything that looks too expensive. If the sellers think you can afford to spend more, they won't lower their prices much.

5. If you are going with a friend make sure that only one of you bargains with the seller. She may just quote something higher which will make you loose out on a great bargain.

6. If the vendor still doesn't listen, walk away. He will call you back. Don't turn around on the first "Madam". After a few calls turn and ask him what price he's selling the item to you for. Then, if you are okay with the price, go pay.

7. If you are out shopping for clips, other accessories or shoes and don't mind buying more than one item, make sure to tell the vendor that. He will give you a better deal if you are going to buy a lot from him. (Story)

Is an MBA Worth It? -

MBA graduates from the IIMs seem to be raking in the moolah these days. But planning a career move is all about timing. So don't just quit your job out of the blue to do an MBA unless it is a well thought out decision. You also need to consider your plans regarding marriage and children when you want to do an MBA to boost your career and not just as another degree.

An MBA is Not for Everyone

"An MBA makes sense if you are doing it as part of your education i.e. before you start your career. However, if you are doing an MBA to boost your career, you must make sure you have sufficient years of experience," says Shashi Iyer, Partner, Harvest Strategies.

An MBA after just two years in a field is not completely worth it. It makes more sense to do an MBA after about five to seven years. This is because by that time you will have sufficient experience in the field and are looking for a break into a managerial role.

"If you are an engineer or any other professional, you could take a break for an MBA after about four years of working. This helps you get a feel of the industry and the MBA will help you refine your thought process," Shashi explains. (Story)

25 Tips to Crack that SALE! -

Isha Sehmbey

Sale! A four-letter word, which works like a magnet for women!

Before you kiss the season good-bye, do not forget to try your hand on the 'end of season sale'.

Check product prices at the outlet prior to the sale. This way, you will not buy that most-wanted pair of shoes at their original price, thinking you have struck a good bargain.

Pre-plan your mode of transport. Waiting for an auto rickshaw outside your home with shopping bags ruins the excitement of going bargain hunting.

Make sure you leave infants or toddlers at home. If you must take the kids, take a nanny or your husband (trained babysitter) along!

Want to pick your desired items without having to fight for them? Hit sales first thing in the morning when shops open or in the afternoon when most folks stay indoors. Avoid rush hour and weekends.

Check the labelled price on similar clothes and accessories at the same place. Sometimes the tagged price may vary between two similar accessories of equal value.

Always inquire about a store's return policy. Those black trousers you bought might just turn out to be dark blue when you get home.

If there are two queues, stand in one and make your friend stand in the other.

Avoid trial room queues with mother-daughter combo. They take dozens of clothes and a hell lot of time to try. (Story)

Aptitude Test for Career? –

Aparna Pengat

If you are going through a phase where you are reassesing your career options, do you think going through a written IQ and personality test will help you find the right career?

"A career aptitude test does not affect you or your choices in any way. All it does is to throw some more conventional options in your already confused mind," says Prashant Borade, a B.Com graduate who took one recently.

Prashant wanted to be a Radio Jockey and had won numerous awards for extra-curricular activities during college festivals.

"I am an outgoing person. Plus I have been complimented for my voice. My parents asked me to go for a career counselling session. After spending Rs. 1500 and three written tests, I was given the option of Chartered Accountancy as a lucrative career option for someone with my academic background," he declares.

What does a Career Aptitude Test Involve?

Most career guidance centres ask you to take tests for personality, IQ, English, Mathematics and logic. Based on the results of these tests, a career counsellor is supposed to provide a "tailor made career path" for you. The entire process takes atleast five hours and requires you to shell out anything from Rs. 1,500 onwards. (Story)

Oscars red carpet: what's hot, what's not

Team IndiWo

When the Oscars are live, what do the stars do during commercial breaks?

Jon Stewart, the host of 80th Oscars ceremony answers - "We all just sit and pass catty comments about the dresses of all those watching us, sitting at home!"

Stewart's dig is justified - the moment those larger-than-life divas step out on the thick red carpet, smiling and posing amid the flashbulbs, judgements become irresistable.

This year, too, we take you straight to the red carpet, to take a look at who was hot, who didn't quite cut it this year and who ended in a complete disaster! (Story)

Biography- Camilla Belle

Camilla Belle (born October 2, 1986) is an American actress. She is known for her lead role in the 2006 remake of When a Stranger Calls and the 2000 Disney Channel film Rip Girls.

Belle began appearing in print ads at the age of nine months. She progressed into commercials and began working in movies for network and cable television. Throughout the 1990s, she appeared in several made for television and direct to video movies, including Trapped Beneath the Earth, Annie: A Royal Adventure!, Poison Ivy II: Lily and Marshal Law. She had minor roles in several widely-released films, including A Little Princess, The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Practical Magic, as well as the lead role as Lizzie in Back to the Secret Garden. She was also in a commercial for America's Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) during the late 1990s.

In 2005, Belle starred in the film The Ballad of Jack and Rose, playing the daughter of Daniel Day-Lewis' character. The film only received a limited theatrical release, but Belle was labeled an "impressive newcomer" by film critic James Berardinelli. The film was her first in nearly four years. The same year, Belle also had a major role in The Chumscrubber, which received only a brief and limited theatrical release.

Belle was subsequently cast in the lead role in Screen Gems' horror film remake, When a Stranger Calls. The film was released on February 3, 2006 and was considered successful at the United States box office, grossing over $45 million after an opening of over $21 million. Later in 2006, she acted opposite Elisha Cuthbert and Edie Falco in The Quiet, a darkly comic drama in which she played a deaf-mute teenage orphan. Shortly after the release of When a Stranger Calls, Belle was cast opposite Steven Strait in the Warner Bros. film, 10,000 BC, a prehistoric epic to be directed by Roland Emmerich. The film is scheduled for a March 2008 release and began filming in the spring of 2006 in South Africa and Namibia.
She is also the face of Vera Wang's 'Princess' fragrance.

Personal life
Belle was born Camilla Belle Routh in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Christina (née Gould), who designed a fashion line in her native Brazil and is now Camilla's manager, and Jack Routh, who owns a construction company.Belle is named after actress Renata Sorrah's character, Camila, in the Brazilian soap opera Cavalo de Aço. Belle was raised Catholic and attended St. Paul the Apostle Catholic school in West Los Angeles and later, the Marlborough School. Belle, an aspiring classical pianist, speaks several languages fluently, including Spanish and Portuguese -- her mother's native language. She has been involved in various charities and is an international spokesperson for Kids With A Cause, which assists children suffering from poverty, hunger, lack of education, neglect, or abuse.

Belle is friends with actors Justin Chatwin and Jamie Bell, whom she met on the set of The Chumscrubber.She is also friends with tennis star Maria Sharapova.

Biography- The Exciting Life of Lindsay Lohan

The Exciting Life of Lindsay Lohan:
Lindsay Lohan is perhaps one of the most recognizable faces of young Hollywood today. This is due in large part to the high profile movies that she has been in over the last several years in addition to her sometimes public displays of inner struggles and substance abuse. Lindsay Lohan, often referred to as Lilo, is loved by many, pitied by others, and others still hold her upon a pedestal because she is young, beautiful, and highly talented.

There are many differing opinions of her because Lindsay has gone in and out of popularity but remains in the spotlight because she has a history of entertainment. Lindsay Lohan appears to be one of those Hollywood starlets that can succeed at anything she tries her hand at. Lindsay is one of the few that has been able to achieve success as a model, an actress, as well as a musician. As time goes on Lindsay seems to branch out more and more, making her more interesting to fans as well as critics.

The Not So Picture Perfect Childhood of Lindsay Lohan:
"Say no more than yes, and just make sure you surround yourself with good people." –Lindsay Lohan

Lindsay Lohan was born in New York City on July 2, 1986 and though she is now known as an actress and pop singer she was once led a much simpler and quieter life. Lindsay was born to parents Michael Douglas Lohan Sr. and Donata Sullivan. The couple also had three other children named Michael Jr., Alania, and youngest brother Dakota. Lindsay was the oldest child and the children were all very close during their younger years and according to more current reports the Lohan children are all very connected to one another. The Lohans raised their children in Merrick and Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island in New York. Her father was an actor at one time and her mother was a former Rockette, so entertainment and performing would come naturally to the Lohan children.

Lindsay is often complimented for her looks and those looks come from an Irish and Italian heritage. Lilo and her siblings were raised in the Catholic church. Lindsay was tutored for much of her schooling but she was still able to attend public school for a portion of the time, including when she attended Sanford H. Calhoun High School. Lindsay would eventually finish her schooling through home correspondence school through a school named Laurel Springs School that is based in Ojai, California.

The Lohan family did not go without when Lindsay and her siblings were young. Donata Sullivan, also known as Dina, did very well for the family as she was a Wall Street analyst for many years. Later on Dina would become Lindsay's manager, but before this she contributed to a financially comfortable home for herself, her husband, and her children. In addition to Dina's contributions to a comfortable family life, Lindsay's father was doing well, also. Michael Lohan Sr. inherited a stable past business from his father and he would later sell this business and would become President of New York future Traders.

Unfortunately, much of Lindsay's childhood centered around the fact that her father was not there much. Lohan Sr. was sentenced to prison for four years in the later half of the 1980s, when Lindsay was very young, for securities fraud of some kind. Just when he was out of prison and establishing a relationship with Lindsay and the other Lohan Siblings he was again sentenced to prison in 2005 for two years for aggravated unlicensed driving in addition to an attempted assault. Lohan Sr. was released from prison in March 2007 and is said to be working as an investment banker who secures funds for independent films and he also works with an evangelical recovery program known as Teen Challenge. (Full Story-)

A Speech by Steve Jobs - You've Got To Find What You Love

A Speech by Steve Jobs

You've Got To Find What You Love

This is text of a speech by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005 at Stanford University. I'm sharing it here and hoping that few young souls might find it enlightening...

"I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with,

and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much."