Getting a better college aid offer

Listed here are three of the week’s high items of economic perception, gathered from across the internet:

Getting a greater faculty help supply

Extra households are haggling over monetary help with faculties earlier than the dedication deadline, stated Douglas Belkin in The Wall Avenue Journal. “For many years, colleges made a proposal” on want or merit-based monetary help, “and households both accepted or rejected it.” Faculties had the leverage in these negotiations as a result of they “lengthy held many of the data” on pricing. However new web sites like TuitionFit let college students examine their grade-point common, ACT or SAT rating, and household’s monetary standing “to see benefit primarily based affords given to comparable college students.” A rising variety of consultants have additionally begun providing “recommendation on how finest to barter for extra benefit help.” And a rising variety of households are listening: Final yr, 40 p.c of scholars appealed their help bundle.

The rise of high-yield financial savings

It could be time to “break up together with your financial institution,” stated Michael P. Regan in Bloomberg Businessweek. The introduction of a 4.15 p.c financial savings account from Apple and Goldman Sachs knocks “one other brick out of the wall of inertia defending conventional banks” from having to boost their very own charges. Bankrate.com is one among nearly two dozen different on-line banks sporting yields on financial savings above 4 p.c, and the very best price being provided now’s 5.02 p.c. By comparability, JPMorgan Chase and Financial institution of America “pay as little as 0.01 p.c” — sure, you learn that proper, one-hundredth of 1 p.c — on primary financial savings deposits. It could not make sense to ditch conventional banks totally only for the sake of yield, however you may stick “with one financial institution on your common bill-paying, checking, and money wants,” and push “the surplus right into a better-paying on-line account.”

Lobbying to maintain noncompetes

Enterprise teams are ramping up their marketing campaign in opposition to a federal plan to ban noncompete agreements, stated J.J. McCorvey and Sara Ruberg at NBC Information. “The lobbying crossfire comes along with greater than 26,000 feedback from the general public” gathered final week by the Federal Commerce Fee, which says barring noncompetes will enhance employees’ earnings. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce final week despatched a letter signed by 280 organizations arguing that noncompetes encourage funding in workers. Small-business homeowners have additionally voiced concern. “There may be completely no incentive for me to show anybody something I do know,” wrote one medical practitioner, “solely to have them transfer into the neighborhood and compete in opposition to me.”

This text was first printed within the newest subject of The Week journal. If you wish to learn extra prefer it, you may strive six risk-free problems with the journal right here.