We're getting a large increase in the number of calls about student loans. The lending market is essentially frozen because of the fallout from the mortgage crisis. Are you still trying to figure out how to pay for college this fall? Clark has 2 important pieces of information to share with you.

There's emergency legislation working way its through Congress that will allow the federal government to be the "bank" for educational loans for this fall. Clark has full faith that this legislation will be pushed through in time for school.

Yet federal loans may not cover a tuition bill in its entirety. You can try to get a private loan, but very few private lenders are disbursing funds. So where do you turn? Try the peer-to-peer online lending sites where you can borrow directly from other people and cut the banks out of the equation.

Here's how they work: A borrower posts the amount they need to borrow; their credit rating; their debt-to-income ratio; and how much interest they're willing pay. Multiple lenders can then log on and each lend just a fraction of the money to limit their individual risk. Prosper.com is one of the most popular sites for this sort of thing. Clark also has a list of other P2P lending sites available.

College kids are bombarded with an average of 4 phone calls and 5 mailings every month to get them hooked on credit cards, according to a new PIRG study. There's a feeding frenzy because teens are the most profitable of all customers for the banks that issue credit cards. It's unreal to Clark that university presidents and alumni groups are co-conspirators with the banks in trying to demolish the credit standing of our youth. Some cash-hungry universities even make deals with banks to provide them with personal student information and on-campus access to students.

The consequences of this are severe. Clark's senior producer, Kim, ran up $17K of lifestyle debt at college by the time she was 24. She didn't get it all paid off until she was 31. Meanwhile, Citibank and other lenders are being sued in the state of Ohio for handing out coupons for free sandwiches to students. But the catch was students had to apply for a credit card before the coupons could be redeemed. You as a parent have to guide your teens and teach them about the dangers of debt. This should not be a onetime talk; it needs to be an ongoing educational process. Get your own finances in order so you can teach by example.

The Internet provides a lot of great things, but there's also a lot of sewage out there in cyberspace. JuicyCampus.com is a new type of website where students can anonymously post all kinds of scurrilous things about each other at 50 colleges around the country. This site is being used to settle scores, and the damage to reputations done in the process is irreversible. The real rats are the people behind JuicyCampus.com, who don't provide any way for a post to ever be removed -- no matter how much of a lie it is. They just sit back and enjoy revenue from online advertisers who flock to the site to reach a college audience.

The Washington Post reports that Texas Christian University students have organized to contact advertisers and tell them to boycott the site. Pepperdine University, meanwhile, has asked that the site be blocked on their servers. The truth is that words can and do hurt. A cautionary tale about just how deep the wounds can go comes from the ad agency world. News recently broke that an ad executive killed himself, and many believe it's because of defamatory lies posted on AgencySpy.com.

The Internet is wonderful, but there is a certain level of anarchy when you have the ability to hurt others. Clark wouldn't mind sites like JuicyCampus if they weren't anonymous. But the cowardice in the anonymity as it exists today is awful, and it poses a long-term threat to free speech. If you have kids at college, have a conversation and prep them for the ugly new world of online campus gossip sites.

For years, it's been an article of faith that high-school seniors have had a hard time getting into their first choice when it comes to college. But that may be coming to an end because of demographics; the echo baby boom is just about over and schools are looking at prospects of a greatly diminished student body over the next generation. Going forward, it will be far more favorable for your children and grandchildren to get into the schools they want -- instead of having to settle on a safety choice. For many years, public colleges were more affordable than private ones. But that's set to change too. When Clark was visiting potential schools with his daughter, they checked out the campus of one private school that offered a steal of a deal on tuition. Clark wishes his daughter wanted to go to that school, but alas, she had a different campus in mind.

Clark's daughter is a freshman and he's floored by the outrageous prices he has to pay for her textbooks -- even if they try to get the books used. The average student spends $575 to use his or her books for about 12-15 weeks -- then they become yesterday's news. One college has a brilliant solution to this annoying problem. Northwest Missouri State University is now renting textbook to students; the average bill for a semester or term is $75.

Several years ago, Clark went on the air talking about how it's a racket when professors get paid to revise their textbooks annually and push the updated editions in course syllabi. He heard from an angry science professor saying educators would be shortchanging their students if they didn't update -- because the field of science evolves so rapidly. That may be true at the graduate level, but not at the undergraduate level. Most undergrads are just trying to decide what they want to do for a career. To make underclassmen buy an updated textbook every year is ridiculous. Clark hopes Northwest Missouri State's model gains traction across the country.

Clark recently told you that there have been changes in student loans laws. Now the latest news is that the student loan market is drying up as fallout from the housing crunch. Michigan has completely shut down its student loan program. The reason here is that student loans are funded by bonds or securities, the trading of which has been hurt by our slowing economy. So the credit squeeze is affecting areas that are completely unrelated to housing.

Clark has a thought that may seem callous to some. He believes there's an advantage to student loans being difficult to get. Think about it: College costs have grown way beyond the rate of inflation because it's been too easy to borrow for school. But if students have a hard time getting money, then schools will be forced to rein in their spending and become more efficient. They'll also have to deliver an education at an affordable price. Previously, the unlimited spigot of student loan borrowing provided no incentive for them to do so; the very oversupply of money fed the rise in college costs.

The teller window on student loans is being closed slowly but surely. Lenders are worried that they can't sell off the loans because of the slowing economy. They also have data telling them which schools have the highest default rates. It goes without saying that they won't make loans at some schools based on that information! The upside here is that it's getting easier to get rid of existing student loans. Clark's advice is to wait until after July 1 and refinance your federal student loan when the rates reset. The best guess is that rates for federal loans subject to consolidation will be between 4-5 percent. Compare that to consolidating now; when you'd get a rate that's more than 8 percent. So keep paying at your variable rate and lock it in low over the summer. Meanwhile, a new law guarantees full loan forgiveness for those who go into public service and make 10 years of on-time payments. There's more information available at the U.S. Department of Education's website or in Clark's own guide to the College Cost Reduction and Access Act.

We've had a train wreck in higher education with the cost of tuition going up way beyond the rate of inflation. The increases have been extraordinary because colleges are usually semi-closed institutions that are not affected by capitalism. But now even wealthy families can't always afford college for their children. So Harvard and other elite schools have developed new sliding scales for tuition based on family income. Harvard's income cutoff is $180K/year, which would cover 95 percent of all families in the United States. Families won't be expected to pay more than 10 percent of their income regardless of overall tuition costs. The bulk of the costs will be paid by the school's huge endowment funds.

The top 5 percent of Americans will still have to pay big bucks to go to school, but the idea is that top schools shouldn't be just for the filthy rich. Princeton, Penn, Swarthmore, Dartmouth and Duke are also doing these sliding scale plans. It used to be that you couldn't go to an elite school without scholarships. The only alternative was to borrow oneself into oblivion. We've had calls from people with more than $100K in student loan debt, which is an incredible handcuff as your start your professional life. Also, many of the traditional scholarships were red light/green light based on your income. This new model is more like having a rheostat in your home that gently adjusts between the two extremes.

Parents with prospective college freshmen living under their roofs have turned to hiring college coaches to help their children gain entry to their dream schools. These coaches are part advisor and part magician because they promise to boost your child's acceptance prospects well above the usual suspects of safety schools. Business Week recently reported that some parents pay up to $40,000 for these services. It's also not uncommon for parents to pay an average of $15,000-$20,000 to help their children gain coveted places in top-tier universities. So are these investments really worth it? Well, Clark admits that he has a big-time bias: He knows plenty of people who went to mediocre schools and have gone on to be very successful in life. So he believes that simply having a degree is a more important predictor of success than going to a particular prestige university. Of course many parents feel the opposite and want to get their children into a specific school. But Clark thinks it's crucial to just get the education and not worry about any particular school name being on the diploma.

One of the hottest areas of Clark's site is his 529 Plan Guide. He's now made his fourth revision to this invaluable resource so that you can continue being "Clark Smart" when saving for a child's education. The idea behind 529 Plans is that the money you save will grow tax-free and can be spent tax-free on college education. If the child doesn't go to college, you can transfer the plan to another child for free without being taxed. If there are no other children you want to have the money, you can use it yourself. But beware that you'll pay a 10 percent penalty plus tax if you take this latter option.

All 529 Plans must have state sponsorship, but you're not limited by where you live as far as making contributions. You may, however, enjoy a state tax deduction if you select your own state's plan. 529 Plans are great when they're purchased correctly. But a lot of money goes in the wrong way through commissioned salespeople, banks, stock brokers and financial advisors who take a cut of your money. You should buy 529 Plans directly through the state that sponsors them. If your state isn't listed in the "Honor Roll" section of Clark's guide, pick a state from his "Dean's List." There you'll see plans from Utah, Iowa and New York. These are the lowest-cost plans available across the board. Utah is by far the single best plan in the country. One of the most unique things about 529 Plans is that they're all very flexible. You can put in as little as $15/month or a rich grandparent can pop in as much as $60,000 all at once. One caveat from Clark: Do not save for your child's college education until you save for your own retirement. There are no scholarship plans for retirement!

University education is becoming so terribly expensive. Clark was recently talking to parents who had a sophomore at Washington University in St. Louis and another family who had a freshman at Boston University. Both families spoke about the sticker stock of tuition. But what if you could get a first class college education for nothing? University of California, Berkeley has put 300 courses online for free. There is full video posted on YouTube, and Berkeley plans to add more curriculum for free. There's no college credit available, so these videos are really for life-long learners who just love education. In essence, it's like auditing a class. You watch the instructor or lecturer on your computer.

Clark often confuses people with his talk about choice in schools because they think he's getting political. But he sees it as an issue that's simply about giving every child an opportunity to succeed -- regardless of their family's socioeconomic background. Monopoly schools and arbitrary zoning either sentence kids to a stinking school or reward them with a good one based on where they live. That's pretty much the norm across the country. But some states like Arizona have been very innovative with allowing school choice and having an active charter school movement. Clark grants that there have been financial scandals in some of the Arizona charter schools, yet he thinks they're on the right track. He also likes the idea of vouchers, which are like gift certificates where you take the public money that would have been spent on a student and give it to them to subsidize private school tuition.

Parents who home-school their kids really impress Clark. There are nearly two million kids who receive this kind of education. Clark admits that he doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to home-school his own brood! Yet home-schooled kids are usually overachievers. Colleges once shunned them because they have non-traditional transcripts and grades. Now The Washington Post reports that nearly 85 percent of colleges have formal evaluation policies to come up with a class rank of sorts for home-schooled kids. There's even a whole cottage industry of learning materials that have sprung up around parents who home-schools. Clark sees the teaching materials for sale at stores in August and September. With home life being such an important factor in a child's education, Clark wants to salute parents who home-school.

Clark recently took his oldest child to college for the first time and came away with some musings about how much things have changed since he was in school. Back in the day, he went to campus with one trunk full of belongings. At his daughter's school, students showed up with fridges, microwaves, coordinated bedspreads and more. He even saw one student carrying in a 36-inch LCD hi-def TV. Meanwhile, everyone has cars on campus these days. When Clark was studying, freshmen weren't allowed to have vehicles. Sophomores could do so only with parental permission or if they had a job. Of course it goes without saying that when Clark was in college, there was no Internet, computers or cell phones. He used a typewriter and had one professor who did not allow papers to be turned in with any corrected letters on the page. If you made a mistake while typing -- even in the last sentence -- you had to start all over again.

Clark has one bit of advice for anyone who doesn't want to pay those hefty prices for college textbooks. His daughter's roommate spent $580 on books for class, while his daughter has to pay $135 for one book! Clark says to shop around for the books online. CheapestBookPrice.com, AllBookstores.com, Biblio.com, AbeBooks.com, A1Books.com, BookFinder.com, ValoreBooks.com and Textbook411.com are all good sites for this purpose. Amazon is also doing big business selling college text books, and there are some British book websites that offer science textbooks for about 40 percent off the domestic price (even when you factor in the cost of international shipping.) Don't buy your books before class starts. Go the first day and ask your professor if you can buy a prior edition and try to find it used.

This was a year of embarrassment for colleges who were in cahoots with unethical banks and other lenders. First there was the whole student loan scandal. Now The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that there are some dubious practices taking place on campuses related to student credit cards. Many schools get kickbacks for allowing there to be an "official bank" on campus. Such financial institutions offer outrageous terms and conditions on their credit and debit cards for students. The universities do this to get money under the table money from the banks. These arrangements are technically "partnerships," according to the schools. But the fees on the cards are almost double those available in the general marketplace. Clark believes a full investigation is necessary. As he says, if university officials have been getting bribes, they should go to prison. This is yet another thing for parents to worry about when packing their kids up for college at the end of the summer. Clark says to shop around on campus for a bank or credit union that's available to faculty, staff and students -- instead of just going to the preferred campus lender where the university sells out its students. What is going on in the banking world that offering bribes and kickbacks are becoming so routine??

College is more valuable than ever these days, according to a recent report in the San Francisco Chronicle. And for the class of 2007, that statement is even truer. The job market is better than it’s been in years for college graduates. Large employers expect to increase their hiring of college graduates by 17 percent compared to last year. Over the next decade, there will be 14 million new jobs out there for people entering a profession for the first time. In fact, colleges are having to move their career days and fairs to larger facilities because so many companies are trying to recruit college grads. It will continue for those students who still have a few years left, as well. So, if you started college but never finished, now would be a good time to get back in school and get that degree. Maybe work during the day and take classes at night. We are entering a “golden age” of employment and the money you’ll make with a degree will be much higher comparatively.

Bankrate.com recently listed the cheapest and most expensive private colleges out there. The gap between the two is amazing. With private colleges, the tuition difference is a 7-to-1 ratio. Clark thought the most expensive college was either Boston College or Boston University. But actually the most expensive college is Sarah Lawrence. The tuition alone is $32,000 a year. The second most expensive school is Kenyon College in Ohio, followed by Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., and George Washington University in D.C. At the other end, rates are $4,600 a year to about $10,000 year. But the interesting part is that there are several public colleges that are more expensive than the cheapest private schools. So, private schools are not always going to be out of your range.

Clark has been a strong advocate for private, for-profit colleges for years. He’s believed that without the profit incentive, a lot of four year colleges look at everything as “cost plus.” That’s why tuition rates have gone up way beyond the rate of inflation. But there is a need and opportunity to bring efficiency into the world of secondary education. More than two million people are now attending for profit colleges. Unfortunately, in that area, there are a lot of schools that aren’t any good. A Wall Street Journal investigation revealed how powerful politicians are trying to give those below par schools access to these federally subsidized student loans. We, the taxpayers, are subsidizing the schools. There are 8 regional organizations in the U.S. that review a college and determine whether that school meets the requirement for earning accreditation. You need to go to an accredited school so your credits can be used or transferred at a grad school or other institution. So, before you consider one of these schools, make sure you find out if they are accredited by one of those accreditation bodies. If not, you could b eon the hook for a ton of money. Some of these schools make students sign contracts showing that they owe money even if the education they received is worthless. The worst part is that some officials in the Department of Education are in cahoots with these schools. Here is the list:

• Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Middle States Commission on Higher Education
• New England Association of Schools and Colleges Commission on Institutions of Higher Education
• New England Association of Schools and Colleges Commission on Technical and Career Institutions
• North Central Association of Colleges and Schools - The Higher Learning Commission
• Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities
• Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges
• Western Association of Schools and Colleges Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges
• Western Association of Schools and Colleges Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities

Today Clark talked with Ben Kaplan, recent college graduate who has thoroughly researched scholarships and fellowships and set up his own Web site. He did the research originally when he was applying to Harvard and his family was worried about the cost. But he’s turned it into a resource for high school and college students, as well as older people who are out of school but want to go back. His site is scholarshipcoach.com. It has tons of info about lots of other sites with information and is a tremendous resource.

Do you have a son or daughter in college or are you thinking about going back to college? One of the biggest ripoffs in college is the cost of textbooks. The textbook companies practice what’s called “planned obsolescence,” which means they come out with new editions of books just so they can charge more for them. Essentially, the publishers move things around in a book in order to make it look like a new edition and then sell it for outrageous amounts. It’s like a cartel because it evaporates the used book market. It’s a total racket. The good news is that the Internet has made things cheaper for us, and textbooks sold overseas are usually much less than they cost in the States. Clark recommends buying a past edition of the book, especially in a course where the information doesn’t change much. He thinks college age people can follow along with the reading assignments even though they are in different parts of the book. The cost is drastically less. An old biology textbook, for example, costs $3, whereas the new edition costs $80. Christa disagrees. She thinks students who have an old book can’t follow along and may not be able to do a certain assignment if they don’t have the right book. If you agree, why not try sharing a book. Or at least check out the online sites such as amazon.uk. There are ways around this if you are smart.