The Council for Responsible College Financing presents Jay Cameron’s stage play, College Fever LIVE! “College Fever! What’s The Real Price of College?” returns April 29, 2012. The play explores the hot topic of college financing in an entertaining theatrical production which includes an incredible light show, live music, poetry, singing and dance.

“College Fever!” was created to bring awareness to the student loan and credit card debt crisis millions of college students are battling. This production offers steps to avoiding and overcoming student debt while illustrating the struggle many families face when confronted with financing college.

Millions of unsuspecting American families fall for the college financing trap that awaits those who want to further their education. According to FinAid.org, as of 2008, “more than $100 billion in federal education loans and $10 billion in private student loans are originated each year.” In 2012, student loan debt has surpassed one trillion dollars in the U.S.

What can conscientious students do? A college education is thought to be required to obtain a better job, but college costs are too expensive for most. Student loan debt seems to be the only way to pay for college and the job market continues to remain inconsistent. And since student loan debt is not subject to bankruptcy, the result of a default can be catastrophic to borrowers, their families and the health of the U.S. economy.

Woven together in an unforgettable yet familiar story, “College Fever!” offers solutions for the student debt crisis in this thought provoking stage-play. As a follow up to “College Fever” Debt Free College Degree – The Seminar digs even deeper to offer a systematic approach to paying for college, debt free. Both events educate and entertain.

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The dream of home ownership will become a reality for retired U.S. Air Force Captain Jason Vest when he and his family receive the keys to a brand new, mortgage free home today in the Centex community of West Fork Ranch located in North Fort Worth. Through the Operation Finally Home program and donations from PulteGroup, Captain Vest will now own a house in which he and his family can feel secure as they return home to Fort Worth.

PulteGroup donated the lot and the cost of construction for the new home through its Centex brand. The local building community also chipped in by hosting a golf tournament to raise funds to furnish the home.  Thanks to the generosity and participation of Pulte’s contractors, vendors and housing partners, more than$35,000 was raised for the family.

“We are honored to participate with Operation Finally Home to help put this brave veteran and his family in a better place. That is what the Centex brand is all about,” said Steven Langridge, vice president of sales for the Dallas operations of Centex. “We hope this home will help improve the quality of life for Captain Vest and provide him and his family with enjoyment and security for years to come.”

Vest enlisted in the Air Force in 2000 as an airborne radio operator and in 2006 was commissioned to serve as a pilot. He has served in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom and has been recognized with multiple awards, including expert marksman, AF Outstanding Unit Award with Valor and the Meritorious Unit Award.

Vest recently retired from the Air Force after being diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease, which has limited him in is daily life. The new home will help him readjust to civilian life as he and his family return to his native hometown of Fort Worth.

“PulteGroup and the Bay Area Builder’s Operation Finally Home are perfect examples of the great American spirit. They are providing my family with an incredibly positive return home in the aftermath and midst of very difficult times,” Vest said.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/usairforce/

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Among fathers with a wife in the workforce, 32 percent were a regular source of care for their children under age 15, up from 26 percent in 2002, the U.S. Census Bureau have reveal in a new report. Among these fathers with preschool-age children, one in five fathers was the primary caregiver, meaning their child spent more time in their care than any other type of arrangement.

The series of tables titled Who’s Minding the Kids? Child Care Arrangements: Spring 2010 showed that in a typical week, 12.2 million (61 percent) of the 20 million children under age 5 were in some type of regular child care arrangement. As married women have increasingly moved into the labor force, fathers have become more available for child care while their wives are working.

“A recession may force families to adjust their child care arrangements,” said Lynda Laughlin, a family demographer at the Census Bureau. “It can trigger unemployment or changes in work hours, thus increasing the availability of fathers to provide child care. It also can reduce available income to pay for child care outside of the home.”

The tables provide statistics on child care arrangements of preschoolers and grade-schoolers by various demographic characteristics of the employed and non-employed mothers. They also examine the characteristics of children who care for themselves on a regular basis as well as how the cost of weekly child care varies based on selected family characteristics.

Other highlights:

• In households with working moms, family members continue to serve as an important source of child care for preschoolers. In spring of 2010, 30 percent of preschoolers were regularly cared for by their grandparents, 29 percent were cared for by their fathers, and 12 percent received care from a sibling or other relative.

• Preschoolers with employed black and Hispanic mothers were more likely to be cared for by their grandparents than their fathers. Twenty-nine percent of black preschoolers were cared for by their grandparents, while a quarter (22 percent) were cared for by their fathers. A third of Hispanic preschoolers were regularly taken care of by their grandparent, compared with 29 percent who received care from their fathers.

• Among preschoolers of employed non-Hispanic white mothers, 30 percent were cared for by their fathers and 29 percent were cared for by their grandparents.

• Of the 21 million mothers who were employed in the spring of 2010, one-third reported they paid for child care for at least one of their children.

• Families with an employed mother and children younger than 15 paid an average of $138 per week for child care in 2010, up from $81 in 1985 (in constant 2010 dollars), the first year that these data were collected.

• Mothers with children under age 5 were more likely to make child care payments than mothers who only had children between the ages of 5 and 14 (47 percent and 23 percent, respectively).

• Families in poverty who paid for care in 2010 spent a greater proportion of their monthly income on child care than did families at or above the poverty line (40 percent compared with 7 percent).

• Among all children, self-care was much more prevalent among middle school-age children than among those in elementary schools: 10 percent of ages 5 to 11 and 30 percent of ages 12 to 14 regularly cared for themselves.

This report is one of several related to children and families to have been released recently or that will be released soon by the Census Bureau, including Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support: 2009; Maternity Leave and Employment Patterns of First-Time Mothers: 1961-2008; and Comparing Program Participation of TANF and non-TANF Families Before and During a Time of Recession.

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