College in Hawaii

Life on a tropical island and affordable college? I found it difficult to believe.
To get the lowdown, I called Sarah, a friend from high school who attends the University of Oregon, but decided to spend this fall at University of Hawaii at Manoa through an exchange program. Although I interrupted her beach time, she was kind enough to briefly talk finance.
Read more.

How the Mortgage Bailout Hurts Me

The Bush administration intends to reward some borrowers who are in over their heads by cajoling mortgage companies into leaving those borrowers’ artificially low interest rates where they are. Those rates won’t jump, as they were scheduled to do soon. Read the White House’s explanation here.

But what about the folks who have saved diligently, have impeccable credit, earn a decent income and yet still are priced out of many homes because of the stratospheric real-estate prices that were propelled by easy credit? Folks like, oh, say, me for instance? Read more.

5 Things from Card Companies

We kick it off today with a handful of requests for the credit-card issuers in our lives:

1) Do Away with Foreign Transaction Fees

2) Put the Whip to Merchants Who Won’t Take Your Card Unless You Spend a Certain Amount

3) Clarity on Reward Redemptions for Card Applicants

4) Better Deals for Better Customers

5) Itemization of Cash Back from Credit Cards

Are the card issuers afraid that people like me would call each month asking for the extra percentage points on a bunch of mis-coded purchases? Read more.

Use Your SAT Words to Feed the Hungry

FreeRice is the brainchild of John Breen, founder of Poverty.com and TheHungerSite.com. The concept here is ridiculously simple:

• You answer multiple choice questions that test your vocabulary
• Advertisers pay FreeRice to place ads on the web pages alongside the questions
• The advertisers’ money pays for the rice
• The more questions you answer—and the more ads you eyeball—the more rice you’re able donate

Read more.