Shares of Apple (AAPL) are trading lower today, as investors await the company's second quarter earnings news, which will be released after the market closes on Tuesday, April 20. The stock, which has was up more than 145% last year, has already had a significant run this year. So far, the stock is up about 16%.

But now, Apple and investors face a new wrinkle. Turns out that college kids who want to look super-hip in class with the latest gadget from Apple may not be able to use the iPad at school. Seems iPad appears to have some problems adapting to the wireless networks on certain college campuses. Monday's Wall Street Journal reported that two schools - Princeton and D.C.-based George Washington University - are discouraging students from connecting to the WiFi network until "network stability issues" are resolved.

Continue reading Apple's iPad Deemed a College Campus Nuisance

Apple's iPad Deemed a College Campus Nuisance originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 19 Apr 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Imagine taking the personal connections and interactions that occur every day on the likes of Facebook and Twitter... and bringing them to bear on an education. To a large extent, this hasn't been done yet, but the potential is profound. In a new report by the Center for Community Survey for Student Engagement, two-year programs aren't taking advantage of the tools at their disposal -- plenty of growth is still possible. Kay McClenney, director of the CCSSE, says, "Colleges are not taking advantage of that particular set of tools for making connections with students to the extent that they could."

Continue reading Community colleges missing the social media boat

Community colleges missing the social media boat originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Before celebrating, though, remember that depressed housing prices and constrained financial markets make it tougher to dip into home equity to pay for school (a favorite strategy of the past few years), and layoffs are putting an obvious strain on household finances. So, the bargain in all this may be hard to find, even with financial aid increases of 9.2%.

Continue reading Recession: something (finally) strong enough to slow tuition hikes

Recession: something (finally) strong enough to slow tuition hikes originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apollo Group insiders dumping stock originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 17 Feb 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Student loan manager Sallie Mae (NYSE: SLM) fell 42 cents to $19.73 on the news in Tuesday morning trading.

Bond demand is weak

The auction process is similar to those held for municipal bonds, corporate debt and other debt securities. However, Wall Street is not obligated to step in and buy student loan-backed securities when demand is weak.

Continue reading Students loan rates could rise as credit crunch hits student loan-backed bonds

Students loan rates could rise as credit crunch hits student loan-backed bonds originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

With the Virginia Tech massacre last year, universities certainly understand the extreme importance of security. As a result, notification systems - which can deal with things like cell phones, SMS, email and so on - are top-of-mind for chief information officers in universities.

The leading provider of notification services for educational institutions is NTI Group. This week NTI Group agreed to sell itself to Blackboard (NASDAQ: BBBB), a leading provider of learning management systems for universities. The deal amounts to about $182 million (there is also an earnout for $17 million).

With Blackboard's large customer base, there should be a large cross-selling opportunity. Besides, it will help the company's mobile efforts (after all, students are big-time users of cell phones and PDAs).

According to a report from the Yankee Group, the notification and alert market is expected to reach about $1.2 billion by 2011 (which translates into a 30% annual growth rate). Although, in the case of NTI, the company's growth rate is more than 50% per annum (the revenues last year were about $30 million).

Interestingly enough, NTI has a strong presence in the K12 market. This should be a nice boost for Blackboard, which is targeting this category.

In other words, this deal looks like a great fit -- and could help continue the nice growth ramp for Blackboard.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

Blackboard (BBBB) alerts a new deal originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 15 Jan 2008 09:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Is college really such a good investment?

Is college really such a good investment? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Can community colleges save students from debt bondage? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 29 Oct 2007 18:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Tuition rising faster than financial aid: what's a student to do?

Tuition rising faster than financial aid: what's a student to do? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 23 Oct 2007 17:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Credit cards on campus: A financial nightmare in the wings originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Should you pay for your kids' college?

Should you pay for your kids' college? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading American split: Save for college or retirement?

American split: Save for college or retirement? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Is the student loan bubble bursting? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 03 Oct 2007 19:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Every day we get another report of abusive and predatory practices in the consumer lending industry, and today is no different. Ohio's Attorney General has sued Citibank for its advertisements on the Ohio State University Campus, which included offers for FREE FOOD! -- if you'll just fill out this credit card application.

The lawsuit alleges that Citibank used bait-and-switch advertising and did not provide students with adequate information about everything they were getting into. BusinessWeek takes a look at the practice of "affinity cards" -- another form of credit card company malpractice with the help of friendly universities. In exchange for large payments, credit card issuers can gain exclusive access to a university's students at events like football games. In some cases, the schools even provide the companies with students' email addresses so they can be bombarded with offers.

These credit card companies have no business being on college campuses, and the universities are doing a disservice to their students by allowing them to be market to this way. if a student needs a credit card, he can go get one ... off campus. There can be no doubt that aggressive marketing on college campuses has lured many students into a cycle of financial woes.

If you have a story about credit cards on campus, please visit Student Public Interest Research Groups.

Credit card companies behaving badly on college campuses originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 02 Oct 2007 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Shelling out for private college prep programs?

Shelling out for private college prep programs? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 21 Sep 2007 18:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Be sure to forward this to any recent college grads you know: BusinessWeek has released its list of the top companies for those just entering the workforce. Apparently, accounting is a good business: The top 3 companies on the list are accounting firms because of huge demand for the profession brought on, at least in part, by Sarbanes-Oxley. In some bizarre way, hirers at the firms say the scandals at companies like Enron and WorldCom made accounting sexy for the first time ever.

Companies looking to recruit talent from YouTube/Myspace generation are demonstrating an increasing willingness to cater to that demographic: They make YouTube videos, set up message boards, and encourage prospective employees to Facebook current ones to learn more about the company.

If you're a recent grad, you may want to pick up a copy of the latest issue of BusinessWeek. In addition to the rankings, there are numerous articles on the job market for new hires.

And if you're feeling civic-minded, check out Teach For America, which landed at number 10 on the list.

Recent graduates take note: Top places to launch your career originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

A feature story in BusinessWeek provides a sad commentary on the immorality of the credit card industry: Citibank was offering college students $5-10 for every one of their peers that they can talk into filling out a credit card application. The former student credit card pusher featured in the story knew nothing about consumer credit when he was signing up his friends, and currently has $13,000 worth of credit card debt of his own.

What's wrong with this picture? Citibank was relying on an untrained salesforce being paid completely on commission: Student marketers were reportedly told by a Citibank representative that they could assuage students concerns by telling them that "It's easy to pay off your balance once you graduate and get a great job." Hmm. Another BusinessWeek story discusses the sad plight of a student who racked up so much debt he ended up dropping out to repay the money.

The marketers had no real training in the products they were pushing, and it's not hard to imagine that, in their eagerness to sign up other students, they engaged in deceptive marketing practices and did a poor job of explaining what their prospects were getting into.

Of course, Citibank had to have known that this would happen, but that was the beauty of it: By recruiting students to do it, they had no knowledge of or, in theory, responsibility for the deceptive marketing: a Chinese wall had been constructed.

This is an absolute travesty, and state attorney generals need to investigate credit card marketing tactics on and around college campuses. Students are being exploited and someone should end up in jail.

Credit card companies recruit students to prey on each other originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 09 Sep 2007 16:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Corporate sponsorship targets colleges

Corporate sponsorship targets colleges originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 02 Aug 2007 17:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Score one for the triumph of principles over marketing. At least in the case of small colleges.

According to a Bloomberg report, "The presidents of Holy Cross, Lafayette, Trinity and 58 other liberal arts schools have pledged in the past 10 weeks to withhold cooperation from Washington-based U.S. News on the most controversial element of its 24-year-old survey, a questionnaire asking colleges to assess competing schools."

Interestingly, no top-25 ranked school has joined the boycott. Bloomberg goes on to say that "Three-quarters of each school's score is based on information that is for the most part publicly available, such as class size, graduation and acceptance rates, and alumni giving. The controversial 25 percent comes from a 'reputational survey,' in which thousands of presidents, deans and provosts are asked to grade other schools' reputations."

I've always been unimpressed with these college ranking magazines. It seems like a great way to sell magazines to ambitious high school students and their parents, but I'm not sure I get the point: Shouldn't college be about finding the right fit rather than the best-ranked school you can get into? I know of no student who has regretted choosing a college based on which one he liked the best in terms of the experience and educational opportunities it offered. I know several who regret being lured in by name brands.

The problem is that the top college for a student varies from student to student, and suggesting that any college is somehow superior to another, in my opinion, misses the point. Congratulations to those schools that are standing up to the silly "reputational survey" and mad props to students and parents who are ignoring prestige in favor of finding a good fit.

61 colleges boycott U.S. News rankings originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 24 Jul 2007 19:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It looks like business schools may be catching up with the idea of Ben and Jerry's and other successful business ventures that combined profits with a concern for the planet. According to a piece in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required), "Environmentalism is finding its way onto the agenda in M.B.A. programs across Europe, as students and faculty -- like Europeans more broadly -- are growing increasingly worried about the threat of global warming... As many have begun to do in the U.S., schools across Europe are adding environmental electives, supporting student research projects on warming topics, integrating talk of the issue into core courses, inviting speakers to address it, and, in some cases trying to make their campuses or communities more energy efficient."

This is terrific news. With emerging concerns about the future of the planet, tomorrow's CEOs will need to equipped with the knowledge to confront these issues and seek solutions. This is as good an indication as you will ever see of environmentalism going mainstream.

Having business leaders educated on the dangers of global warming might do more to protect the environment than increased regulation.

MBA programs go green originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 06 Jun 2007 17:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.