The personal finance blogosphere was packed with great articles this week… Here are a few of our favorites…

GenX Finance details the Top 12 Money Mistakes Most People Make and special congratulations to GenX Finance for being named by PC Magazine to the Top 15 Websites for Managing (and Saving) Money
 
RateLadder updates 1 Month Late or Worse Curves

LazyMan explains How to Save on Gas (35 Tips Inside)

Cash Money life had a series on the first 4 steps to becoming a millionaire…
1. Earn Money
2. Spend Less Than You Earn
3. Save Money
4. Invest

brip blap examines The Difference Between the Big Picture and the Little Picture

The Digerati Life and Basic Business Advice from an Accidental Entrepreneur

The Writer’s Coin is Using Sports to Understand Investing Numbers

The New York Times and Danger Lurks When Shopping for Student Loans

Want to be a part of this round up in the future? It is easy… leave a relevant blog comment and/or link to a Prosper blog post in a relevant way from your own blog. Then, when I stop by your blog to see who you are, be sure to have fresh content as most of the posts that will be highlighted here will have been published in the last week.

Plus blogs that send trackbacks that are approved will be featured in the sidebar while their trackback remains one of the last 5 received.

While this will not guarantee that you will be included it will certainly get my attention… The blogs featured here already have my attention. Will you be next?

RateLadder is a Prosper lender and has been since July, 2006. He has a passion for p2p lending. He owns RateLadder — My Prosper.com Journey and other P2P Lending Adventures, P2P No Bank the P2P Blog Aggregate, and ProProsper — Professional Tools for Prosper Lenders featuring SQL access to Prosper data.

As Chief Marketing Officer at Upromise from 2002 - 2004, I had the good fortune to meet Michael Bronner, who founded the company, and to work with Senator Bill Bradley, who sat on the Board of Directors.  Both shared my passionate belief in the right to a college education and saw the impending shortfall in funding coming a mile away.

Bronner founded Upromise with the mission to make a college education more accessible and affordable. Senator Bradley has a long track record of support for higher education and continues to put the issue at the top of his agenda, as he did once more in his recent Salt Lake City address. The two were a perfect match and an inspiration to work with. They both care deeply about preventing young people from being forced to choose between work and education.

The Upromise business model is brilliantly simple:  Every time a member buys something from a participating company, that sponsor company contributes part of the purchase price to the member’s tax-deferred college savings account.  Not only is Michael Bronner an impressive brand loyalty pioneer, he’s fundamentally changed the way families save for college.

I now work for Prosper, but I’m a still a member of Upromise and look forward to being prepared when I send my son to college. I also have a Citi MasterCard that puts dollars into our college savings account every time I use it.  And use it I do!  Lest I forget, my son is sure to remind me-he wants to go to college as much as we want him to.

Prosper is also committed to helping people get loans to assist them in their endeavors.  Founded by Chris Larsen and John Witchel, both believe in the philosophy of letting people help people by being able to determine how and where their money gets allocated and at what price.  Prosper is based on an auction-style system which allows a person with funds to commit to select borrowers that are suitable for their degree of risk tolerance.  It’s important to me that we, the people, are stepping up to help those students put education first when banks are closing their door to funding.

American families today are more worried about being able to send their kids to college than they are about their own retirement. Three cheers for innovative tools for college funding like personal loans for students on Prosper and college savings networks like Upromise. Three cheers for people like Michael Bronner and Senator Bill Bradley, and Chris Larsen and John Witchel, who bring them to fruition.

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Catherine Muriel is the Chief Marketing Officer of Prosper.

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” - Nelson Mandela 

For the last 12 years, average college costs have risen faster than inflation, yet federal grant aid has not kept pace. We have all heard the stats: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the tuition component of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 8% per year, on average, from 1979 to 2001.  For many, a college education is becoming less and less accessible.

There is no question that education is an investment in our future and the stakes just keep getting higher. The earnings gap between those with higher education and those without it is widening.  Today, men and women aged 25-34 with bachelor’s degrees earn 60% - 70% more than those with high school diplomas. In 1985, that gap was 37% - 47%.   Parents should expect to pay at least half to two-thirds of their children’s college costs through a combination of savings, current income, and loans. Gift aid from the government, the colleges and universities, and private scholarships accounts for only about a third of total college costs according to www.finaid.org

And just this month we read that some of the country’s biggest banks including Citi, JPMorganchase, PNC and SunTrust have stopped lending to students attending community colleges - arguably the students who most need to be given funding to enter the competitive arena better educated.  

I went to one of the best schools in the world-The London School of Economics & Political Science. It cost me nothing.  I was raised in England, a country that believes giving everyone access to a higher education is better for everyone.  Kids don’t have to work several jobs to get through school, nor do they come out of college with enormous debt.  Since the Thatcher administration things have changed somewhat, but kids still go to college for far less than a state university education in the U.S.

Education is the passport to choice, freedom and opportunity-not to mention expanded social experience, relationship building, personal development, and character development.  I’ve never thought these opportunities should be unavailable to those who simply don’t have enough money. That’s why I’m especially fond of coming across Prosper stories like the one (Prosper Listing 347314: Paying For My Senior Year Of College), recently shared with us her story.

I am pleased to have been a part of helping Prosper members with funding of over $800,000 in loans for student needs since January 2008.  But parents should still always think about other savings vehicles like a 529’s, Coverdell ESA’s, and loyalty programs like Upromise, a brand loyalty network that rewards customers with college funding. There are also good resources such as

• SavingForCollege.com
• Finaid.org
• StudentAid.ed.gov

Leave no stone unturned, tap them all.

To post your listing for a personal loan for students on Prosper, click on Prosper Loans

To bid on a Prosper personal loan for students, click on Lending at Prosper

Photo Credit: 1
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Catherine Muriel is the Chief Marketing Officer of Prosper.