According to the Institute for College Access and Success, as of 2014, seven in 10 students who graduated from public and nonprofit colleges had student loan debt. The average debt load was roughly $29,000. In the past decade, the average amount of debt at graduation has risen substantially to more than twice of the rate

When you drive off the lot with your newly leased or financed car, you’re likely glowing with the thrill of ownership when “pride in possession” might be a more apt description. You don’t own the car yet, and you technically won’t until you pay off the loan in full. Until then, there’s always a risk

An employee handbook set outs fundamental information about your company and the employee’s role(s) within your business. It covers the basic need-to-know information about the company as a whole as well as more in-depth data regarding policies and procedures that affect individual employees on a daily basis. Because the employee handbook contains so much information,

Legal compliance can be extremely difficult, especially for small businesses. Depending on the type of business you have, your day-to-day activities may be affected by literally hundreds of laws at any given time. How can you ensure that you are compliant at all times? An internal legal audit may be a good starting point. What

With the staggeringly high cost of education, student loan debts today are massive for many students. When graduates struggle to find suitable employment, paying back student loans becomes an almost insurmountable task. Former students may begin to wonder whether bankruptcy is an option for them. Unfortunately, while discharging student loans in bankruptcy is possible, it

When you owe a creditor money, whether it is for a domestic support obligation or judgment, the creditor may be able to garnish your wages. That means that a portion of your regular employment income will automatically be provided to your creditor before you see that money. The judgment creditor will let your employer know

The second you file for bankruptcy, you are creating what is referred to as the “bankruptcy estate.” This estate includes everything that you own at the time that you file bankruptcy. This timing is important because, usually, the assets in your bankruptcy estate will determine what type of bankruptcy you can file and how much

Most individuals who are considering filing for bankruptcy will qualify for either Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy. The major difference between these two types of bankruptcy is that one is essentially a liquidation while the other creates a payment plan that your creditors must follow over a period of 3 to 5 years. In

Bankruptcy is a system that is designed for the honest but unfortunate debtor. It is not a system that can be used and abused by deceitful companies or individual debtors. To ensure that the system is not abused, bankruptcy law places certain people as “watchdogs” over the bankruptcy administration process. One such watchdog is referred

Creditors in virtually every bankruptcy case must have some way of showing how much the debtor owes them for their particular debt. Often, debts are listed specifically on the debtor’s schedules of assets and liabilities. In some situations, however, the debtor may describe these amounts incorrectly or may not list them at all. In those