Misleading Financial-Aid: Part I

Misleading Financial-Aid, Scholarship Points, and Mark Kantrowitz: Part I

An Internet source reports that the self-styled Financial-Aid Expert Mark Kantrowitz will be joining the Scholarship Points team. Amazing! Incredible! On April 9th, 2013, the company that owns Scholarship Points announced that Mark Kantrowitz will be joining the team as Senior Vice President and Publisher of the Edvisors Network. In this role, Kantrowitz will apparently be responsible for the expansion of quality content across the Edvisors network. Scholarship Points also announced that the self-styled Financial-Aid Expert Mark Kantrowitz will also continue to serve as a "thought leader within the financial aid community."

Scholarship Points claims that "with more than two decades of experience in financial aid, scholarships and student loans, Kantrowitz is an invaluable resource to those seeking information on higher education." This sort of statement is not surprising from a company that operates lottery-style financial-aid programs for students. The marriage of the controversial self-proclaimed "Financial-Aid" Expert Mark Kantrowitz, and the social-gaming scholarship points generator Scholarship Points is certainly an odd couple, and reveals the true character of Mark Kantrowitz.

“We are thrilled to have Mark Kantrowitz join the Edvisors team,” said Joe Kakaty, CEO of Edvisors. “I am extremely pleased to join the Edvisors team,” said Mark Kantrowitz. In 1995, and during the United State's governments' widely advertised "Scholar$$Scam" campaign, the same Mark Kantrowitz criticized hundreds of legitimate scholarship sponsors, including respected organizations like National Academy of American Scholars, and National Merit Scholarship programs, as running a "lottery-style" scholarship. According to Mark Kantrowitz, who was nothing more than a student living in the Squirrel Hill apartments just outside of the main Carnegie Mellon University campus, programs that had been established, licensed, and respected for decades were now "scams" based solely upon his deformed reasoning. For example, The National Merit® Scholarship Program is an academic competition for recognition and scholarships that began in 1955 and has always assessed an application fee. For example, National Academy of American Scholars required scholarship applicants to:

1. Submit an actual written scholarship application;
2. Submit a letter of recommendation for a scholarship;
3. Submit three character references for your scholarship;
4. Be subject to at least two interviews for a scholarship award;
5. Etc.

I know of no lottery in the entire world that requires a lottery-applicant to be subject to these type of detailed extensive standards. However, according to the mainstream media's "Financial-Aid Expert", all of us apparently dumb Americans who cannot think for ourselves, and who are not allowed to question or critic the mainstream media's "Financial-Aid Expert", we must accept each and every statement made by this alleged "Financial-Aid" expert. We are not allowed to question any remark, theory, or any statement made by Mark Kantrowitz because the main-stream media has anointed Mark Kantrowitz (bald, homely, and uninspiring, as he may be), as America's unquestioned "Financial-Aid" expert. The picture posted above was taken in the mid 1990s. Since that time Mark Kantrowitz has lost a significant amount of hair.

Mark Kantrowitz: Skilled Self-Promotion Financial-Aid Artist

In 1988, the same year National Academy of American Scholars was founded by the academic superior to Mark Kantrowitz, Kantrowitz was still toiling for the MIT campus newspaper. America's "Financial-Aid Expert" was not even in the financial-aid industry when National Academy of American Scholars and many other scholarship sponsors were founded. Nonetheless, the main-stream medias' so-called "Financial-Aid Expert" seemingly claimed to know EVERYTHING about the whole financial-aid industry in 1995. Legal counsel I have spoken to concerning Mark Kantrowitz refer to him as nothing more than a clever "Financial-Aid" self-promotion artist. I know of no state-certification tests or government exams administered by any government authority that proclaims him to be a "Financial-Aid Expert." I know of no brokerage exams administered by the New York stock exchange, or the NASDAQ stock exchange stock markets, or from his friends at the U.S. Department of Education that Mark Kantrowitz has passed that officially certify him to be a "Financial-Aid" expert. I know of no judicial proceedings in which a court admnistrator has certified Mark Kantrowitz as a "Financial-Aid Expert". Heck, I even inquried at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, and they have no records of Mark Kantrowitz as graduating as a "Financial-Aid" expert. In reality, I agree with the legal assessment that Mark Kantrowitz is nothing more than a skilled and cunning self-promotion "Financial-Aid" artist. Plain and simple. I further agree that the main-stream media's constant referral of Mark Kantrowitz as a "Financial-Aid Expert" is simply further evidence that the main-stream cannot be trusted. Mr. Kantrowitz has used his association with placed government sources and others to generate huge personal profits while deceptively promoting himself to be a "Financial-Aid" expert.

Information and public reports suggests that Kantrowitz has routinely twisted, tweaked, and re-fashioned his principles and theories to suit his competitor target(s) of "Financial-Aid." For example, if his target was in California, Kantrowitz would announce that scholarship sponsors in "California" could not e trusted. If his same target moved to "Nevada" then Kantrowitz would alter his script and announce that scholarship sponsors in "Nevada" could not be trusted. If his same target then moved to "Texas", then he would re-fashion his moving script to match the location of his financial-aid target.

Despite his comedy of "financial-aid" reviews, his extensive flaws, his numerous contradictions, and his lack of legitimate credentials as an actual "Financial-Expert", educated and intelligent Americans are being asked to support the main-stream media's false contention that Mark Kantrowitz is a legitimate "Financial-Aid" expert.

The N.Y. York Times or Bloomberg won't make that statement or question the credentials of their "Financial-Aid" expert. Neither will you find meaningful, objective, fair, high-standards, and accurate reporting in any of those publications.

In fact, Scholarship Points conceded in legal papers that its scholarship points system should be compared to social-gaming. Scholarship Points is the organization that operates a "lottery-style" scholarship points system that the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office concluded was little more than a social-gaming system of scholarship points. Thus, the United States Patent and Trademark Office correctly and properly denied the trademark application of Scholarship Points by the Scholarship Points company, Edvisors.

Hush!! Don't believe what the the United States Patent and Trademark Office says or does because they are not the personal flunky of Mark Kantrowitz like the N.Y. Times, Bloomberg, and the other media companies detailed below. Many of these main-stream media companies incorrectly reported the arrest of the Boston Marathon murder suspects. If these same main-stream media companies cannot even report accurately as to whether or not a brazen murder suspect is even in police custody then don't expect educated and intelligent Americans, moms, mothers, and women, to believe they are accurate in describing Mark Kantrowitz as a glorified, holy, "Financial-Aid" expert.

"Financial-Aid Expert" Mark Kantrowitz, O.J. Simpson Prosecutor Marcia Clark, and Scholarship Points.

The employment of Mark Kantrowitz with a company like Scholarship Points presents an opportunity to again reassess the credibility, integrity, and character of self-proclaimed "Financial-Aid" expert Mark Kantrowitz. Do you remember the prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson trial? Marcia Clark was hired to be a District Attorney by the county of Los Angeles. She appeared to be so tough as a prosecutor, so careful in her deliberations, so "judicial" and so "lawyer-like". However, when TV cameras began to roll, Marcia appeared to put in more effort for her mascara and make-up than her legal analysis. She wore her finest jewelry, her best dress shoes, and she made sure she smelled like a woman rather than a prosecutor.

Despite the verdict, Marcia did not even think to re-tool her prosecutorial skills to avoid another similar defeat in the future. No. No! When the O.J. Simpson trial ended, and when T.V. producers came calling with a seven-figure annual salary, Marcia Rachel Clark revealed that she is little different than the typical street-walking female prostitutes that Los Angeles County prosecutors prosecute on West Hollywood Boulevard. Yeah. The only difference is the title and the amount of the pay-off. Even as a prosecutor, Marcia Clark always had a price she was willing to accept: nobody met the price until high-rolling T.V. producers (i.e., media Johns) came calling. A true prosecutor is not persuaded when the TV cameras roll, and a true prosecutor will flatly reject each and every offer of the type presented to Marcia Clark.

Like Marcia Clark, Mark Kantrowitz apparently cannot resist the sums offered by Scholarship Points. For a price, prosecutor Marcia Clark was bought just like any typical prostitute strolling the avenues of West Hollywood and Vine. For a price, Mark Kantrowitz (the same person who presented a fiery speech before the U.S. Senate denouncing "lottery-style" scholarships) has demonstrated that he also has a price tag. So-called "Financial-Aid Expert" Mark Kantrowitz owes his financial-aid readers, and the public, an explanation of the financial details of his new arrangement with Scholarship Points, and why he has apparently switched his ethics.

What financial-aid dollars will Scholarship Points be paying to the so-called Financial-aid expert? Why is so-called "Financial-Aid Expert" Mark Kantrowitz now deciding to accept a salary from a "lottery-style" Scholarship sponsor when in fact there are detailed and extensive quotes from the same so-called "Financial-Aid" expert Mark Kantrowitz in the 1990s that denounce such companies? "Financial-Aid" expert Mark Kantrowitz claimed that companies that operate like Scholarship Points were "scams." Scholarshps sponsored by Scholarship Points require NO WRITTEN ESSAY; NO WRITTEN LETTER OF RECOMMENDATATION; and, NO REFERRAL LETTERS. Either Mark deliberately Kantrowitz lied in 1995 and 1996, or he really believed his own statements and is now simply selling out his ethics to the highest bidder. Perhaps a more accurate statement from Mark Kantrowitz should be: "The company is not a scam as long as Mark Kantrowitz gets paid."

Personally, I have never met either Marcia Clark, or the media's "Financial-Aid" expert Mark Kantrowitz. I have no desire to meet either of them just as I have no desire to associate with prostitutes or persons who lack strict standards of ethics and integrity.

Money can buy any prostitute, but money can't buy a man or woman with true integrity and principles.

Understandably, my comments may not be welcome by everyone. However, I do not feel that I need to apologize for my personal high standards or for pointing out the facts. Scholarship Points hired Mark Kantrowitz, and now the company must accept his past baggage of denouncing the precise business model of his new employer.

Now that Scholarship Points has linked itself to the hip, and groin, of so-called "Financial-Aid" expert Mark Kantrowitz, it is only fair to re-educate the public to the past statements made by Mark Kantrowitz regarding companies that operate so-called "lottery-style" scholarships like Scholarship Points; an opinion even agreed to the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Naturally, we should not expect that a single main-stream media publication will report on their so-called "Financial-Aid" expert Mark Kantrowitz. The main-stream media is generally either inaccurate and/or deliberately misleading. Check-mate main-stream media! That's your so-called "Financial-Aid" expert.

In my next report, Part II, I will discuss Scholarship Points in a fashion that also highlights the history of FastWeb, Mark Kantrowitz, and FinAid, and how these entities and persons are inter-related in the Financial-Aid industry. I will discuss those facts in Part II, as well as the relationship of Mark Kantrowitz to advertisers that were later implicated in the student loan scandal, as well as the hype statements made by Financial-Aid artist Mark Kantrowitz that led to the passage of one of the worst, most wasteful, and the least effective pieces of government legislation in U.S. history. I will also discuss how the Kantrowitz-promoted legislation arguably led to the student-loan scandal, and higher college tuition for millions of college students. Stay tuned.

For more on this article, and a detailed comprehensive table of Financial-aid Scholarship Points, please visit the Scholarship Points Table link below. Act fast to earn Scholarships before your Scholarship Points expire!!

A comprehensive table of Financial-aid Scholarship Points:




Is Scholarship Points a Scam?


Degradation of National Scholarships