Start Your Investment Education Today

Reforms taking place in public pension plans for the state of Utah should be regarded as a wakeup call for the rest of the nation. Despite the fact that it is in better fiscal shape than many other states, after the market drop in 2008, Utah found itself with a $6.5 billion funding gap in its pension plan. Knowing they could not meet the state's obligations to its future retirees, officials put reforms into place last year that will affect all new hires.
One reform enacted was to do away with the old defined benefit retirement plan and replace it with a 401(k)-style plan. Although the defined benefit plan will still be available, the state's contributions to that plan will be limited to just 10%, effectively steering investors towards the 401(k) plan. Drastic measures were needed and drastic measures were prudently taken. Look for other states to follow suit.
In recent years, more and more private businesses have switched from defined benefit plans to 401(k)-style plans. The auto-enrollment features on many of these new plans put employees into the stock market right off the bat. With states and municipalities now getting on the 401(k) bandwagon, one thing is certain: more people with no prior knowledge of investing are being thrust into the role of "portfolio manager." Instead of having someone else look after your retirement account, you suddenly have a pressing need to learn how to invest wisely.
The good news is that for the most part, a 401(k) plan offers a lot of advantages over the defined benefit plan, such as:

1. the ability to "take your plan with you" if you change jobs
2. the ability to borrow or withdraw money from your plan in case of an emergency
3. your plan can not have its funds "robbed" by cash-strapped companies in lean times

Ironically the biggest advantage is the one that will scare most of you to death: the ability to manage your own investments. It should be the advantage you embrace.
As a "new" investor, you will have 2 choices when it comes to your retirement account. You can hire a fee-based financial advisor to guide you in making your investment decisions or you can learn how to invest on your own. Either choice, if well-researched and followed through, will produce good results. While hiring a professional advisor may sound like a "no-brainer" to an individual with no investing experience, learning to invest on your own should not be ruled out entirely.
There is no doubt that this changing retirement/investment landscape is going to be a challenge. Most of you working folks barely find enough time to take care of your daily chores. Now you are being told that you must learn to become an investor or at least learn how to hire one!
The truth is, gaining a working knowledge of basic investing principles is not rocket science. It can be boring, but it does not have to be complicated. With the amount of free investment information available today, you decide how steep the learning curve will be. Rest assured, it will not be as steep as you have been led to believe.
Consider this:

• Chances are you are not a Master Chef, but you probably do a great job of feeding your family each day.
• You may not be a Certified Mechanic, but you can change your oil, rotate your tires or replace a tail light if needed.
• Perhaps you do not have a Master's Degree in education, but you are smart enough to help your kids with their school projects.

Likewise you do not have to be a Certified Market Technician to be able invest wisely. All you have to do is get busy. Try not to think of this new task as a "chore," but as an opportunity and a great opportunity at that. This is your money. This is your future. Start taking charge of it today.

Importance of Educating the Masses About Smart Grid

A recent study conducted by Market Strategies International, involving 1,168 participants from across the US, shows that smart grid and smart meters are still lesser known concepts in the country.
The smart grid is basically a network that creates the possibility of saving energy resources. While the debate about safety and accuracy of smart meters, a key component of the smarter grid, is still going on, there may be a bigger area of concern for energy providers interested in transforming the grid.
This area is the knowledge and understanding of the smarter grid and smart meters. This article will specifically be about the US as the facts presented in the following lines are taken from a survey involving only US citizens.
In the survey, those who did not know very much or anything at all about the smart grid made up 79% of the total. Similarly, those who did not know or didn't understand advanced meters constituted 76% of the surveyed.
While lack of awareness about these technologies is an area where utilities may need to pay more attention, the good news for them is that providing knowledge about the technologies resulted in positive feedback for them from the participants.
After receiving an explanation about the smart grid and smart meters, 3/4 of the participants said that these technologies should be implemented on a priority basis in the coming 1-5 years. And 2/3 supported deployment of these technologies by their utilities if the cost was in the $6 to $10 range; however, the results were very not very different at higher or lower costs.
Based on these answers, we can say that educating people about the smart grid will be helpful for utilities in gaining support.
However, the education should cover all aspects of the smarter grid. Instances where smart meter installation was stopped after customer backlash have already occurred in the country.

General News About Associate Degree Programs Online

Associate degrees typically require two years to complete. Earning an associate degree in a specialized area serves as an opportunity to get entry level jobs. Many associate degree programs are available online, supporting you to study whenever and from wherever you want. You can choose an associate of arts degree, associate of applied science degree or associate of science program online, according to your interest and prior schooling.
Online associate degree programs in business and management, aid you to get higher rewarding job options. Online degree programs take less time than a traditional degree program to complete. It trains you in business communications, financial management, marketing, business law and many other related topics. You can choose a specialized field like agricultural business, automotive management, e-business or international business.
If you have an interest in careers in the health industry, online associate degree programs in health science are right for you. You can learn how to manage medical records and health care facilities in the course. If you are interested in physical therapy or personal training, you can choose an associate program in health science with personal training specialization. You can find plenty of job opportunities immediately after earning this degree.
It is always advisable to join an accredited institution, as the associate degree certificates offered by them have higher value. You can also expect quality education. Accreditation is a crucial aspect in online education. It is prudent to check whether the college or university offering online associate programs recruit instructors who have experience in the real world. Some instructors deliver the offline instructions via email. You can listen to them and learn your lessons easily. You can interact with the instructor via email and chat. The advanced technologies used by online institutions aid you to enhance your knowledge in your specialized field. The associate degree certificates awarded by them enjoy great recognition among employers.

How to Get a Scholarship To Pay For Your Education

There is good news for students on the hunt for financial assistance for college tuition and expenses. Money that never has to be paid back is available! Yes, scholarships are available to pay for school and are easy to apply for. The cost of living is steadily on the increase and this includes costs for higher education. More parents are unable to help their children with school expenses because of the economic situation. Students do have help through easy scholarships for college.
The sources for easy scholarships are easy to find with a little help and a lot of imagination. Starting with the student's guidance counselor's office where financial information is readily available, including financial aid information. Other places to find them include private benefactors, government organizations, associations and businesses. Many employers offer scholarships to their employees and children of employees in their benefit packages.
A good source to help in the search for college money is on the internet through scholarship search services. Websites that students join takes the profile of the student and looks for matches of scholarship that the student could apply for. Local business can be a good place to find scholarship information as well.
Students are well advised to be careful on their scholarship hunt to watch for scam artists who may ask for money in order to help them apply for tuition assistance. There are certain facts they should know in order to not fall victim to fraud. Scholarship money is free and does not have to be paid back even after graduation. There is no fee to apply for scholarships. If anything is told to the student to the contrary, they can be pretty much certain there is fraud activity going on.
You should not hesitate to get help during the application process. Easy scholarships are awarded based on so many different areas, it is best to consult with someone to help decide which ones would be best to apply for. Carefully fill out each application for errors and omissions or missing paperwork. Be diligent about writing the essay portion; make sure that it is well written with no spelling or grammar mistakes.
Above all, be confident knowing that help is on the way with no strings attached so that the college years can be more pleasant ones. Get a scholarship now.

Continue Your Green Education Today With Solar PV 102

There are many things to understand about a solar array beyond the panels. While panels are the pretty face of your system, we all know looks can only take us so far! The inverter, in this case, is the brains.
We learned in Solar PV 101 that photons of light excite electrons in a solar cell and create a steady flow of electricity. As mentioned, this is called current, but more specifically, it is called direct current, or DC. Your home, however, does not like DC power (although nearly all of you electronics do!); it prefers alternating current, or AC. If "AC" and "DC" sound familiar, and not because of heavy guitar licks and high-pitched voices, then you have got a great start to understanding the inverter which changes direct current into alternating current.
Changing current from DC to AC sounds like it could be a simple job, but consider that the panels are constantly providing varying levels of power, for example, as clouds move overhead, different amount of sunlight hit the panel. The inverter does not just make the change blindly; it actually plays with the laws of electricity to provide your home with the maximum power possible at every given instant, while at the same time, trying to match the phase of the power provided by the grid. Pretty smart!
The inverter is not done yet. Some inverters change the power of the entire array, while others invert the power from each panel. We call the latter micro-inverters, and the beauty of them is that their use allows us to install monitoring such that something as simple a Frisbee landing on a panel can be detected very easily from anywhere in the world via the internet. Monitoring is the second best way after the array itself, to brag to your friends about your newly installed solar array!
Inverters are also responsible for one of the most common misconceptions about Solar Power: during a black or brown out, you will be just like every other home on the block, following the game or listening to the news on a battery powered radio instead of the television. You see, when the power goes out, someone has to get up on the power lines and fix the problem, and if your system were pumping electricity onto the grid, these workers' lives would be in danger. We refer to this as anti-islanding and your inverter is designed to shut down in order to prevent it.
While not having power during an outage is unfortunate, you should not lose too much sleep over it. Power outages are somewhat rare, and as adoption of solar power increases, they will become less likely.
As the owner of a solar array, the most important thing you should know about inverters is that they generally have a warranty of 15 years. Modules have warranties between 25 and 30 years, so at some far down the line, your system may unexpectedly go down, and chances will be good that it is simply time to replace your inverter.
Ready for more introduction to solar power? Keep an eye out for Solar PV: 103 - Energy Storage.

Online College Degree News

In today's generation, technologies are becoming a part of your daily life. You intend to do things with just a click of a button. And now, schools are pushing their edge to give students the right and good education through technology. You can now study online and have a degree online. If you cannot go to school, with the help of technology school is coming to you. Competition is really pushing the college's school limit. Kids are now into browsing the internet. Enjoying the life surrounded by numerous technology. To be able to help students who wish to study but are not able to do so is one of the reasons why Online College degree was made.
There are Schools that even offers Master's degree on technological education it also comes along with training where that company that you wish to apply can accommodate you. Some school can help you financially; they are offering scholarships and education loans for working student. It will take 3 and for months for a student to be able to finish a Bachelor and Master's degree, there are programs in the school that you can get it in an advance rate. You can eve finish it for four years as long as you keep on doing your assignment and you are following school rules.
There are cheap online degrees that you can avail; not all people are capable of finishing College degree, and there are some who are smart but do not have time and money to enroll. For that matter, there are schools that are offering cheap online degrees. Students can work for the whole day but is required to attend six to fifteen hours per week. In that case the students hold their time and they are free to do their responsibilities in life and still continue studying up until you graduate.
There are just four easy way to find a great school online
• Find online Degrees that are suitable for you.
• View online degrees by subject of your interest.
• What are you good at? What course do you want to pursue, who do you want to become.
• Browse online degrees by the degree level
• Is it for Associate Degree, Master Degree, Doctoral Degree, or Bachelor degree?
• See online Colleges by name. There is lot of online college that is available, you can look up the list where do you want to study, the location and the background of the school.
• Being a computer literate is your edge on finding a job, therefore what if you are graduated in an online college degree, meaning you are way overboard than they expected. You know every single detail and every little cord of the computer.

A Fast Growing Alternative in Higher Education

Studies have long proven that college graduates earn more money than those who do not complete college. Yet, far too many people are forced to stop after earning a bachelor degree for a variety of reasons. Today, these problems are being remedied as students can now go to a number of distance education programs to find reputable distance learning master degree program in their area of interest.
Some students may not be able to afford graduate school, and of course they do not want to increase their student loan debt which is usually huge by the time they graduate with their bachelor degree. Others are unable to devote the required time to attend graduate level classes on a campus because they now have families to take care of or other obligations that must be put first.
For some others, graduate school may seem too ambitious or difficult. They may not have the confidence that they could get through the more intense studies required for a master degree because they perhaps struggled through much of their learning at the bachelor level.
All of these are legitimate problems which stand in the way of thousands of people who would love the opportunity to earn a master degree, or perhaps even a doctorate degree one day. Fortunately, online distance education programs are now offering great alternatives for everyone who desires a higher level of education.
For those who cannot afford to pay for a master degree at the institution where they earned their bachelor, online universities can offer more reasonable price structures. Those who have family obligations are able to complete their coursework and study at times that are most appropriate for their lifestyle.
This means even a new mother with an infant can get her master degree if she chooses to study while the baby is sleeping. Where there is a will, there is a way for busy parents who choose to further their education online.
Online university programs are even becoming great options for those who aren't sure they can deal with the pressures of advanced learning programs. Since they have access to study material and lessons around the clock with the internet, they have more opportunity to take in the information even if it takes them longer than others.
For instance, someone who does not understand a lesson in a college course on-campus will walk out feeling confused, but someone who doesn't understand a video recorded lesson online can simply back up the video and watch it over and over until they do understand. They can also communicate easier with instructors and other students if they need help beyond the lessons.
The online learning environment just gets stronger and stronger with time. As online applications improve, technology is making the virtual world feel very similar to the physical world. Students can even have real time conversations with their instructors through video chat with some online universities! That isn't much different from going to a professor's office and chatting across the desk.
Finding a distance education program that offers a distance learning master degree in your chosen career path may or may not be possible today. While many universities have at least a couple master level options, not every career field is represented with online universities at the master level just yet. The good news is these programs expand every year and many professions are covered online today.

The need for higher education grows every year in order to compete in the ever competitive job market. Distance learning Master Degree [http://www.DistanceLearningMaster.org] programs offer flexibility for those already holding down a job but would like to advance.