New Orleans, LA (PRWEB) August 08, 2011

The Loyola University New Orleans School of Nursing will hold several online open houses in August and September for qualified nurses interested in pursuing a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree. The open houses to be held online Aug. 9 and 16 from 6 ? 7 p.m. CST will provide information about the Post-Masters to DNP program. Open houses for the newly created Bachelor of Science in Nursing to DNP program will be held Aug. 11 from 4 – 5 p.m., Aug. 25 from 1 ? 2 p.m., and Sept. 8 from 6 ? 7 p.m.

Loyola administrators are encouraging interested students to log in to the open house and research the requirements and curriculum on its website. Those interested in pursuing a degree should contact the school at 504-865-3142 to set up an interview before the Nov. 1 early admission application deadline.

?We have everything a potential student would want to know about the programs on our website and encourage applicants to take a look at what we offer,? said assistant professor Gwen George, R.N., D.N.P., F.N.P.-B.C. ?If they have any questions or are unsure about anything, we can answer those questions at the open house or they can call and make an appointment with a member of our staff.?

Enrollment for the upcoming 2012 classes is limited and recommends that those seriously interested in attending start their application process soon.

?There are limited spots and, as we all know, programs are extremely competitive. That being said, we are already accepting applications and setting up meetings with potential students. The advantage to applying early is that students can find out if they?ve been accepted and can start making preparations for the upcoming curriculum before other people have even applied,? said George.

While the early application deadline for all programs is Nov. 1, the final application deadline is set for Feb. 1, 2012. For information about the Post-Masters to DNP program, contact Eric Wiltz at 504-865-3986. Students interested in the BSN to DNP program can contact Elena Ransom at 504-865-2499.

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St. Louis, MO (PRWEB) July 31, 2011

What?s the best way to pay off debt?

It?s simple. After making required payments to avoid penalties, pay down the loan with the highest interest rate. But consumers take a slightly different approach, according to a consumer behavior expert at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.

?Our research finds that people really like closing accounts,? says Cynthia Cryder, PhD, assistant professor of marketing. ?They will close a small debt account with a low interest rate at the expense of paying down a larger loan with a higher interest rate.?

Cryder, along with co-authors Shahar Ayal, Moty Amar and Dan Ariely of Duke University and Scott Rick of the University of Michigan, designed several studies to examine how consumers manage debt portfolios.

The article describing this research, titled ?Winning the Battle But Losing the War: The Psychology of Debt Management? is forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing Research.

Drawing on prior work about the psychology of decisions and goal pursuit, the researchers hypothesized that consumers saddled with multiple debts will primarily be motivated to reduce their total number of outstanding loans, rather than to reduce their total debt across loans, a phenomenon they refer to as debt account aversion.

Throughout a series of debt-management experiments, the researchers found that participants consistently paid off small debts first, even though the larger debts in the study had higher interest rates. In fact, no participant in their sample consistently used their cash to pay off the loan with the highest interest rate.

Because small losses impose a disproportionately heavy psychological burden, the authors argue, eliminating a small debt may offer greater relief than making an equivalent reduction to a larger debt.

Still, ?while it is attractive to close an account, that?s not necessarily the best approach to minimizing your debt burden,? Cryder says.

The researchers found a few strategies that help encourage optimal debt management decisions. Debt consolidation schemes that combine several small debt pools into fewer larger ones eliminate tempting small accounts and encourage people to focus on interest rates.

Also, explicitly focusing people?s attention on the actual dollars spent on interest payments encouraged people to prioritize interest rates, and helped them reduce overall debt more quickly.

To optimally reduce overall debt, Cryder says, always put extra money toward loans with high interest rates. When behavior is debt account-averse, consumers are winning the battle, but ultimately losing the war against debt repayment.

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