The College Solutions Blog

Valuable insights from Lynn O’Shaughnessy
a nationally recognized college expert.

The States Where College Students Stay Close to Home

In these hard economic times, it’s best to cast a wide net when applying for colleges. But most college students continue to stay close to home. Staying close to home for college can sometimes be a mistake. For some students, the best colleges — financially and economically — will be a time zone or two away. Why aren’t state schools...

Cushy Student Loan Repayment Plan: Will It Boost College Costs for Everyone Else?

Is a generous federal loan repayment program that Congress recently made even better going to increase the cost of college for everybody? It’s an interesting question that’s being posed by Daniel L. Bennett, who is a research and policy analyst at the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. In a Forbes article, Bennett argues that the federal student loan repayment...

How I Paid $0 for My Son's Summer Program

Are you looking for summer programs for high school students? I was recently hunting for a high school summer program for my son Ben. I paid for an online physics summer school program at Stanford that cost about $500, but I ended up going elsewhere and cut the price down to $0! Before I explain how, I want to state...

Being a Mom on Mother's Day

Mother’s Day always makes me cry. On this day, I remember my own mom, who was a teacher, and an incredible inspiration to me. She died suddenly in 2002, just hours after she had picked up her latest stack of books at the library and played tennis with dear friends. I also think about how fast my own two children...

College Vacancies: 240 Colleges Where You Can Still Apply

Don’t like where you’re heading to college in the fall? Take heart: There are still at least 240 schools with college vacancies. Most of the schools with college vacancies have room for both incoming freshmen and transfer students. All but one school on the list still has financial aid available and 236 still have dorm space. You can find the...

Check Out College, Inc., Tonight on PBS

I’m going to veg out on my couch tonight and watch College, Inc., on my PBS station. College, Inc., is a FRONTLINE production that explores the explosive and controversial growth of the for-profit higher education industry. One of the universities profiled in this investigation is the University of Phoenix, which is a darling of Wall Street. University of Phoenix is...

College Applications: What If You're Not a Leader?

Colleges love applicants who are leaders. This collegiate desire to find leaders doesn’t jive with the fact that most teenagers — or Americans in any other age group — just aren’t leaders. But here’s the good news: A teen doesn’t have to be the president or v.p. of his or her class to be considered a leader. In fact, teenagers...

Private School Loans: 6 Tips to Pick the Right Loan

If you need a private school loan, here are some final suggestions as I wrap up a week of blogging about college loans: 1. First, read this week’s posts on student and parent loans: 5 Things You Need to Know About Private School Loans College Loans: When Parents Need to Borrow 4 Things You Need to Know About Federal Student...

5 Things You Need to Know About Private School Loans

Earlier this week, I talked with Tim Ranzetta, a national expert on college loans and the founder of Student Lending Analytics. Today, I wanted to share some of his advice about private school loans that can save you money! Here are some things that you absolutely need to know about private school loans: 1. Students should max out their federal...

College Loans: When Parents Need to Borrow

Are you a parent looking for a college loan? Most of the press attention is focused on college loans that students take out, but there are parent loans as well. In case you missed them, I wrote about federal student loans in my last two college blog posts: 4 Things You Need to Know About Federal Student Loans Federal Student...