The College Solutions Blog

March 5, 2010

Are college students getting smarter? If you looked at the grades they are “earning,” you might assume the answer is yes.  The average GPA in college is 3.1. At private schools, the norm is a 3.3 GPA. In contrast, the typical college student had an average GPA of 2.52 in the 1950s. In nearly every decade, the GPA has inched...

March 4, 2010

I heard from some high school counselors yesterday, who were furious with me. I wrote a post for my other college blog at CBSMoneyWatch about a new study that suggests that plenty of school counselors would flunk out if they were graded like their students. In the Public Agenda survey, which was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,...

March 3, 2010

Will your family qualify for college financial aid? I bet you that most parents think they won’t qualify for financial aid although most will. Here’s a shocker: even families that make $150,000 or even $200,000 may qualify for close to $25,000 in financial aid at very expensive schools. In the college admission process, financial aid misconceptions can easily punish families....

March 2, 2010

Yesterday I wrote this post about liberal arts colleges: Which is Better: A Liberal Arts College or a University? At the time, I promised that I’d summarize a thoughtful op-ed piece that Sanford J. Ungar, the president of Goucher College, wrote for the special liberal arts report that ran in The Chronicle of Higher Education.  Unfortunately, only Chronicle subscribers can...

March 1, 2010

Which is better — a liberal arts college or a university? Last night I had a conversation with one of my nephews, who is torn between attending Truman State University, a wonderful public liberal arts college, or the University of Missouri in Columbia, which happens to be my alma mater. I’m proud of Tommy for being so thoughtful in trying...

February 28, 2010

Want to know what college students are reading? The Chronicle of Higher Education recently surveyed dozens of colleges and universities across the country to compile this top 10 college reading list. You won’t find any heavy literature on this list that includes three books dripping with zombie and vampire antics. I’d recommend reading No. 2 and No. 6. I’m on...

February 26, 2010

It is hard to qualify as an independent college student when seeking federal financial aid. I wrote about this big hurdle recently in this post: Getting Financial Aid as an Independent Student Yesterday about four dozen students posted passionate comments on my blog after Chegg, the giant online source for textbook rentals, carried a post that I wrote earlier this...

February 25, 2010

Beginning this week, it became much harder for college students to obtain a credit card. Many college kids who aren’t 21 yet must get a cosigner to obtain a student credit card. Frankly, I think that’s a good thing. A far better alternative to that first credit card in college is a debit card, which you can use just about...

February 23, 2010

I heard today from a dad named John, who got Rutgers to quadruple the academic scholarship that it is offering his daughter. After hearing from John, Rutgers scotched the original $10,000 scholarship and replaced it with a $40,000 college scholarship instead. How did he do it? It was simple. On February 17, John sent an email to Rutger’s undergraduate admissions...

February 22, 2010

Where do college transfer students go after they earn their two-year associate’s degree? It’s been a tough question to answer when you consider that colleges and universities have traditionally been focused on high school seniors. The transfer student who graduates from a community college has legitimately felt overlooked. But that reality could be changing for a couple of reasons. Reason...