The College Solutions Blog

November 1, 2009

As usual, I am sharing college blog posts that I wrote last week for CBSMoneyWatch.com. It was a crazy week since I flew to Minneapolis to give a couple of speeches on college strategies. Record College Enrollment: Why You Shouldn’t Worry New figures were just released that indicate that more young adults are enrolled in college than ever before. That’s...

October 30, 2009

The teenagers who took the SAT test early in October began finding out their scores yesterday. My son Ben was celebrating on Thursday because he improved his SAT scores in all three subjects and his math score was terrific. Ben’s SAT scores from May weren’t as good so it’s an easy decision for us to just send in his latest...

October 28, 2009

Debt isn’t the only thing that weighs down students when they attend college. They also get fatter. Undergrads who head off to college are warned about the “freshmen 15.” That’s allegedly the number of pounds freshmen gain when they arrive at college. Some nutritionists and physicians, however, believe that the freshman 15 is now more like the freshman 30. A...

October 27, 2009

Want to lower the cost of college? How does eliminating all your child’s room and board costs sound? It’s possible if your child becomes a resident assistant. A resident assistant serves as a surrogate mother hen to the kids in the dorms. RAs help settle disputes and make sure kids aren’t doing dumb things like hauling beer kegs into their...

October 26, 2009

When I visited college campuses with both my teenagers, the college dorms were often a big selling point. It seems the tour guides were always raving about the newest dorms on campus and clearly universities are using their new dorms as a recruiting tool. While there are still plenty of dorm rooms on college campuses that look like cinderblock cells,...

October 25, 2009

As usual, I am sharing with you the posts that I wrote for my college blog for CBSMoneyWatch.com during the past week. Baby Einstein Bust: Toys That Will Make Your Child Smarter. Did parents really think that plunking their infants in front of Baby Einstein DVDs was really going to make them geniuses. Come on. Surely they knew Baby Einstein...

October 23, 2009

I’m exhausted today so it’s hard to get motivated to write something for my college blog. I gave four lengthy speeches at college fairs around San Diego on three consecutive nights this week. During the past few days, I also spent a lot of time at High Tech High, which is my son’s school, talking with college admission representatives and...

October 22, 2009

For many families, college will be the second biggest expense they will ever face — right behind buying a house. Choosing colleges and figuring out how to pay for them is complicated, which is why students and parents often seek college advice from high school counselors. It’s typically difficult, however, for families who want meaningful college information to get much...

October 21, 2009

Here’s a shocker:  College costs continue to rise. That is the verdict of the College Board’s annual college cost study. Tuition and fees at state schools jumped 6.5% and the tuition cost at private schools rose 4.4%. A few months ago, an association of private colleges and universities issued a press release congratulating their members for holding down the cost...

October 19, 2009

I subscribe to a list serve that is popular with high school and independent college counselors. I’m always amused when a counselor posts a plea for help in assembling a list of great colleges and universities for students who often possess eclectic taste. I’ve seen requests like this:  I am helping a student, who is interested in architectural engineering and...