The College Solutions Blog

August 2, 2009

I told you so! That’s what I was thinking when I wrote one of my college blog posts last week for CBSMoneyWatch.com. With the media writing nonstop about how teenagers could only afford public institutions in this wretched economy, I must have looked like a lunatic when I insisted that private colleges could still be the cheapest alternative for many...

July 30, 2009

How do you get the most out of a college tour? Here’s how:  talk with professors. As I mentioned in my last post, this is what my son has been doing this week as we tour liberal arts colleges in the Pacific Northwest. Since Ben is interested in physics and a possible 3-2 engineering program, he made appointments to talk...

July 28, 2009

I’m halfway through a scorching college tour with my son Ben. I love visiting colleges, but the relentless weather in Oregon — the temperature reached 105 in Portland today — is insane. I’m thrilled — and I think everybody else is too — when each tour guide herds us all back to the air-conditioned admissions office. This is my second-go-round...

July 27, 2009

I’m taking some time off from my college blog this week and a friend, Ruth McKinnie Braun, who is the creator of the great website: SuchASmartMom.com offered to pitch in and provide this post. Hope you enjoy it….. Summer is the perfect time for low-key college planning. Setting aside time for exploring college options without the pressure of homework, tests...

July 25, 2009

I was surprised this week to see such heavy traffic on the college blog post that I wrote for CBSMoneyWatch.com on the the college degrees that generate that highest paying and lowest paying jobs for new college graduates. I guess it’s only natural that people are curious about what college degrees are the most lucrative. Engineering degrees dominate the list. New...

July 24, 2009

Will the financial crisis that colleges and universities are experiencing lead to cannabalism? I started wondering that when I heard that most of the department chairs at the University of California, San Diego, wrote a crazy letter recently to the president of the 10-campus UC system. Twenty one out of 28 department chairs suggested that Board of Regents consider killing...

July 23, 2009

Close to 840 colleges and universities no longer require that you submit an ACT or SAT test score for admission. That’s great news for anybody who bombs on standardized tests, but cynical reasons help explain what’s fueling the test-optional movement. In a story that I wrote for The New York Times, I share the hidden reasons why schools are dropping...

July 21, 2009

What colleges and universities produce graduates who go on to earn the highest paychecks? It’s easy to answer that question if you consult the annual college salary survey that Pay Scale Inc., just released.  The list of schools that produce the graduates with the highest starting salaries is dominated by Ivy League institutions and other elite private schools. Big surprise....

July 17, 2009

I wanted to share with you three college posts that I wrote this week for my other college blog at CBSMoneyWatch. Hope you enjoy them! Is Your College Professor Autistic? It never occurred to me that a college professor could be autistic. But an economist at George Mason University wrote a convincing commentary in The Chronicle of Higher Education that...

July 16, 2009

A strange thing happened to me last night. I had started a post about dealing this summer with one of the real pains of the college application process – the college essay. But then I got distracted and walked out of my office. I wandered out to the patio to talk to my son’s girlfriend about what she was doing...