The College Solutions Blog

June 17, 2009

Here’s a grim statistic:  Fewer than 60% of four-year college students graduate in six years. Of course, noncompetitive schools, which accept nearly all comers, drag down the national graduation rates. For instance, only 18% of students at Mountain State University in Beckley, WV, which accepts all its applicants, graduate in six years. In contrast, 97% of Harvard students have earned...

June 15, 2009

With colleges struggling to provide adequate financial aid to their students, will affluent alumni step in to help? That apparently is what’s beginning to happen.  Last month three Harvard grads started a nonprofit loan program called UniThrive.  The goal is to play matchmaker to financially struggling students with alumni who are happy to make interest-free loans that come due five...

June 12, 2009

When my daughter’s friends came home from their freshmen year in college, most of them were happy campers. A few of Caitlin’s friends, however, weren’t thrilled with their college choices. It shouldn’t be any surprise that universities don’t always click, but there are plenty of opportunities for college transfers. I  saw this happen with one of Caitlin’s dearest friends who...

June 10, 2009

Are colleges favoring rich kids more than usual? A story in The New York Times suggests that private schools, which are hurting financially, are favoring affluent students whose parents can write fat tuition checks. The article focused on Reed College, which is an academically celebrated school that’s a magnet for iconoclastic students. With its endowment in the crapper and more...

June 9, 2009

With the admission season over for the newest crop of college freshmen, preliminary figures are now in that reveal what choices these teenagers made during these tough economic times. Here are some of the latest college admission findings from the National Association of College Admission Counseling: More students will be attending community colleges this fall. Sixty three percent of public...

June 7, 2009

  If you’re confused about your student loan options, Kathy Kristof, a syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times, nicely presents what your alternatives are in this piece on student loan strategies. Of course, I’m biased since she interviewed me for her piece. If you’ve got to borrow for college – and most parents will – you should check out...

June 4, 2009

The annual U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings edition is fun to read. In the past, I’ve poured over it myself. The rankings, however, are flawed. I’ve covered many of the reasons why U.S. News & World Report’s rankings are sketchy in my book, The College Solution, as well as in some of my blog posts. Here’s one reason...

June 2, 2009

Does your child have shot at a college athletic scholarship? Having a daughter who plays varsity soccer in college, I know that parents secretly dream of the day that a Division I coach will call their house. A teenage jock faces a 2% chance of getting a Division I or Division II athletic scholarship. That doesn’t mean, however, that your...

May 31, 2009

What happens if your child becomes severely depressed in college? As parents we worry because we wouldn’t  be around to spot the symptoms. If my daughter, who attends college 2,500 miles away, started skipping classes, ignoring friends or losing weight because of depression I wouldn’t know unless she told me. Colleges and universities offer mental health services, but research suggests...

May 29, 2009

How would you like to research a college in 10 minutes? Sound impossible? Not really. In my most recent college post for CBSMoneyWatch.com, I share three quick ways to research a school. I use these shortcuts all the time to help me size up a school pretty quickly....