The College Solutions Blog

January 6, 2009

To make money, some universities are offering up their own students to the credit card industry as sacrificial lambs. Credit card issuers have happily been paying schools for access to their students. Consequently, it’s been common to see credit card marketers at tables stacked with cheap bling on campus quads. They will gladly give students a free t-shirt, a towel...

January 4, 2009

Would you rather go to New York University or the University of Pennsylvania? If you must rely on financial aid to attend an elite school, NYU might not be in the cards. Why? Because NYU is incredibly stingy. At least on paper, Penn, along with a few other highly selective schools, will help 100% of the students who need it....

January 2, 2009

It was a rare morning because I spent it eating breakfast out instead of nibbling on toast at my computer. A friend of my husband’s was interested in talking about the stock market over French toast and Mexican scrambled eggs and ultimately the conversation veered to college. His son had just gotten his SAT scores back and he was worried...

December 31, 2008

I’ve talked to lots of parents who are wondering how they are going to foot the college tab with their investments in tatters. Hey, I’m right in there with everybody else with a sophomore attending a private college and a junior in high school. While parents like me are grappling with how to compensate for college account losses, universities are...

December 29, 2008

Even before the stock market imploded and the recession struck, students were finding it increasingly difficult to pay for college. Students are borrowing at higher levels than they ever had before. At least two out of three students leave school saddled with student debt. With the financial industry and others getting bailed out, higher ed leaders are wondering why students...

December 26, 2008

One of the rules that I always disliked about 529 plans was this one: You can only change the mix of investments within a 529 plan once a year. It’s always struck me as an unfair rule since other investments accounts such as IRAs and 401(k)s don’t impose this restriction. In light of the stock market turmoil, the Internal Revenue...

December 24, 2008

The College Prowler publishes a popular series of books and undoubtedly part of its success can be traced back to its marketing efforts. But the publisher recently got caught stepping over the line with a sneaky viral marketing campaign on Facebook. An enterprising blogger discovered that fake students were creating “Class of 2013” groups on Facebook to attract high school...

December 22, 2008

An increasing number of high school seniors are deciding to skip applying to private colleges and universities because they worry that the costs will be too high in these hard economic times. That was the gist of a story in today’s New York Times. While it’s always essential to apply to financial safety schools, families could be cutting off their...

December 19, 2008

Completing the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) can be intimidating for parents. That’s why rookies, in particular, should consider a practice run in filling out the document. With the FAFSA season nearly upon us — applications for the 2009-10 school will be available online on Jan. 1 — the federal government just posted its worksheet online. You can...

December 17, 2008

With the cost of  bachelor degrees continuing to soar far higher than the rate of inflation, you might assume that college presidents would be reevaluating the tuition arms race. Surely during these hard times, institutions must be thinking of ways to shrink costs in a meaningful way. Maybe not. An education think tank, which conducted in-depth interviews with two dozen...