The College Solutions Blog

October 13, 2014

I receive emails occasionally from parents who strongly believe that their children should pay for their own bachelor’s degrees. Often the moms and dads in this camp paid for their college education and believe that it was a character-building experience. What these parents don’t necessarily appreciate is that when they were young it was possible to cover the cost of...

October 13, 2014

Parents often want to know if there are ways that they can increase their chances for financial aid. They often think that positioning their money creatively will boost their chances. Much of the time this isn’t wise or necessary. Whether your child will qualify for need-based financial aid will typically depend heavily on these factors: Parental income Number of students...

October 13, 2014

Will you need to borrow to pay for college? If so, the best strategy will often be to have your child borrow first through the federal Direct  Loans. These loans are the responsibility of students, but parents can repay this loan for their children. Most students will be able to borrow up to $31,000 with federal Direct Student Loans. Unlike other college loans,...

October 7, 2014

For many students the biggest source of money will be from the colleges themselves. That’s why it’s important for you to understand what would motivate any school to give your child one of its awards. Schools don’t dispense grants and scholarships to be nice. They give awards because they expect to get something valuable from a student in return. To...

September 30, 2014

I am eager to get to know everyone who is taking this class! One of the neatest parts of this class is that it has attracted professionals from across the country. Your classmates include individuals from such states as Washington, New Mexico, New York, Florida, South Carolina, Colorado, Texas, Illinois, Maine, Virginia and California. I’d love for you to introduce...

September 29, 2014

According to a Federal Reserve report, nearly one in three borrowers in repayment are at least 90 days late with their payments. There are, however, ways that borrowers can avoid getting in trouble with their student loans. Here are eight tips to repay college debt: 1. Identify outstanding loans. After leaving or graduating from college, borrowers have six months to...

September 29, 2014

Many financial aid letters are confusing. Perhaps the staffers generating these letters have been conversing in financial-aid speak for so long that they have lost their ability to communicate in plain English. Of course, the cynical explanation for unhelpful financial aid awards is that many schools don’t want families to know when an offer is pathetic. Obfuscation is an effective way to keep...

September 29, 2014

While there are nearly 2,800 four-year colleges and universities in the United States, there are just over five dozen that claim that they meet 100% of their students’ financial need. Even though some schools say they meet 100% of need, this doesn’t mean that the financial aid packages will be identical for a student applying to these institutions. Far from...

September 29, 2014

The screenshot above is of a webinar that I recorded for the winter 2017 class where I  discussed ways to boost your child’s chances of admission that may also lead to better aid packages or merit awards. You can watch this webinar by clicking on this link:  Increasing Admission Chances (To watch the entire recording, you MUST download it onto...

September 29, 2014

During this course, I’ve been encouraging families to consider casting a wider net when searching for promising schools and also potentially better prices. Many families, however, are stumped about how to generate ideas beyond the usual suspects. In this lesson I am sharing resources to help families broaden their searches and to evaluate the schools on their lists. I am...