The College Solutions Blog

June 19, 2014

I want to thank everybody who weighed in on my last post: Dad:  Should I Force My Son to Attend Cornell? I think everyone was in agreement (yeah!) that the young man, who enjoyed a great freshman year at Washington University in St. Louis, should NOT be forced to transfer to Cornell University. My visitors shared all sorts of excellent...

June 17, 2014

Some of my most popular blog posts are generated by comments from parents whose children face agonizing college decisions. I got an email today from a dad who is grappling with what to do with his son, who was accepted to Cornell University last year through deferred admission or guaranteed transfer option.  Under this arrangement, Cornell requires an applicant to...

June 13, 2014

A month after he graduated from Beloit College with a degree in mathematics, my son Ben is taking his first step towards becoming a high school math teacher. He starts his Denver Teacher Residency program Monday through a collaborative effort between the University of Denver and the Denver Public Schools. Ben will be taking classes for the next year at...

June 9, 2014

Fifty eight percent of students who attend college pick a school that’s located within 100 miles of their home and 72% choose schools in their own state. Clearly most teenagers and their parents don’t throw a wide net even though it can sometimes lead to better academic fits and also greater tuition discounts. The latest evidence that students aren’t wandering...

June 3, 2014

If your child is a “B” student, he or she may have more options than you might assume. Don’t believe me? Here is a story of a young woman – I’ll call her Katie – whose mom is a friend of mine. Katie attended a private high school in California where she earned a 3.0 GPA. She applied to these...

May 30, 2014

I’ve always felt that parents and teenagers spend too much time worrying about getting into college. I wish teenagers, in particular, diverted some of their energy into making sure that their college years will be successful. For everybody who agrees with me that the latter goal is vastly more important, I want to recommend a book, The Thinking Student’s Guide...

May 27, 2014

As recently as the early 1990s, most students did not take out college loans. Today about two out of every three students borrow to pay for college due to the runaway cost of college. The typical student borrower is now leaving school with debt of $29,400. Just the outstanding federal college loan debt now exceeds credit-card debt. Is $29,400 a...

May 21, 2014

My son Ben graduated from Beloit College on Sunday. With 277 other seniors, Ben received his diploma on a beautiful spring day at this liberal arts college in Beloit, WI, which he considered his home for four years. This native San Diegan left nearly four years ago to move to a state where he had no connections, no relatives, no...

May 19, 2014

Today I’m sharing a guest post that explains some excellent, but overlooked options for students who are interested in attending a music conservatory or an art and design school, which are often extremely expensive options with poor financial aid. The author is Stuart Nachbar, who is president of EducatedQuest.com, a college admissions blog and guide to some of the best...

May 13, 2014

Today I’m sharing with you a new online tool that you can easily use to generate quick cost estimates and comparisons at individual colleges. All you need is to start playing with the universal net price calculator that you’ll find on the website of the Cost of Learning.  This new website aims to make it easy for families to retrieve...