The College Solutions Blog

May 19, 2013

Summer is the perfect time to start getting smart about finding a college and figuring out how to pay for it. Sure, it would be nice if your teen was motivated to start researching colleges, but that’s a hit-or-miss proposition for most parents. But there’s nothing keeping parents from educating themselves about the process. After all, who has more motivation...

May 16, 2013

Parents and teenagers rightly wonder what they are buying when they invest a huge chunk of money into a college degree. It’s hard to know. We have no accurate records of what college students at a specific college or university earn, much less what kind of salaries that grads with a particular major, whether it’s art history or biochemistry, are...

May 13, 2013

Today I’m sharing a highly informative 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 typically extremely expensive options with miserly financial aid packages. The author is Stuart Nachbar, who is president of EducatedQuest.com, a college admissions blog and guide to some...

May 10, 2013

Many parents assume that college is a seller’s market, but except for the elite schools that are perched at the top of US News & World Report’s college rankings, this belief is laughable. Schools are so eager to attract freshmen to their campuses that they are now discounting their tuition at historically high levels. That’s the conclusion from the latest...

May 8, 2013

If  you have to pay nonresident tuition, are public universities worth the price? That is the question facing three families whose children are heading to a state university as nonresidents this fall or are contemplating one of these institutions in the future. In my last post, I shared the issues the families faced and also solicited advice or comments from...

May 6, 2013

In this country, 80% of students attend state colleges and universities. It’s not surprising then when students, who want to attend a school outside their state, look to other public universities. I have received three emails lately from parents, whose children hope to attend state universities as nonresidents. I am sharing their stories today and in my next post I’ll...

May 3, 2013

Since there is so much interest in sports scholarships, I decided to devote another college blog post to the subject. If you missed my last post, here it is: The Realities of Athletic Scholarships I’ve met many parents who ask about particular sports and the odds of winning an athletic scholarship. I’m afraid a lot of families think that there...

May 1, 2013

Do you hope that your child is going to win an athletic scholarship? I’ve met many parents who hope/expect their children to pay for college with their athletic prowess. Some of these jocks, by the way, are in grade school! I’m not kidding. Even my own sister, whose daughter is 11, has fallen prey to the belief that a soccer...

April 29, 2013

In February, the U.S. Department of Education rolled out a new College Scorecard that families can use to research schools. If you missed it, I wrote a post on the day of the unveiling: The New Federal College Scorecard. The scorecard is a good first start to help families measure a school’s return on investment, but it needs work. If...

April 26, 2013

Should you attend a prestigious university if it’s going to cost a crazy amount of money or attend a state university? The post that I wrote this week addressing this question – Deciding Between College Prestige and Cost – generated a lot of discussion so I decided to take one more stab at the topic before May 1. That’s the...