The College Solutions Blog

March 18, 2011

Today I wanted to share with you a Q&A about college issues that I did with a well-respected financial advisory firm in St. Louis, which is my home town. The firm’s director of communications interviewed me and published the answers this month in the firm’s client newsletter. I thought you might appreciate seeing what I said: Q: What prompted you...

March 17, 2011

I’m rooting for two teams in the NCCA basketball tournament. The University of Missouri (I graduated from Mizzou’s world famous journalism school) and San Diego State University, which is a 10-minute drive from my house. With the tournament revving up on St. Patrick’s Day, I wanted to share a post that I wrote for my CBS MoneyWatch college blog that...

March 16, 2011

My husband and I reached a milestone yesterday. We made our last payment for our daughter’s bachelors degree. Caitlin is graduating from Juniata College in May and we’ve managed to pay for her degree — she double majored in business and Spanish — without taking out loans.  I should have bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate, but my husband...

March 15, 2011

Gosh. Where did the school year go? Summer is approaching which means teenagers must figure out how they are going to fill their summer months. If you’re looking for summer programs for your teenagers, I’d suggest heading over the Enrichment Alley.  This is a great website that contains a directory of summer enrichment experiences around the world. Low-Cost Summer Enrichment...

March 13, 2011

Do you need to graduate from an Ivy League school or other super elite college to earn the highest salaries? Many families believe that graduates who can put Harvard or Yale on their resume will fare significantly better financially than smart students who end up earning their degrees from elsewhere. In a famous study, two economists tackled this question nearly...

March 11, 2011

It’s shocking, but lots of students spend four — or more likely five or six years in college — and they have little to show for it. A bombshell of a book, Academically Adrift, suggests that 45% of college freshmen and sophomores learn little. I’ve written about this phenemonon here: Today, however, I wanted to ask my daughter Caitlin, who...

March 10, 2011

Yesterday I wrote about college coop programs that link students up with jobs while they are still students. Here is the post: Do You Need a Coop Program To Get a Job? What I am far more interested in sharing is what these and other private universities, many of which are located on the East Coast, cost. I’m going to...

March 9, 2011

I wanted to share with you a question that I received in response to my last post: Is Any College Worth $50,000? The gist of my blog post was that no school is worth a $50,000-a-year price tag and that some affluent families are looking at schools lower on the academic pecking order that provide discounts. That prompted one of...

March 8, 2011

Affluent families, who can afford to send their children anywhere to college, are becoming more discriminating. Some are questioning whether a private college that costs $50,000 or more is really worth the price. That’s one of the take-home messages of a podcast that I listened to recently on The Chronicle of Higher Education’s website. The newspaper interviewed John T. Lawlor,...

March 7, 2011

I’m the kind of person who sadly has a hard time relaxing. I can’t, for instance, just walk my Golden Retriever. It’s too boring watching her sniff the same bushes and tree trunks every day. I used to try to read a newspaper or magazine on these walks, but turning pages when the wind is blowing or the dog is...