The College Solutions Blog

February 18, 2011

Want to know what the nation’s most generous colleges are? If so, you’ll want to take a look at US News & World Report’s newly released list of schools. All the institutions on the list say that they meet 100% of their students’ demonstrated financial need. Not surprisingly, nearly all of the schools on this list are private. You can...

February 17, 2011

There are many websites that you can research the financial aid practices of individual schools. Today I’m going to focus on an especially helpful site — the federal College Navigator. The College Navigator is not flashy, but it contains incredible tools that tap into the US Department of Education’s vast college database. The College Navigator provides information on individual schools...

February 16, 2011

In my last post, I promised to share some resources that can help you evaluate the generosity of colleges and universities. If you missed it, here is that post: Financial Aid Nuts and Bolts Today I’m going to focus on the College Board’s website, which is a quick and easy resource for anyone interested in getting financial aid statistics on...

February 15, 2011

This week I’m going to focus on some financial aid nuts and bolts. I want to address one of the questions that puzzle families the most:  Will a college award my child any money? Most parents have no clue how to answer this question. In fact, they usually don’t find out if a college is willing to kick in some...

February 14, 2011

In one of my college blog posts last week, I was raving about a new book, The Thinking Student’s Guide to College by Andrew Roberts, who is an assistant professor of political science at Northwestern University.  If you missed the post, here it is: The Thinking Student’s Guide to College Today I wanted to share just a few of the...

February 11, 2011

I attended a mini college conference yesterday in San Diego that was sponsored by the Western Association for College Admission Counseling (WACAC). A couple of enthusiastic young admission reps from a pair of Catholic universities back East were the presenters at one of the sessions.  I wanted to share one of the questions that the reps fielded. An audience member...

February 10, 2011

Many teenagers that I meet would love to attend a public university outside their state – or at least they think they would. Out here in California, teenagers seem to be particularly interested in other flagships in the West – University of Colorado, University of Washington and University of Oregon. Of course, plenty of teenagers in places where it’s currently...

February 9, 2011

I’ve always felt that parents and teenagers spend too much time worrying about getting into colleges. It’s too bad that teenagers, in particular, don’t divert some of this 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 new book,...

February 8, 2011

I’m resurrecting a college blog post that I wrote last spring because it’s going to be timely again when high school seniors begin getting their acceptance letters. We are approaching the time of year when parents agonize about sending their children off to expensive colleges and universities even if they can’t afford the price tag. When acceptances arrive, common sense...

February 6, 2011

I wrote this post for my college blog over at US News & World Report last week. I wanted to share it with you….. Winning private college scholarships can certainly help make college more affordable, but you need to know the realities of competing for college cash. A handy resource to turn to is a new book, Secrets to Winning...