The College Solutions Blog

Valuable insights from Lynn O’Shaughnessy
a nationally recognized college expert.

Living in an Empty Nest: Parents' Biggest Fears

If you’re going to be living in an empty nest soon, this column is for you. I’ll officially be an empty nester next month when my son heads off the college. My daughter is already back in college. I wanted to share a column, written by Lee Bierer, an independent college counselor and a syndicated columnist, about facing the prospects...

Taking a Shower With Your Eyes Closed

Are you jealous that your child is in college and you’re stuck at home paying for it? I feel that way sometimes and so do many of my friends. But when I get nostalgic about my own days at the University of Missouri, I realize that I have conveniently forgotten about a certain aspect of college life. At some point,...

11 Great Colleges – Mostly Off the Beaten Path

What do the University of Notre Dame and Raritan Valley Community College have in common? They both made the short list of great colleges that are doing an exceptionally good jobs. The list was complied by Andrew Hacker, a professor at Queens College and Claudia Dreifus, a New York Times writer, who are the authors of How Colleges are Wasting...

Borrowing for College With a Home Equity Loan

We’re approaching the peak of the student loan season. Parents and students are struggling with the prospects of paying for all their college costs. The best loan for students is the federal Direct Stafford Loan. Earlier this month, I wrote a post that provides lots of links to my past advice on student loans, as well as education loans for...

A Cheat Sheet for Repaying Student Loans

If you have questions about repaying a student loan, Mark Kantrowitz, the financial aid wizard over at Fastweb, the scholarship search engine, has written a very handy guide on the topic. His student-loan repayment cheat sheet is hot off the press and full of invaluable information. Here are some of the topics that Repaying Student Loans Quick Reference Guide covers:...

Is Getting a Double Major a Dumb Idea?

A double major in college seems like a no brainer to many students today, who want to capture a competitive advantage in the work world. Some academics, however, argue that a double major doesn’t necessarily provide that edge. Even worse, double majoring keeps many students from graduating on time. The double major issue came up when I was talking to...

Shaving $98,000 off the Cost of College

For three million students, the angst about getting into college had disappeared. That’s roughly the number of freshmen who will be attending college in the fall. The final grades are in, the college admission decisions are made. Freshmen face the prospects of locating extra-long sheets, discovering the name of their dorm roommate, attending freshmen orientation and counting down the days...

What is the Best Student Loan? Here's the Answer

What is the best student loan? I got an email this weekend from a dad who was hoping to get the answer to that question. His son needed to borrow for the last year of college. That was an easy question to answer. The best education loan available is the federal Stafford loan. There are two types of Stafford loans: ...

The True Cost of College

Before I got sucked into writing about colleges — for three college blogs no less! — I spent most of my time in front of my Mac writing personal finance stories. (This blog, by the way, started out as a personal finance blog more than three years ago.) Since the mid 1990s, I’ve written countless investing stories for such national...

Looking for Private Colleges That Use the FAFSA

Thought I’d share my response to a message that I received today from a mom, who was interested in finding private colleges that just use the Free Application for Federal Student or FAFSA. Here is Patrice’s question: Is there a way to determine which private colleges use the FAFSA method for financial aid? I would like to focus in on...