The College Solutions Blog

May 8, 2009

Some students are lucky enough to earn a free graduate degree. Others will pay tens of thousands of dollars or more for a master’s degree or PhD. The tab – if any – often depends on what a student is studying. If you’re bright enough to major in chemistry (an unfathomable subject for this little ole journalism major), you can...

April 30, 2009

With the economy flatlining, practical majors are starting to look awfully good. Heck with linquistics and comparative literature. More students are declaring themselves engineering majors. Undergraduate engineering programs, according to an article in The Christian Science Monitor, haven’t been this popular in three decades. Since 2007, the number of undergraduate engineering students has jumped 7.5%. During the same period, graduate...

April 3, 2009

On a lark, I decided to attend a conference being held this week in San Diego that is focused on improving the lives of professors.  Understandably this is not a subject that worries families, who are too freaked out about paying for college. The conference, which was sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, brought together heavy-hitter speakers,...

March 13, 2009

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 double majoring 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 a...

February 28, 2009

Earlier this month I wrote a blog post that shared a wild story about my son’s precalculus teacher. When the teacher said no late assignments, he meant it. A cancer patient who was taking his class nearly died from the wrong dose of chemotherapy, but the teacher still wouldn’t accept her late paper. I think there are many more teachers...

November 16, 2008

I was talking to a professor at the University of California, San Diego, at a dinner party earlier this year about colleges (naturally) and we ended up discussing why it’s taking so long for kids to get college degrees today. At UCSD the four-year graduation rate is 53%. While that number is underwhelming for a top research university, if you...

October 7, 2008

I promised in my last blog that I would devote my next one to learning communities. So I called my nephew Kevin O’Shaughnessy tonight before the presidential debate got started. I wanted to talk to Kevin, who is a freshman at the University of Missouri, about his learning community. Mizzou, as well as an increasing number of schools across the...

October 6, 2008

I’ve always been a nag about college rankings. It’s unfortunate that the first yardstick that many families grab when they are measuring schools is the annual US college rankings by U.S. News & World Reports. Simply whining about college rankings, however, isn’t very helpful, which is why I’m excited about a new report that was released today by the Association...

September 25, 2008

If a teenager plans to major in theater or social work should he or she assume more student debt than a kid who plans to become an engineer or an accountant? Most families aren’t concerned about the earnings potential of their children when exploring colleges. According to a recent commentary in The Christian Science Monitor, 70% of students and parents...

August 28, 2008

This week we got my son’s scores from the standardized test that public school students take each spring in California, My husband, son and I were discouraged by his chemistry score. Since Ben thinks he wants to be an engineer, he’s particularly not happy. His experiential chemistry class last year offered lots of fun moments. The 10th graders created their...