The College Solutions Blog

June 28, 2012

My favorite higher-ed commentator is Kevin Carey. I’ve got him on my Google Alert because I always enjoy reading anything he writes. Carey recently became director of the education policy program at the New America Foundation, which is a respected think tank in Washington, DC. You can learn more about him here. Carey has no interest in writing about college...

June 25, 2012

Is your home equity going to hurt your chances of receiving need-based financial aid? The majority of families don’t need to worry about this because most schools don’t consider home equity. These  institutions use the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The FAFSA doesn’t even ask if the family owns a home. Some of these schools, however, will use an...

June 14, 2012

This week the U.S. Department of Education released its second annual lists of college tuition hogs. For the record, the federal bureaucrats don’t call them them porkers. Congress mandated that the government compile and release annual lists of the five percent of colleges and universities that charge the highest and lowest tuition. The government assembles the lists based on each...

June 14, 2012

This week the U.S. Department of Education released its second annual lists of college tuition hogs. For the record, the federal bureaucrats don’t call them them porkers. Congress mandated that the government compile and release annual lists of the five percent of colleges and universities that charge the highest and lowest tuition. The government assembles the lists based on each...

June 8, 2012

  LLast week I gave a one-hour webinar on shrinking college costs for 100 college consultants. Cyndy McDonald, a friend of mine who is also college consultant and the founder of MyCCA.net, invited me to give the presentation. MyCCA (which stands for My College Consultant Assistant) provides management software for college counselors to help them assist their clients in navigating...

May 22, 2012

I wanted to share an email that I received over the weekend from a mom named Linda, who is questioning whether her bright son’s No. 1 college choice – Cal Tech – is out of reach financially. Mom’s Email Here is what Linda wrote: My son, a rising freshman, has dreamed of attending Cal Tech for years, which others have...

May 18, 2012

How can reduce your dependence on college loans? About this time last year, Mark Kantrowitz, the publisher of FinAid and FastWeb, sent me some suggestions on how families can reduce their dependence on college loans. I am running the suggestions again along with links to some of my college blog posts that I’ve written on the same topics. Here are...

May 17, 2012

When you take into account all the sources of college aid that are available to students in this country, roughly nine percent comes from state governments. Recently that amounted to $9.2 billion. How states dispense this aid varies significantly. While nearly all states are strapped for cash, some are far more generous than others to college students. The requirements for...

May 14, 2012

One aspect of the top story that appeared in yesterday’s New York Times shocked me. The number of students who borrow for college is much higher than I thought. I’ve routinely seen estimates that two-thirds of students take out loans for college. The New York Times, however, conducted an analysis that concluded that 94% of students who earn a bachelor’s...

May 14, 2012

One aspect of the top story that appeared in yesterday’s New York Times shocked me. The number of students who borrow for college is much higher than I thought. I’ve routinely seen estimates that two-thirds of students take out loans for college. The New York Times, however, conducted an analysis that concluded that 94% of students who earn a bachelor’s...