The College Solutions Blog

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

Financial aid

15 Ways to Cut the Cost of Borrowing

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...

Financial Aid Practices in the 50 States

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...

When Two Children Head to College

Yesterday’s post, which explored the school options of a brilliant teenager from Wisconsin, generated many insightful comments from parents. Here is the post: Should a Kid Borrow $80,000 for a Brand-Name University? If you missed the post or the comments, I’d urge you to check both out. To summarize, the teenager managed to get admitted to some elite schools including...

Should a Kid Borrow $80,000 for a Brand Name University?

I am sharing an email that I received Tuesday from a Wisconsin mom, who is stressed about the admission decision that her teenage son must make by May 1. What follows is a cautionary tale for any families which have not been through the college admission process yet. Read on to discover how to avoid the kind of mistakes that...

Avoiding College Snake Oil Salesmen

For many years I was a financial journalist who wrote about such garden-variety investment topics as 401(k)’s, IRA’s, mutual funds, bonds and how investors can assemble a retirement portfolio that will last longer than they do. I enjoyed what I was doing until I stumbled across a financial topic that I knew nothing about when my daughter was in high...

Should You Blow the Budget for Cornell?

If you don’t have the cash, is an Ivy League school or any other university that the college rankings gods worship worth the cost? Affluent families have been asking me that lately. Yesterday afternoon, for instance, I got a call from a dad in Maryland, who wanted my opinion about the three schools on his daughter’s short list. The father...

Where Are the Scholarships Hiding?

Yesterday, a frustrated mom posted a comment on my college blog that expressed her doubts that merit scholarships even exist. Here is what Wendy had to say: How Many Students Receive Merit Scholarships? Wendy’s comment is a timely one because this week the National Association of College and University Business Officers released its annual statistics on merit scholarships and grants...

Getting Stiffed by Harvard

I received an email from a mom over the weekend who was unhappy that her daughter, who beat the odds and got into an Ivy League school, didn’t receive a scholarship from the institution. Here is her note: Our annual household income is more than $750,000 –my daughter is admitted to Harvard – does that mean we have to pay...

Financial Aid Bait and Switch?

When families look at financial aid packages they often assume that a school’s financial aid support will remain the same for four years. That, however, is a dangerous assumption to make. The financial support that some colleges and universities give students will shrink after their freshmen year. Bait and Switch? Why would this happen? I can’t speak for schools that...

Shortchanging a Texas Teenager?

I continue to receive a lot of comments from last week’s post about the Texas mother, who was bitterly disappointed that her extremely accomplished daughter has been getting underwhelming merit awards or none at all from universities. This mother was hoping for large merit scholarships because her family is too affluent to qualify for need-based aid. If you missed it,...