Valuable insights from Lynn O’Shaughnessy
a nationally recognized college expert.
Financial aid
August 24, 2010
A Financial Aid Crystal Ball
One of the problems with paying for college is that you don’t know how much it’s going to cost. Many students won’t receive their financial aid awards until the spring. And colleges expect families to start paying a short time later. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could know well ahead of time whether a school is going to be...
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August 18, 2010
Hiding College Assets in Life Insurance
Wednesday was surreal. I got up before dawn and schlepped up to Ontario, CA, to attend an educational conference of a new organization called the National College Advocacy Group. I’ve listened in on some excellent webinars that the NCAG has hosted and this was the first time that I had an opportunity to meet college consultants in the organization. The...
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August 16, 2010
Cutting the Cost of College for the Wealthy
I had a mom email me today who has been doing her homework this summer. Specifically, she’s been reading my eBook, Shrinking the Cost of College: 152 Ways to Cut the Price of a Bachelor’s Degree, in the hopes of making college more affordable for her family. After I emailed her back, I thought I’d share what I told her...
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August 9, 2010
College Loan Debt Just Passed Credit Card Debt!
Americans now owe more money on their college loans than they do on credit cards. I just read about that scary reality on The Wall Street Journal’s website. According to Mark Kantrowitz, the financial aid guru over at FinAid and Fastweb, Americans owe about $829.7 billion in student loans. In comparison, consumers owe $826.5 billion in revolving credit card debt....
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August 8, 2010
8 Ways to Cut College Costs
College costs sure are daunting, but the sticker prices are meaningless. I recently wrote about how my son and the other two boys in his high school carpool shrank their college costs dramatically. The tuition for the three boys for the coming year totaled a whopping $136,500, but they received grants from their respective liberal arts colleges for the 2010-11...
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August 7, 2010
Get The College Solution for Free
I just learned from my publisher that the Kindle edition of my book, The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price, will be free next week. That’s right, The College Solution on the Kindle will be FREE from Aug. 9 to Aug. 14. Normally the Kindle version is $9.99. Why is the...
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July 20, 2010
Calculating the Real Cost of College
As some of you know, I am now writing a weekly college blog for US News & World Report. I ain’t gonna lie, it gets tiring writing original material all the time. Consequently, today, I’m going to share one of the recent posts that I wrote for US News. Here it is…… It’s a sad reality that most families with...
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July 12, 2010
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...
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July 9, 2010
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:...
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July 4, 2010
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: ...
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