The College Solutions Blog

December 30, 2015

Happy New Year’s to you! I hope you had a lovely holiday. My husband and I were fortunate to be able to spend this time with our daughter Caitlin and our son Ben over the break. The photo you see is of our family earlier this week at the lighthouse at the Point Reyes National Seashore, which is the windiest...

December 14, 2015

The FAFSA season begins January 1. That’s the date when families can begin filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid for the 2016-2017 school year. Parents need to complete the FAFSA or their children won’t be eligible for federal or state aid. In addition, most colleges use the FAFSA to determine who will qualify for their own institutional...

September 24, 2015

One of the most unpleasant aspects of filing for financial aid is how rushed the process has always been. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid isn’t released until Jan. 1 each year, which has never given parents much time to file for financial aid. This is especially true since families need their tax returns finished before finalizing the FAFSA....

September 14, 2015

If paying for college is going to be a challenge, and it usually is, it’s important that you obtain your Expected Family Contribution before your begin looking at colleges with your teenagers. In fact, obtaining your EFC should be the FIRST STEP you take in the college process. Here is a quick rundown of what an EFC is, why it’s important, how...

September 1, 2015

Here is what typically happens during college admission season: Students apply to whatever colleges they want without having any clue about whether these schools will give them grants and/or scholarships.  Parents are often onboard with their children disregarding price when finalizing their lists. The attitude of these moms and dads can be summed up this way:  Go ahead and apply...

August 26, 2015

Are you freaking out about the price of a bachelor’s degree? If so, you’ll want to attend one of my upcoming free webinars where I will share 10 easy ways to cut the cost of college. The two webinars that I had earlier in the summer were so successful – more than 900 people registered – that I’m rolling out...

August 17, 2015

Parents are often worried about how their assets will impact their chances for financial aid. Often their fears are overblown because financial aid formulas don’t penalize families for all their assets. But it is true that families are now experiencing a harder time protecting their assets from financial aid calculations because of a horribly flawed federal formula that needs to...

July 27, 2015

Today I’m rerunning a previous post that I’ve updated that I hope will reduce the stress level of many parents reading it. I initially wrote the post in reaction to the dilemma of a teenager with a 3.4 GPA who failed to capture a scholarship from any of the schools where he applied. This is hard to do when you...

July 16, 2015

While there are nearly 2,800 four-year colleges and universities in the United States, there are less than six dozen that claim that they meet 100% of the demonstrated financial need of all or most of their freshmen. The list below includes the names of those schools. I’ve also included institutions on this list that say that they meet at least...

May 15, 2015

I was amazed when I had roughly 950 people register to attend my two webinars this week. If you missed it, don’t worry, I am sharing a link to a recording of one of the webinars below. In the 70-minute webinar, I shared four of my favorite tools to cut the cost of college. Here are the tools that I...