The College Solutions Blog

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

California universities

Cutting the Price of Out-of-State Universities

The price tag for attending an out-of-state public university can be quite high. It’s easy to understand why. States are interested in holding down the costs for their own residents. You might, however, be able to capture a higher-ed bargain if your state maintains a reciprocal agreement with its neighbors. States commonly maintain reciprocal agreements with public colleges and universities...

What's a Medium-Sized University?

What does it mean when a teenager says, “I want to go to a medium-sized university?” This week I’ve been discussing the issue of college size. Kids often base a great deal of their decision about college on its size and why that can be a problem. Here are my past two posts: My Pet Peeve: Picking Colleges By Size...

Research Universities: What You Need to Ask

In my last blog post I complained that too many high school students pick schools based primarily on size. And most of these students only want to look at schools that are large. Here is where I vented: My Pet Peeve: Picking Colleges by Size What’s more important, I argued, is a school’s mission. Today, I want to explore a...

My Pet Peeve: Picking Colleges By Size

Here’s one of my biggest pet peeves about how teenagers look for colleges: When teenagers put together a list of potential colleges, a campus size requirement is often way up at the top of their criteria. I want to go to a big school. I don’t want to go to small school. I’m interested in a medium-sized school. Hardly anyone...

Top 10 Best College Websites

What are the best college websites in the country? I tried to answer that question earlier this week when I wrote my first college blog post for US News & World Report. In the post, I nominated my own favorite college websites which can be invaluable for finding colleges, researching schools, pinpointing the generosity of individual colleges and learning about...

Top 50 Colleges That Produce Science PhD's

I got an email this week from a California mother who was happy that her child would be a attending St. Mary’s College of Maryland, a wonderful public liberal arts college, in the fall. Her husband, however, remained skeptical. He worried that his daughter would be jeopardizing her chances of going to graduate school if she went to an obscure...

UC Admissions: 7 Facts You Need to Know

The University of California’s admission practices generated a lot of angst and speculation in recent months, which led to a lot of curiosity about how the UC schools would handle the the latest crush of college applications with money tighter than ever. Now that the most recent UC admission season is history, here are 7 facts about who got in...

University of California: Bold Reform Missing So Far

Can the players in the University of California financial crisis agree on the sort of bold reforms needed to save it from its fiscal crisis? So far it doesn’t look like it. The University of California’s Commission on the Future released its first recommendations yesterday and one of the ex-officio commission members called them “admittedly bland.” Here are some of...

UC And Cal State Crisis Prompts Students to Look Elsewhere

The University of California and the Cal State universities are in serious financial trouble. This reality is finally resonating with teenagers, which is why more of them have applied outside the state instead of assuming that their Cal State or UC admission applications will be successful. With the UC And Cal State schools experiencing their biggest financial crisis ever, the...

January 14, 2010

Why Students at State Flagships Are Richer Than Most

Close to one out of every three students who attend a state flagship university is affluent. Specifically, 30% of students at flagship universities have parents with incomes in the top 20% of all American households. This is just one of the findings of a new study released this week by The Education Trust, which is a nonprofit that promotes education...