The College Solutions Blog

July 1, 2009

Are colleges going  to be the next big bubble that bursts? College prices continue to rise even as fewer and fewer parents are remotely able to cover the tab. Ever since George Washington University broke the $50,000-a-year barrier awhile ago, a growing number of elite schools now charge at least that much. Imagine that. Or rather, imagine paying that. I...

June 29, 2009

If you are stressing about how to pay for your child’s bachelor’s degree, the news today from an association of private colleges and universities isn’t going to make you break out the champagne at dinner tonight. In a self-congratulatory press release, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, announced that the average tuition increase among private colleges and universities...

June 23, 2009

With state universities overflowing with students and applicants maybe this will be the wave of the future…. The president-elect of the Arizona Board of Regents, just released a report that urges the state’s three public universities — University of Arizona, Arizona State and Northern Arizona University — to launch programs that would allow its students to spend three years at...

June 18, 2009

I know a bunch of parents who expect their teenagers to graduate from college in four years. Many of them are dreaming. Forty percent of  students can’t even graduate from college in six years! Colleges and universities often blame students for this dismal record. But if it’s the kids who are slackers, how come schools with similar academic profiles experience...

June 15, 2009

With colleges struggling to provide adequate financial aid to their students, will affluent alumni step in to help? That apparently is what’s beginning to happen.  Last month three Harvard grads started a nonprofit loan program called UniThrive.  The goal is to play matchmaker to financially struggling students with alumni who are happy to make interest-free loans that come due five...

June 10, 2009

Are colleges favoring rich kids more than usual? A story in The New York Times suggests that private schools, which are hurting financially, are favoring affluent students whose parents can write fat tuition checks. The article focused on Reed College, which is an academically celebrated school that’s a magnet for iconoclastic students. With its endowment in the crapper and more...

June 9, 2009

With the admission season over for the newest crop of college freshmen, preliminary figures are now in that reveal what choices these teenagers made during these tough economic times. Here are some of the latest college admission findings from the National Association of College Admission Counseling: More students will be attending community colleges this fall. Sixty three percent of public...

May 29, 2009

How would you like to research a college in 10 minutes? Sound impossible? Not really. In my most recent college post for CBSMoneyWatch.com, I share three quick ways to research a school. I use these shortcuts all the time to help me size up a school pretty quickly....

May 28, 2009

Gov. Schwarzenegger has proposed putting the 50-year-old Cal Grant program on the chopping block. This would be a disaster for more than 200,000 students. According to The Institute for College Access & Success, these students would lose anywhere from $576 to $9,708 a head this fall. To save roughly $250 million, the governor would eliminate all Cal Grants, which students...

May 18, 2009

Today I’d like to share a 65-year-old story that illustrates the power of a college degree, as well as the kindness of two priests,  who recognized the intellectual potential of a poor Irish kid from St. Louis. It’s a sweet story about my father, Vincent Patrick O’Shaughnessy, who is dying of pancreatic cancer. As I sit at his bedside, this...