The College Solutions Blog

September 10, 2008

If the cost of milk had risen as fast as college tuition since 1980, you’d now be paying $15 for a gallon of milk. That was one of the depressing facts that a Congressional Committee groused about this week during a hearing that focused on why colleges are so ridiculously expensive. In noting that tuition has been increasing at a...

September 6, 2008

I read a story in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about the flood of students from the Northeast who have been heading west to attend Indiana University. Among Indiana’s newest crop of freshmen, there are roughly 260 kids from the New York City area alone. With the snootiest schools on the East Coast continuing to reject nearly all comers, more...

August 25, 2008

I don’t think I truly understood how financially devastating an unpaid student loan can be until I talked with an engineering graduate from the University of Southern California. I interviewed Alan Collinge for a story I was writing about student loans for Money Magazine last year. The young graduate snagged a position as an associate scientist at Cal Tech, but...

August 24, 2008

 It’s easy for parents to feel financially exploited when they send their kids off to college. The costs of a bachelor’s degree continues to soar far higher than the inflation rate. But what many families hadn’t bargained on is that schools are making packs with the devil, a/k/a credit card companies, to ensure that their kids graduate with plastic debt....

August 21, 2008

For lots of parents, plane tickets are the college deal breaker. Many parents balk at letting their kids attend any school that will require them to fly. I think this focus on airline costs can be unfortunate. Sure plane tickets are even more expensive than a year ago, but the important thing is looking at all your potential costs and...

June 16, 2008

If you want to attend a public university outside your state, the price tag can often be outrageously high. It’s easy to understand why. States are usually only 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...