The College Solutions Blog

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

Campus life
December 9, 2009

One out Five College Coeds Is Sexually Assaulted

It’s all too common for college coeds to be raped or to be the victims of an attempted rape. According to a federal study, one out of five women are sexually assaulted in college. What’s equally alarming is about 95% of these women remain silent. The Center for Public Integrity has just released a new study based on a nine-month...
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December 3, 2009

Selling Your College Textbooks to Amazon

Do you have some used college textbooks you’d like to get rid of? You might want to check with Amazon. The online bookseller rolled out a new program today to entice college students to trade in their textbooks. The trade-in program is simple. You can check to see if Amazon will buy your used textbook and what price it is...
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November 27, 2009

Higher-Ed Thanksgiving Story

I was too busy to post on my college blog yesterday because I was struggling with a semi-broken oven as I tried to cook a 22-pound turkey, a pumpkin praline pie (my husband’s favorite), blueberry pie (my son’s favorite) and lots more with low heat. An hour after I put the turkey in the oven it was still pinkish. Oh...
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November 23, 2009

Seven Job Tips for College Students

The job news is grim for soon-to-be graduating college students. Employers, according to The National Association of Colleges and Employers are expected to hire 7% fewer graduates of the Class of 2010 than they did with the last batch. With this shrunken pool of college graduate jobs, how can soon-to-be graduates get ahead in this jobless recovery? Here are seven...
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November 17, 2009

Binge Drinking: Students in Coed Dorms Drink More

Here’s something else for parents of college students to worry about:  students living in coed college dorms end up abusing alcohol more. Students living in a coed college dorm are more likely to drink alcohol and they are roughly 2 1/2 times more likely to drink excessively. In a study conducted by the Journal of American College Health, 41.5% of...
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November 16, 2009

Entrepreneurs: Starting a Business in College

You can’t hide in college forever. I’m sure that’s what millions of college students are thinking as they contemplate eventually finding a job during the worst job market since the Great Depression. One way to prepare for the inevitable leap into the dreary job market is to become entrepreneurial. Students can launch their own business while they are still at...
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October 28, 2009

College Students: Drop That Twinkie

Debt isn’t the only thing that weighs down students when they attend college. They also get fatter. Undergrads who head off to college are warned about the “freshmen 15.” That’s allegedly the number of pounds freshmen gain when they arrive at college. Some nutritionists and physicians, however, believe that the freshman 15 is now more like the freshman 30. A...
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October 27, 2009

Cut College Costs: Be a Resident Assistant

Want to lower the cost of college? How does eliminating all your child’s room and board costs sound? It’s possible if your child becomes a resident assistant. A resident assistant serves as a surrogate mother hen to the kids in the dorms. RAs help settle disputes and make sure kids aren’t doing dumb things like hauling beer kegs into their...
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October 26, 2009

America's Best College Dorms

When I visited college campuses with both my teenagers, the college dorms were often a big selling point. It seems the tour guides were always raving about the newest dorms on campus and clearly universities are using their new dorms as a recruiting tool. While there are still plenty of dorm rooms on college campuses that look like cinderblock cells,...
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August 18, 2009

Dance with No Pants and Other College Slang

College students, as I’ve learned through my daughter, share their own slang. If you’re curious about the latest college speak, you may want to pick up a copy of U.C.L.A. Slang 6. Every four years, UCLA’s linguistics department updates its dictionary of college slang  and the newest edition has just been released. Here are a few college slang examples of...
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