The College Solutions Blog

September 28, 2010

When children head off to college how much contact should parents have with them? This question has generated a lot of angst over the years and maybe it’s because nobody knows how much communication is appropriate. Is one call a week enough? How about a dozen? Do text messages and E-mails count? And what about Skype, instant messaging, Google Voice...

September 16, 2010

When I visit college campuses, I can’t help but notice that an alarming number of students are overweight. In fact, I just read a story in The Chronicle of Higher Education, that stated that a third of college students are overweight. If your jeans don’t fit at age 20, I hate think how much your waist band will stretch by...

September 15, 2010

I knew I was in a foreign country today when I looked outside my hotel window and saw a billboard that contained this message: Be health conscience. Eat a coconut every day. I’m in Jamaica, where I’ll be the featured (and apparently heavily promoted) speaker at a first annual college conference in Kingston. What could I possibly tell these Jamaican...

August 17, 2010

It’s back-to-school season, which means college students are on the prowl for cheap textbooks. The average college student spends more than $1,100 a year on college textbooks. With textbook prices rising twice as fast as inflation during the past 20 years, I’d sure be looking for cheap textbooks if I was a student. There are more options than ever to...

August 15, 2010

Saturday evening I said goodbye to my son Ben, who officially started his four years at Beloit College. I am grateful that the send-off was better than the one that Scott Bierman, the president of Beloit College, experienced years ago when he dropped his second daughter off at Kenyon College. As the drop-off day wore on, Bierman told a gathering...

August 11, 2010

I’m getting up before dawn tomorrow. My son Ben and I are catching a 6:45 a.m. flight to Chicago. Ben will be starting college on Saturday and he’s nervous. But hey, aren’t all college freshmen nervous? Coincidentally, I found a great blog post today, written by two college professors, who shared ways that college freshmen can increase their confidence. Here...

August 4, 2010

How do you outfit a dorm in advance when you can’t load the car with stuff and head off to college? That’s the dilemma that a lot of college students  face if they are attending school far from their homes — my son included. His school is 2,050 miles  from our house in San Diego and airline baggage rules are...

July 22, 2010

In my last college blog post for CBSMoneyWatch.com, I wrote about a study that explored how homeschoolers do in college. Here is the link: Can Homeschoolers Do Well in College? I was surprised at the passionate responses that the homeschooler piece triggered. The homeschool supporters seemed especially incensed that I brought up what I perceive as a common belief about...

July 15, 2010

If you’re going to be living in an empty nest soon, this column is for you. I’ll officially be an empty nester next month when my son heads off the college. My daughter is already back in college. I wanted to share a column, written by Lee Bierer, an independent college counselor and a syndicated columnist, about facing the prospects...

May 14, 2010

What are the most expensive textbooks in America? This week I provided the answer. At my other college blog over at CBSMoneyWatch, I wrote a post that contained the names of the 12 most expensive college textbooks. The most expensive one — Acta  Philosophorum The First Journal of Philosophy  – cost $1,450 retail. The next priciest textbook is Encyclopedia of...