The College Solutions Blog

January 13, 2011

Do you have financial aid questions? If you do, head over to the college blog at The New York Times. This week Mark Kantrowitz, a financial aid guru and the publisher of FinAid and FastWeb, is answering people’s questions about financial aid. So far, Kantrowitz  has answered three rounds of questions that you can read here: Part 1: Answers to...

November 10, 2010

Is your family going to qualify for financial aid? Many families that I talk to assume that they won’t qualify for financial aid. Many believe that the money that they’ve stashed in their college savings accounts will kill their chances. Stressed Out Dads It’s been my experience that it’s usually dads who get stressed out about how colleges will treat...

October 4, 2010

How do you maximize potential financial aid awards? Today I want to share with you a wonderful resource – TuitionCoach — that may be able to help you do just that. Until last week, you had to pay to use TuitionCoach, but not anymore. The site contains college funding videos, a library of financial aid resources and software that can...

June 6, 2010

Are 529 plans only for younger children? The answer is absolutely not! I think a lot of parents with college-bound teenagers, however, assume that their days of contributing to a 529 plan is over. By this time, parents are beginning to drain their 529 plan. You could save a bundle in taxes, however, if you continue to contribute to a...

May 21, 2010

Are you worried about how you’re going to pay for college? I thought so, which is why I wrote an eBook that’s packed with ways to cut college costs. The title of my new eBook is Shrinking the Cost of College: 152 Ways to Cut the Cost of a Bachelor’s Degree. Click the book icon on the right to learn...

April 20, 2010

I banged out an email full of financial advice this week to a soon-to-be college graduate, who luckily has already lined up a job. She wanted to know if she should start saving for retirement as soon as she graduates. Here’s what I told her: Absolutely! I was thrilled that this young woman was already thinking about retirement. As a...

March 15, 2010

Ever hear about college taxes? No this isn’t a joke. If you aren’t careful you could owe college taxes on your 529 plan. Nobody tells you that you could ultimately owe taxes on a 529 college plan, but plenty of people discover this nightmare during tax season. Before I get to the bad news, let me review why parents gravitate...

February 16, 2010

There’s been tons of media attention over the years on the best places to save for college. The 529 savings plan has grabbed the most attention. I’ve used 529 plans for both of my kids through Vanguard, but today, I want to suggest another potential way to save for college:  a Roth IRA for your child. A Roth IRA won’t...

January 27, 2010

I want to follow up on yesterday’s post that explained why saving for college almost never hurts a family’s chances for student aid. Yesterday I shared a chart that illustrates how colleges allow families to shelter a large chunk of their savings from FAFSA financial aid calculations. You can see the FAFSA chart by clicking on this link: 2 Biggest...

November 15, 2009

Here are links to my college blog posts for CBSMoneyWatch for the past week: The Horrors of Defaulting on a Student Loan In some respects, the college admission process can be fun. It’s fun to visit colleges and it’s fun to  receive acceptance letters in the mail. What’s not fun is paying for college. Sometimes that turns into a nightmare...