The College Solutions Blog

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

Evaluating Schools

Is It Okay to Hide Home Equity?

If you missed it, on Monday I wrote a post for my college blog on the dramatic impact that home equity can have on a family’s financial aid package. Here is the link: Will Your Home Equity Hurt Financial Aid Chances: A Case Study If you read the post, you’ll see that even a huge amount of home equity (in...

College + Degree = Joke?

With the cost of college so daunting, families are understandably more interested than ever in finding schools where their children can grow academically and secure good jobs when they graduate. That’s not an unreasonable request and yet quite a bit of evidence exists that millions of students have not been learning much in college. In fact, the diplomas that many...

Three Degrees of College Prestige

Today I am happy to share with you a thoughtful post that David Montesano, one of my favorite independent college college consultants, wrote about college rankings. Montesano is the owner of College Match Educational Consultants, which has offices in the San Francisco Bay area, Seattle and elsewhere. Three Degrees of College Prestige In an era where a sour economy is...

Tuition Hogs: The Priciest Schools in America

This week the U.S. Department of Education released its second annual lists of college tuition hogs. For the record, the federal bureaucrats don’t call them them porkers. Congress mandated that the government compile and release annual lists of the five percent of colleges and universities that charge the highest and lowest tuition. The government assembles the lists based on each...

Tuition Hogs: The Priciest Schools in America

This week the U.S. Department of Education released its second annual lists of college tuition hogs. For the record, the federal bureaucrats don’t call them them porkers. Congress mandated that the government compile and release annual lists of the five percent of colleges and universities that charge the highest and lowest tuition. The government assembles the lists based on each...

Comparing the Right Graduation Rates

When I give talks about finding and affording colleges in California, the audiences often gasp when I share grad rates for some extremely popular state schools. Here are some of the four-year grad rates that shock parents: San Jose State University 7.9% Cal State University-Long Beach 12.3% San Francisco State University 14. 2% Cal State University-Fullerton 16.5% Low Grad Rates...

Good Luck Graduating in Four Years!

Here is a scary college statistic: According to the federal government, only 36.4% of full-time students graduate from college in four years. Here is a closer look at the latest available stats: Graduating in Four Years Public universities can often be less expensive than private institutions for students who can graduate on time, but most students attending public institutions stay...

Do-It-Yourself College Rankings, Part II

If you didn’t catch yesterday’s college blog post, I’d urge you to check it out: Do-It-Yourself College Rankings I wrote about Michelle Kretzschmar, who created an impressive spreadsheet system to help families assemble a list of promising colleges based on their own priorities. In today’s post I’m sharing some of the steps that Michelle, the founder of DIYCollegeRankings.com, and her...

Do-It-Yourself College Rankings

It’s not often that I stumble across a college blog that I can get really excited about. Today I am happy to share a great resource that stands out from the crowd. I urge everyone to check out DIYCollegeRankings. DIYCollegeRankings (the DIY stands for Do It Yourself), which was created by Michelle Kretzschmar, a former data analyst and the mom...

Answering Your College Questions

Last week people posted questions on The College Solution’s Facebook page that I promised to answer after visiting a regional college conference in Reno. I started chipping away at the questions last week with these two posts: Answering Your SAT and ACT Questions The Realities of Merit Scholarship Facebook Questions Today I am answering questions about admission requirements, SAT/ACT practices...