The College Solutions Blog

February 7, 2012

I received an email over the weekend from a mom who is stressing about whether her accomplished daughter would be better off attending a liberal arts college or a journalism school. I happen to be a graduate of the the nation’s oldest journalism school at the University of Missouri (see photo) and I’ll share some thoughts after the mom’s note....

February 3, 2012

Yesterday, in writing about the latest college rankings scandal on my college blog, I mentioned that the institutional pursuit of college rankings glory, has hurt millions of students in ways they can’t even imagine. Today I want to elaborate on that observation. If you missed yesterday’s post, here it is: Colleges and Universities That Cheat Millions of students are adversely...

January 26, 2012

What schools produce the most undergraduates who end up heading off to graduate school? The subject came up yesterday because a friend of mine was telling me about a brilliant teenager who wants to eventually get a PhD in physics. The student lives in California, but the mom wants him to apply to schools in the Midwest where she grew...

January 17, 2012

Time is money and that is especially true when it comes to college. College students usually don’t graduate in four years and that comes as a shock to most parents. Yesterday I devoted my college blog to explaining how families can find the four-year grad rates of any schools — and just as importantly — compare any institution’s grad rate...

January 16, 2012

I met a teenage girl during the fall who was excited about applying to Hampshire College. She had visited the campus in Amherst, MA, had met professors and talked with students. She was smitten. She and her mother felt good that they had done their due diligence on the college, but then I asked them a question that drew a...

January 5, 2012

There are a lot of expensive colleges and universities in this country, but as I’ve mentioned many times before on my college blog, the sticker price is meaningless. The only figure that matters is the college’s net price. This is the price you get after any grants (free money) that you receive from a school are subtracted from the sticker...

January 4, 2012

I’ve been writing posts for my college blog recently about the W-R-O-N-G way to assemble a college list. If you missed them, here are my the posts: Another Dreadful College List Applying to the Wrong Universities Assembling a solid list of schools to apply to is critically important, but I’d argue that the vast majority of teenagers do a lousy...

December 13, 2011

In my last post, I promised to share some resources that can help you evaluate the generosity of colleges and universities. If you missed it, here is that post: Sniffing Out Financial Aid Awards Today I’m going to focus on the College Board’s website, which is a quick and easy resource for anyone interested in getting financial aid statistics on...

December 12, 2011

This week I’m going to focus on some financial aid nuts and bolts. I want to address one of the questions that puzzle families the most:  Will a college award my child any money? Most parents have no clue how to answer this question. In fact, they usually don’t find out if a college is willing to kick in some...

October 17, 2011

Should colleges be evaluated more like baseball players? I’m raising this question today because the St. Louis Cardinals are going to the World Series! I had the good fortune of growing up in the 1960s in St. Louis when the Cardinals made it to the World Series three times. Among my fondest childhood memories was being able to watch the...