The College Solutions Blog

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

Money

8 Ways to Cut College Costs

College costs sure are daunting, but the sticker prices are meaningless. I recently wrote about how my son and the other two boys in his high school carpool shrank their college costs dramatically. The tuition for the three boys for the coming year totaled a whopping $136,500, but they received grants from their respective liberal arts colleges for the 2010-11...

Get The College Solution for Free

I just learned from my publisher that the Kindle edition of my book, The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price, will be free next week. That’s right, The College Solution on the Kindle will be FREE from Aug. 9 to Aug. 14. Normally the Kindle version is $9.99. Why is the...

Cutting the Price of Out-of-State Universities

The price tag for attending an out-of-state public university can be quite high. It’s easy to understand why. States are interested in holding down the costs for their own residents. You might, however, be able to capture a higher-ed bargain if your state maintains a reciprocal agreement with its neighbors. States commonly maintain reciprocal agreements with public colleges and universities...

Calculating the Real Cost of College

As some of you know, I am now writing a weekly college blog for US News & World Report. I ain’t gonna lie, it gets tiring writing original material all the time. Consequently, today, I’m going to share one of the recent posts that I wrote for US News. Here it is…… It’s a sad reality that most families with...

Borrowing for College With a Home Equity Loan

We’re approaching the peak of the student loan season. Parents and students are struggling with the prospects of paying for all their college costs. The best loan for students is the federal Direct Stafford Loan. Earlier this month, I wrote a post that provides lots of links to my past advice on student loans, as well as education loans for...

A Cheat Sheet for Repaying Student Loans

If you have questions about repaying a student loan, Mark Kantrowitz, the financial aid wizard over at Fastweb, the scholarship search engine, has written a very handy guide on the topic. His student-loan repayment cheat sheet is hot off the press and full of invaluable information. Here are some of the topics that Repaying Student Loans Quick Reference Guide covers:...

What is the Best Student Loan? Here's the Answer

What is the best student loan? I got an email this weekend from a dad who was hoping to get the answer to that question. His son needed to borrow for the last year of college. That was an easy question to answer. The best education loan available is the federal Stafford loan. There are two types of Stafford loans: ...

The True Cost of College

Before I got sucked into writing about colleges — for three college blogs no less! — I spent most of my time in front of my Mac writing personal finance stories. (This blog, by the way, started out as a personal finance blog more than three years ago.) Since the mid 1990s, I’ve written countless investing stories for such national...

Looking for Private Colleges That Use the FAFSA

Thought I’d share my response to a message that I received today from a mom, who was interested in finding private colleges that just use the Free Application for Federal Student or FAFSA. Here is Patrice’s question: Is there a way to determine which private colleges use the FAFSA method for financial aid? I would like to focus in on...

New College Cost Calculators: What You Need to Know

Most parents aren’t going to pay full price for college. College costs aren’t nearly as high as the official sticker prices. According to the College Board, two-thirds of families will capture a price discount on college costs. Too bad parents and teenagers don’t know this. If they did, it would certainly expand the college choices of millions of students. And...