The College Solutions Blog

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

Money

College Choices for Teens of Divorce

During my last two college blog posts, I’ve examined a couple of college case studies. In yesterday’s post, I looked at some possible colleges choices for Lucienne, a brilliant student out here on the West Coast: College Case Study: Great Colleges for a Smart Girl In the first post, I introduced John, who aced his SAT test, but only recently...

College Case Study: Great Colleges for a Smart Girl

In my last post, I shared two case studies of high school seniors who are wondering what colleges they should apply to in a few months. Here’s my previous post: 2 College Case Studies: Where Should These Teens Go to College? Today, I want to share some of the issues that Lucienne and her parents face. I don’t think any...

2 College Case Studies: Where Should These Teens Go to College?

Over the past two years, I’ve written scores of posts on this college blog about how to evaluate schools. Just the other day, I wrote a piece about my 10 favorite college websites. It can be challenging for families, however, to know how to use these tools to find the right colleges at the right price. Consequently, I wanted to...

Top 10 Best College Websites

What are the best college websites in the country? I tried to answer that question earlier this week when I wrote my first college blog post for US News & World Report. In the post, I nominated my own favorite college websites which can be invaluable for finding colleges, researching schools, pinpointing the generosity of individual colleges and learning about...

10 Great Ways to Cut College Costs

How do you cut the cost of college? Recently I shared 10 tips on the first session of #CollegeChat, which is a live monthly conversation for teens, college students and parents on Twitter. I pulled all the tips from my new eBook, Shrinking the Cost of College: 152 Ways to Cut the Price of a Bachelor’s Degree. Here are the...

How to Win a Sports Scholarship

Last month I wrote three college blog posts about the hazards of chasing sports scholarships. I promise I’m not going to rehash that, but I did want to share a post that I wrote for CBSMoneyWatch on how teenagers can increase your chances of a sports scholarship. At a college admission conference that I attended last week in San Francisco,...

Censoring Financial Aid Information

With about 800 other people, I’ve been spending the last couple of days at the WACAC conference at the University of San Francisco. WACAC stands for the Western Association for College Admission Counseling. I gave a speech on shrinking the cost of college — one of my favorite topics — at the educational conference that attracts high school and independent...

Putting Your College Debt On Hold

I got an email this week from Sharon, a mom who is distraught about her son’s college debt. She was hoping that I had an idea about how he can tackle this debt when he is only working part-time. I did have a suggestion on how the young college grad can reduce his student debt burden. I thought it would...

529 Plans: Investing at the Last Minute

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...

A Law Professor's Take on College Admissions

Does anybody else use Google Alert to see what other people are saying about you? I confess I do. I have Google alert me if someone mentions me or my college blogs on the Internet. And that’s how I stumbled across a post written by Tom Smith, a law professor, at a blog called, The Right Coast: Thoughts from San...