The College Solutions Blog

July 18, 2016

If borrowing through federal student loans to pay for college isn’t enough, private college loans are an option. With the 2016-2017 college lending season just beginning, this is my third and final post about borrowing for college. If you missed my first two posts on college loans, here they are: The Best College Loan Two Ways Parents Can Borrow For...

June 24, 2016

As recently as the early 1990s, most students did not take out college loans. Today roughly two out of every three students borrow to pay for college due to the runaway cost of college. The typical student borrower is now leaving school with debt of roughly $35,000. Just the outstanding federal college loan debt now exceeds credit-card debt. Keep this...

May 22, 2016

Do you feel paralyzed by your college choices? And, even more importantly, are you stressed about the crazy prices that colleges are charging for their bachelor’s degrees? I can help. I held a webinar on Memorial Day where I shared a variety of strategies that showed families how they can cut their college costs and find promising colleges and universities....

April 5, 2016

I’ll be launching my latest online course – The College Cost Lab – in June. If you’d like to be among the first to know when I have more details,  just email me at Lynn@TheCollegeSolution.com. Lynn O’Shaughnessy In my last post, I wrote about smart teenagers who worked hard to get into elite schools only to have their dream schools...

February 22, 2016

If you have a child in college, do you qualify for a federal tax credit or tax deduction? These are valuable tax benefits that can help you defray the rising cost of a college degree and yet some parents have no idea that they exist or whether they would qualify. American Opportunity Tax Credit For eligible parents, the best federal...

February 4, 2016

Here is some good news: There are plenty of smart moves that you can make to reduce your college costs. This is an especially important year to know what those options are because 2016 is bringing some big changes to the admission scene. Learn the Strategies You Need to Make College Affordable You’ll discover what these changes are, along with...

January 31, 2016

Financial aid awards are often confusing. I believe many colleges and universities intentionally make financial aid awards hard to decipher to trick families into thinking that their institutions are being generous even when they aren’t. Obfuscation is an effective way to keep parents off balance. Since we are heading into the season when students will be receiving their financial aid...

January 10, 2016

This is the time of year when people are filing for financial aid. In this post, I’m sharing a few of the questions that I’ve gotten about applying for aid. What financial aid applications do my husband and I have to fill out if we want financial aid for our child? All colleges require parents to file the Free Application...

December 30, 2015

Happy New Year’s to you! I hope you had a lovely holiday. My husband and I were fortunate to be able to spend this time with our daughter Caitlin and our son Ben over the break. The photo you see is of our family earlier this week at the lighthouse at the Point Reyes National Seashore, which is the windiest...

December 14, 2015

The FAFSA season begins January 1. That’s the date when families can begin filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid for the 2016-2017 school year. Parents need to complete the FAFSA or their children won’t be eligible for federal or state aid. In addition, most colleges use the FAFSA to determine who will qualify for their own institutional...