The College Solutions Blog

February 26, 2010

It is hard to qualify as an independent college student when seeking federal financial aid. I wrote about this big hurdle recently in this post: Getting Financial Aid as an Independent Student Yesterday about four dozen students posted passionate comments on my blog after Chegg, the giant online source for textbook rentals, carried a post that I wrote earlier this...

February 25, 2010

Beginning this week, it became much harder for college students to obtain a credit card. Many college kids who aren’t 21 yet must get a cosigner to obtain a student credit card. Frankly, I think that’s a good thing. A far better alternative to that first credit card in college is a debit card, which you can use just about...

January 18, 2010

It’s FAFSA season, which is why I’ve been bumping into parents who are grumbling about filing out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. It’s no wonder that parents grumble. The FAFSA isn’t a user friendly document and it’s easy to make mistake. Paula Bishop, a CPA friend of mine in Bellevue, WA., who fills out a lot of FAFSA...

January 15, 2010

I periodically get emails from teenagers, who are freaking out because their parents plan to contribute little if anything to their college education. Many of these kids are from affluent families, who could afford to kick in far more than they are planning. I don’t understand parents with good paying jobs who have no problem dumping the entire college expense...

January 11, 2010

Want to research colleges, but not sure where to start? It’s no surprise. When I just typed “college” into Google, I got 634 million college websites. To make your job easier, I’m sharing wonderful websites that can help you assemble a great list of colleges. If you want to research specific colleges, here are my Top 10  College Websites: College...

January 1, 2010

Happy New Year. I want to usher in 2010 by sharing 10 of my college blog posts from last year that I think will help you: Cut the cost of college. Find scholarships. Snag better financial aid packages. Locate great schools. Cutting the cost of college with better grades How to Negotiate for a Better Financial Aid Package Will Saving...

December 30, 2009

High schools students have started receiving college acceptance letters. A student writing on The New York Times’ college blog today suggests that teenagers shouldn’t brag when they start getting acceptance letters. Specifically, she believes that sharing college admission news on Facebook is in poor taste. The freshman at Northwestern argues that bragging about college acceptances will crush the spirits of...

December 22, 2009

If you can’t get enough news about college, The Campus Buzz should keep you satisfied. The website provides daily links to college-related blog posts and articles from across the country. This week, The College Buzz began carrying my own college blog posts. The Campus Buzz breaks news down into such categories as: Admissions, Money, Sports and Careers. The most popular...

December 16, 2009

My daughter Caitlin arrived home last night after studying abroad for the semester at the University of Barcelona. I am thrilled to have her home and I know it’s going to be very hard for me when she flies back to Spain at the end of January. As I discovered, a study abroad program can be a life-changing experience, but...

December 14, 2009

This is the time of year when high school teachers and counselors are flooded with requests to write college recommendation letters. Writing a college recommendation letter is a thankless job and I’m glad that I’ll never have to write one. But that doesn’t mean that I’m off the hook.  My role in the college recommendation process is to make sure...