The College Solutions Blog

September 14, 2015

My main goal of this lesson is to help you demystify college pricing. The best way to do that is to read this lesson along with my resource guide, The Ultimate College List Builder. This guide will provide you with an eye-opening overview (okay that’s my opinion) of how colleges, and in particular private institutions, price themselves. This lesson will...

September 12, 2015

Most students, who attend four-year institutions, end up at state colleges and universities so it’s important to understand how you can reduce the costs at these schools. Here is an overview of what you need to know: 1. Understand what your state programs offer. If you haven’t already read it, please check out the lesson (State College Aid) that is...

October 14, 2014

In this video, I am interviewing Paula Bishop, a CPA from Bellevue, WA, who has helped countless families over the years with financial aid questions, as well as with filling out the financial aid forms. I spoke to Paula at a college conference in Indianapolis about how home equity impacts financial aid. Owning a primary home, regardless of how much...

October 13, 2014

 Another way to research a college or a university is to obtain its Common Data Set. The Common Data Set is a document that was created as a way for schools to address the voracious appetites for higher-ed data from collegiate publishers like US News & World Report and the College Board. Rather than answer every publisher’s annual questions on...

October 13, 2014

What happens when the financial aid or merit aid package that a student receives from a school is inadequate? Is it possible to extract more money from a college? This is a common question that parents ask who are disappointed by awards their children have received. One parent, for instance, told me that she was discouraged when her daughter received...

October 13, 2014

If you have a child in college, will 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. Edvisor Network explains these tax benefits in plain English and...

October 13, 2014

When money is an issue, students need to be strategic about where they apply to college. I am sharing a story of a young man from Los Angeles that illustrates why the common practice of applying to a bunch of schools without considering whether aid is a realistic option is a dangerous strategy. The teenager, who wants to major in...

October 13, 2014

For many students the biggest source of money will be from the colleges themselves. That’s why it’s important for you to understand what would motivate any school to give your child one of its awards. Schools don’t dispense grants and scholarships to be nice. They give awards because they expect to get something valuable from a student in return. To...

October 13, 2014

If your child is a “B” student, you may have more options than you might assume. Don’t believe me? Here is a story of a young woman – I’ll call her Katie – whose mom is a friend of mine. Katie attended a private high school in California where she earned a 3.0 GPA. She applied to these four private...

October 13, 2014

The Guardian newspaper in London once published an article that suggested that children of upper-middle-class families are having to attend public universities because they are too affluent to receive need-based aid and they aren’t getting scholarship from private institutions. What the reporter, who happens to be the wife of Bill Keller, the former executive editor of The New York Times, didn’t seem to realize...