The College Solutions Blog

March 9, 2010

This is my second post on deciphering college financial aid packages. Yesterday, I explained what sort of federal financial aid assistance you might find in your financial aid award. How To Decode a Financial Aid Letter Today, I’m going to cover the types of college grants that parents typically find in a financial aid letter. College Grants Many families believe...

March 8, 2010

It’s the college financial aid season. Some parents are still struggling to complete their financial aid application, while others are just beginning to receive their financial aid packages in the mail. Once you receive a financial aid award, the challenge is to decipher it. I’m going to help you master these financial aid letters by looking at the scholarships, grants...

March 2, 2010

Yesterday I wrote this post about liberal arts colleges: Which is Better: A Liberal Arts College or a University? At the time, I promised that I’d summarize a thoughtful op-ed piece that Sanford J. Ungar, the president of Goucher College, wrote for the special liberal arts report that ran in The Chronicle of Higher Education.  Unfortunately, only Chronicle subscribers can...

March 1, 2010

Which is better — a liberal arts college or a university? Last night I had a conversation with one of my nephews, who is torn between attending Truman State University, a wonderful public liberal arts college, or the University of Missouri in Columbia, which happens to be my alma mater. I’m proud of Tommy for being so thoughtful in trying...

February 28, 2010

Want to know what college students are reading? The Chronicle of Higher Education recently surveyed dozens of colleges and universities across the country to compile this top 10 college reading list. You won’t find any heavy literature on this list that includes three books dripping with zombie and vampire antics. I’d recommend reading No. 2 and No. 6. I’m on...

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 22, 2010

Where do college transfer students go after they earn their two-year associate’s degree? It’s been a tough question to answer when you consider that colleges and universities have traditionally been focused on high school seniors. The transfer student who graduates from a community college has legitimately felt overlooked. But that reality could be changing for a couple of reasons. Reason...

February 20, 2010

How do you ace a college interview? That’s what my son was wondering this weekend during his visit to Beloit College. About 130 high school seniors were on campus to compete for one of the school’s Presidential Scholarships, which are worth up to $68,000. Have fun and relax. That’s what everyone told the hopeful teenagers, who arrived from places as...

February 11, 2010

The typical student graduates from college with $23,200 in college loan debt. That figure, which comes from a recent study from the Project on Student Debt, only includes student loan debt. The $23,200 tab does not include money that parents borrowed through the federal PLUS loan program, a home equity line of credit or by dipping into retirement accounts. Is...

January 28, 2010

Do you want your teenager to ace the SAT test or improve on a previous SAT score? Or maybe you just want to know if you can survive bad SAT results? Or maybe you’re concerned about ACT test scores. Here’s good news: There are successful SAT and ACT test strategies that students can use to improve their scores or limit...