The College Solutions Blog

August 25, 2009

Now here’s a shocker:  College admissions are getting even more competitive at Ivy League schools and other highly elite colleges. That’s the conclusion of a new study, Playing the Admissions Game: Student Reactions to Increasing College Competition, which was written by profs at Harvard and the University of Michigan. Reading the report would make many parents think that their children...

August 20, 2009

U.S. News & World Report released its 2010 college rankings in the wee hours this morning. For those who couldn’t wait to see the latest results, the magazine had posted a clock on its website that informed rankings enthusiasts of how many days, hours and minutes were left until the unveiling. In the university rankings competition, Harvard and Princeton tied...

August 4, 2009

How do you get into the Ivy League?  Be a legacy applicant. A friend of my blog, Lee Bierer, an education columnist for the Charlotte Observer and an independent college counselor, writes about Ivy League legacy chances in her latest column. Here’s where you can check out her take on Ivy League admissions for legacies. It’s clear that legacies enjoy...

July 25, 2009

I was surprised this week to see such heavy traffic on the college blog post that I wrote for CBSMoneyWatch.com on the the college degrees that generate that highest paying and lowest paying jobs for new college graduates. I guess it’s only natural that people are curious about what college degrees are the most lucrative. Engineering degrees dominate the list. New...

July 24, 2009

Will the financial crisis that colleges and universities are experiencing lead to cannabalism? I started wondering that when I heard that most of the department chairs at the University of California, San Diego, wrote a crazy letter recently to the president of the 10-campus UC system. Twenty one out of 28 department chairs suggested that Board of Regents consider killing...

July 21, 2009

What colleges and universities produce graduates who go on to earn the highest paychecks? It’s easy to answer that question if you consult the annual college salary survey that Pay Scale Inc., just released.  The list of schools that produce the graduates with the highest starting salaries is dominated by Ivy League institutions and other elite private schools. Big surprise....

July 13, 2009

If you have a child who is attending — or hopes to attend — a school in the University of California or California State University systems, these are scary times. Tuition at the 23 Cal State schools is expected to jump by 30% for the fall semester. Tuition at the University of California campuses will increase more than 9%. Students...

July 9, 2009

I had lunch this week with a professor of medicine at Stanford University. Mercifully, the conversation didn’t dwell on his specialty (urology), but the professor did feel the need to gripe about Stanford’s endowment, which has cratered. In an attempt to cheer him up, I mentioned that Stanford’s endowment problem looks like a mosquito bite compared to Harvard University’s endowment’s...

July 3, 2009

For those of you who can’t stop thinking about college — even during the Fourth of July weekend — I’m sharing with you the three posts that I wrote this week for my other college blog at CBSMoneyWatch. 1. Ten Hottest Careers for College Graduates Whether you’re a college student, a recent college grad or looking for a mid-career move,...

July 1, 2009

Are colleges going  to be the next big bubble that bursts? College prices continue to rise even as fewer and fewer parents are remotely able to cover the tab. Ever since George Washington University broke the $50,000-a-year barrier awhile ago, a growing number of elite schools now charge at least that much. Imagine that. Or rather, imagine paying that. I...