Zillow, where you can find out how much your house is worth, has released a survey that suggests that Americans only spend five hours researching mortgages.
That’s the same amount of time that Americans spend planning vacations. It’s significantly less time than the 10 hours that consumers devote to buying a car, which is obviously a much smaller purchase.
That made me wonder how many hours parents and teens spend researching colleges?
I’m not talking about all the days, months and even years that families STRESS about college. I’m curious about how many hours families spend researching schools.
I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around how many hours that I’ve spent! I visited 21 colleges with my daughter over a one-year period and I think I saw 14 colleges with my son Ben. Visiting colleges, however, is just one part of the research. I happen to think it’s the funnest part.
I’d love to hear what people think is an appropriate amount of time to research colleges. Any thoughts?
If you’re wondering how you should be researching schools, here are a few of my past college blog posts that could help:
10 College Websites For Finding Great Schools
Finding a Great College in Your Region
Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution, an Amazon best seller, and she also writes for CBSMoneyWatch. Follow her on Twitter.