The College Solutions Blog

September 12, 2010

Do you know what the term Expected Family Contribution or EFC means? Most of you probably don’t so I’m going to devote the next couple of blog posts to explaining what an Expected Family Contribution or EFC is and why it’s so incredibly important. If you file for financial aid, you will obtain your EFC, but I think you should...

September 10, 2010

The last two days I’ve been writing about applying early decision in the college admission process. Here are my two posts: Finding the Success Rate of Applying Early Decision Case Study: Applying Early Decision After reading my case study post, a mom posed with her own question about early decision. I decided to answer her here.  I promise this will...

September 5, 2010

How can you tell if a college or university will cut the price for your child? You can get an idea by looking at a school’s Common Data Set. If you don’t know what a Common Data Set is, you’ll want to read the posts that I wrote last week on this valuable document: Researching Colleges With the Common Data...

August 24, 2010

One of the problems with paying for college is that you don’t know how much it’s going to cost. Many students won’t receive their financial aid awards until the spring. And colleges expect families to start paying a short time later. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could know well ahead of time whether a school is going to be...

August 18, 2010

Wednesday was surreal. I got up before dawn and schlepped up to Ontario, CA, to attend an educational conference of a new organization called the National College Advocacy Group. I’ve listened in on some excellent webinars that the NCAG has hosted and this was the first time that I had an opportunity to meet college consultants in the organization. The...

June 30, 2010

Thought I’d share my response to a message that I received today from a mom, who was interested in finding private colleges that just use the Free Application for Federal Student or FAFSA. Here is Patrice’s question: Is there a way to determine which private colleges use the FAFSA method for financial aid?  I would like to focus in on...

June 10, 2010

With about 800 other people, I’ve been spending the last couple of days at the WACAC conference at the University of San Francisco. WACAC stands for the Western Association for College Admission Counseling. I gave a speech on shrinking the cost of college — one of my favorite topics — at the educational conference that attracts high school and independent...

May 30, 2010

Today I’m going to use New York University as a punching bag. I’m going to use NYU to illustrate how too many well-meaning families muddle through the college process and end up looking for the most highly ranked colleges without considering the price. Some of these families end up like Cortney Munna, a 26-year-old woman, who is facing nearly $100,000...

May 28, 2010

Today I want to share one of the many financial aid questions that I tackle in my new eBook, Shrinking the Cost of College: 152 Ways to Cut the Cost of a Bachelor’s Degree. This question happens to be one that I believe most families worry about: How do you know if you will qualify for financial aid? Here are...

April 5, 2010

Will your family qualify for college financial aid? I bet you that most parents think they won’t qualify for financial aid although most will. Here’s a shocker: even families that make $150,000 or even $200,000 may qualify for close to $25,000 in financial aid at very expensive schools. In the college admission process, financial aid misconceptions can easily punish families....