The College Solutions Blog

Valuable insights from Lynn O’Shaughnessy
a nationally recognized college expert.

Financial aid
February 28, 2011

How Generous Will Your Financial Aid Package Be?

If your family will need significant financial aid, you will increase your chances of receiving a lot of outside help if you get accepted to schools with Cadillac financial aid packages. These schools meet 100% of a student’s demonstrated financial need. Here’s an example: Let’s say that the financial aid methodology says your family can afford to pay $20,000 for...
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February 24, 2011

My New College Blog Look is Coming Soon

I hadn’t planned on videotaping a college blog post on Wednesday, but I had to get my picture taken at a professional photo studio this afternoon and since that required getting my hair done, putting on makeup and wearing a crisp white blouse, I thought why not. I went to all to all this trouble because I need a photo...
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February 18, 2011

Nation's Most Generous Colleges

Want to know what the nation’s most generous colleges are? If so, you’ll want to take a look at US News & World Report’s newly released list of schools. All the institutions on the list say that they meet 100% of their students’ demonstrated financial need. Not surprisingly, nearly all of the schools on this list are private. You can...
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February 16, 2011

Using the College Board to Research Schools

In my last post, I promised to share some resources that can help you evaluate the generosity of colleges and universities. If you missed it, here is that post: Financial Aid Nuts and Bolts Today I’m going to focus on the College Board’s website, which is a quick and easy resource for anyone interested in getting financial aid statistics on...
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February 15, 2011

Financial Aid Nuts and Bolts

This week I’m going to focus on some financial aid nuts and bolts. I want to address one of the questions that puzzle families the most:  Will a college award my child any money? Most parents have no clue how to answer this question. In fact, they usually don’t find out if a college is willing to kick in some...
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January 13, 2011

A Financial Aid Guru Answers Questions

Do you have financial aid questions? If you do, head over to the college blog at The New York Times. This week Mark Kantrowitz, a financial aid guru and the publisher of FinAid and FastWeb, is answering people’s questions about financial aid. So far, Kantrowitz  has answered three rounds of questions that you can read here: Part 1: Answers to...
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January 4, 2011

Dubious Financial Aid Advice: Hiding Home Equity

It’s the time of year when families of high school seniors start worrying about their home equity and financial aid. That’s why I decided to share an email that I got yesterday from a father who was interested in using the services of a CPA who says he could hide his home equity from financial aid formulas. Here is the...
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December 29, 2010

The Dirty Little Secrets of College Admissions

Today I want to share a piece, which originally ran in the Washington Post, that was written by Dean P. Skarlis, who  is president of The College Advisor of New York in Albany. I liked what Skarlis had to say so much about today’s college admission climate that I asked if I could share it with you. According to the...
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December 8, 2010

How Will My Home Equity Impact Financial Aid?

I’ve been getting emails about home equity and financial aid. Consequently, I decided to run a college blog post that I wrote last year on the topic: Before the housing bubble burst, plenty of parents worried that their home equity was going to scotch any chance of receiving college financial aid. Even in this environment, it’s still going to be...
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December 6, 2010

Getting Ready to Apply for Financial Aid

This is the time of year for parents of high school seniors to start thinking about applying for financial aid. Many families have heard of the FAFSA, but they don’t know what it was. Families need to complete the FAFSA to be eligible for state and federal grants. You also can’t obtain a federal student loan without filling out a...
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