The College Solutions Blog

January 30, 2012

I wrote a post for my CBS MoneyWatch college blog on Friday that blew out Antioch College’s server. How did I do that? Actually, it wasn’t me. I was just the messenger for the liberal arts college that had a dramatic announcement to make. For the next three years, Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH, is offering all its incoming...

January 6, 2012

Winning private college scholarships can certainly help make college more affordable, but you need to know the realities of competing for college cash. My pet peeve about private scholarships is that people assume that they are the biggest source of college cash when they are really the smallest. Before you start hunting for private college scholarships, here are eight facts...

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...

February 23, 2010

I heard today from a dad named John, who got Rutgers to quadruple the academic scholarship that it is offering his daughter. After hearing from John, Rutgers scotched the original $10,000 scholarship and replaced it with a $40,000 college scholarship instead. How did he do it? It was simple. On February 17, John sent an email to Rutger’s undergraduate admissions...

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...

January 4, 2010

I wanted to share with you an email that I received last night from a high school freshman, who spent her Christmas break stressing out: Dear Lynn, I am a freshman in high school, and I am enrolled in all advanced placement classes. For the first marking period, I received all B’s and one A+. My second marking period grades...

July 17, 2009

I wanted to share with you three college posts that I wrote this week for my other college blog at CBSMoneyWatch. Hope you enjoy them! Is Your College Professor Autistic? It never occurred to me that a college professor could be autistic. But an economist at George Mason University wrote a convincing commentary in The Chronicle of Higher Education that...

March 21, 2009

Community college scholarships are going begging. That’s what the faculty senate president at a community college in San Diego told me this morning when I bumped into him at the dog park. He wasn’t talking about federal Pell Grants or other state or federal aid. He was referring to community college scholarship that benefactors have started at particular schools. Sometimes...