Back in 1985, a group of educators founded fairtest.org, an organization dedicated to the idea that standardized tests like the SAT and ACT should no longer be used to evaluate college applicants. In the years since, the “test optional” movement has picked up speed. On the fairtest.org website today, you can find a list of more than 1,000 colleges and universities that do not require either the SAT or the ACT. Read more
The 2018 Money Magazine college rankings have just been published. That means that parents and kids have a new, statistics-based list of college ratings that they can consult before picking colleges that are application-worthy. (We thought that the US News rankings would fill the demand for ratings, but the appetite for them is apparently great.) Read more
Your son or daughter gets an email that says, “Save Big Dollars on Your Textbooks!” It comes from a company that purports to be a bookseller. So your kid clicks through, orders textbooks, and feels good about saving money. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty, according to a number of articles that have recently appeared on sites like Hiya.com, and even in newspapers like The Asbury Park Press. Read more
September is a month when college students typically need an extra infusion of money. Fortunately, it is also a month when new opportunities for student employment arise.
Here are some proven strategies that can help college students start the new school year with new jobs. Read more
Are you a parent, a student, or a college admissions counselor who needs to know more about paying for college?
In addition to books and magazine articles that offer insights, there are also a number of blogs that offer advice. Here is a list of some we found that offer good information. Read more
Associate’s degrees could represent one of the most significant educational bargains today. Some students are saving money by earning these degrees at community colleges, then transferring to state schools and private universities. The result is a big reduction in educational costs. Still other students are earning associate’s degrees, then going on to matriculate in colleges after they have worked for a few years and saved enough money to pay for tuition and other costs. And then there are students who simply earn associate’s degrees, start working, and never feel the need to return to college. Read more
Most colleges need money. Many foundations and companies like to give large sums of money to them. It’s a win-win situation. But what happens to a college if it accepts large donations from a think tank or other organization that has a political or other agenda that it wants to advance? If that happens, will that college lose its integrity and academic neutrality? Read more
To save on college costs, about 100,000 American students every year follow a simple strategy . . .
This strategy is appealing for some very sound reasons: Read more
With college costs soaring to new heights, completing college in three years is becoming more attractive. It’s basic math. If you finish an undergraduate degree in three years instead of four, you will save something on the order of one-quarter of your college expenses. Read more
We watched a segment on the evening news last week that showed a group of students who were gathered in their high school’s college counseling office, happily logging in and discovering all the wonderful schools where they had just been accepted.
There were whoops and shouts. They all looked happy, except for two students in the back of the room, away from the computer. They looked glum. Could it just be that they, unlike the cheering students, had just gotten bad news about their college prospects? It could be. One thing for sure was that the news segment wasn’t focusing on students who had been rejected. Read more