As the cost of college has sky-rocketed, students are accumulating more and more debt. You hear horror stories of student graduating with over $100,000, $150,000, or $200,000 in college debt just for an undergraduate education. And with tuition at some schools exceeding $60,000 a year, you have to wonder if that high student debt is simply the cost of attending college today?
I’ve mentioned before that not all 50-50 schools are affordable or generous with financial aid. Recently, I’ve started looking at Parent Loans for Undergraduate Students (PLUS) loans. As the name indicates, these loans are usually not taken out by the student but by parents on the student’s behalf. This means that they aren’t generally counted in the student debt statistics because it’s not the student’s debt but the parent’s. And the fact the parents can borrow up to the total cost of attendance each year can make them very dangerous loans.
There has been a lot of discussion of simplifying the FAFSA. The argument is that too many low-income students don’t apply because they are intimidated by the process, don’t understand that they can qualify for significant grant aid, or don’t have all of the required information. All of these are legitimate concerns that can be resolved without reducing the application to the size of a postcard.
One of the problems with college rankings is that much of the rankings are based on inputs. How good are the students who go to the school, how much money does the school spend on students and faculty. It’s kind of weird when you think about it. If we ranked hospitals by their inputs, the ones who admitted the healthiest patients would come out on top. Is it any surprise that the most highly ranked colleges are the ones that are the most selective?
Believe it or not, spending time on Facebook can be a good thing for parents involved in the college search and admission process. In fact, Facebook can be an efficient way of collecting information from a variety of sources to help figure out what you need to know about finding and paying for college. And I’m not talking about simply following colleges that might eventually make the final college list.
ShareTweetFlipEmailPin11 SharesCheck out the latest episode of the College Prep Podcast. I had a great time as a guest on the College Prep Podcast with Megan and Gretchen discussing what parents need to know about scholarships. We also covered baseball scholarships, graduation rates, and college rankings. Be sure to look at some of their previous … Read more
When I went to college, back in the 80’s, my Pell Grant covered my tuition. My parents were usually able to help pay for books and my student loans and part-time jobs paid for room and board. Thanks to financial aid, I was able to graduate from an honors program at my state flagship university in four years.
How many people can do that today?
ShareTweetFlipEmailPin379379 Shares See the Full Ride Scholarships spreadsheet created by Wendy Nelson of MyKidsCollegeChoice.com. Wendy has been working on this spreadsheet for years. It lists all US colleges that offer full-ride or full-tuition merit based scholarships. It contains 606 colleges in 49 states with over 1,200 scholarships. If you’re looking for full ride scholarships, this … Read more
Sometime ago, I listed 15 schools to avoid if you’re making a list of affordable colleges. After all, just as there are colleges that are known for their generosity, there are expensive colleges that you should avoid if you’re looking for significant help in cutting the cost of college. Since I’ve just recently updated the DIY College Rankings Spreadsheet, I’ve decided to revisit the list and see if the composition has changed much. And yes, there have been some changes.