Anyone who has been paying attention to college costs and financial aid has probably heard that there really isn’t one set sticker price for college. It’s a lot like airline tickets. People sitting next to each other on a flight probably paid very different amounts for their tickets depending on when they bought them. Like airline tickets, very few families actually pay the sticker price for college.
When looking for a college, it’s a good idea to keep geography in mind. Apparently most families do but not in ways that will improve financial aid or enhance the student’s college education. According to The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2016, 53% of freshman attend college within 100 miles of home. Only 17.3% enroll at a college more than 500 miles from home.
Think because you’re a miserable test taker, you don’t have a chance at merit aid? Maybe not. If you’re willing to step away from the limelight of prestige and top 50 college rankings, you can find some excellent opportunities among the growing number of test optional colleges. With just a little digging into the data, I came up with 36 possible test optional colleges for merit aid.
If you’re trying to figure out how to pay for college, if you’re looking for the best merit scholarship opportunities, you need to understand the basics of supply and demand in higher education. Why? Because we charge students to attend college. Granted, the way we pay for higher education is a complicated mixture of public finance and individual contributions but it’s still part of the market place. There’s a reason why colleges bury high school students in an avalanche of slick brochures and social media invitations–colleges are competing for students willing to pay to attend their version of the “collegiate experience.”
Anyone who spends time on this blog should realize that very few people pay the actual published price for college. This makes it difficult to judge the significance of the rising prices of college tuition. A lot of schools, especially public institutions, justify increasing tuition by pointing out that a certain percentage of the increase will go to financial aid.
ShareTweetFlipEmailPin77 Shares It’s that time of year again when junior PSAT test takes start to wonder if they scored high enough to make their state’s cut-off score to qualify as a National Merit Semi-Finalist. If you have visions of National Merit Scholar qualifying scores dancing in your head, get the list of Colleges Sponsoring National … Read more
When looking at this recruiting timeline, keep in mind this is geared for baseball players. In many ways, your senior high school baseball season will not count. The majority of coaches (not all) will have already filled their recruit classes for the following year (your college freshman year). Depending on the division and conference (think “power 5”) they may have already filled the slots for the year after that (your college sophomore year) and only have a few left for the following year. Yes, college baseball coaches are taking verbal commitments from high school sophomores.
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?
