I started off this series of How to Pay Less for College by discussing how the economics of supply and demand are the basis for cutting the cost of college. The next two posts on college rankings and geography were basically explaining two significant elements that affect how much families will pay for college. Today … Read more
As someone who recently bought a house in an economically booming market, I can tell you the same house costs a lot more near the city center than out in the suburbs. My husband and I looked at the trade-offs in terms of travel time and cost and for us, the suburbs made sense. We … Read more
You may have missed the excitement last May when Ronald Nelson announced he was going to attend the University of Alabama. This was a big deal not because Alabama had grabbed the top football recruit in the nation. It was a big deal because Nelson was actually accepted at all eight Ivy League schools, Stanford, … Read more
It’s that time of year again. Money Magazine recently released its listing of Best Colleges marking the beginning to fall college ranking season. The difference between the rankings this year is that students and families will have the option to pay for two of the rankings: Money and US News Best Colleges. The question is, … Read more
When considering early action vs. early decision, the major focus is on the fact that Early Decision (ED) is binding and Early Action (EA) is not. Binding means that if you are accepted, you agree to attend the college and withdraw or not apply to any other colleges. The reason to do so is that … Read more
3 Steps to Show You Why You Should Visit CollegeData.com: Select College Match Search from the College 411 Tab Menu. Scroll to the Financial Friendliness Section. Under Merit Aid, check Include Only Students Without Financial Need. Select 30% or higher Scroll down and click Find You now have a list of colleges where 30% or … Read more
I’ve created two lists of colleges to target for merit aid, one consisting of only 50-50 schools and a more general list taking into consideration test scores. Since all the colleges on the lists are private schools, I thought I would create a list best financial bets for 50-50 public universities. As I started looking … Read more
In Part Two of How to Find Merit Scholarships, I said that you need to look at the numbers on institutional aid and non-federal loans to get an idea of which schools are more likely to give out merit money. Now we’ll look at some examples to see how it works.
(Part 1 showed how to identify colleges that are likely sources of merit money.) Now that you know who has the money, you need to target those schools more likely to be giving it away. I do this by looking at information on institutional grants. This is money the school is giving the student and … Read more