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Take First Step to Apply for College Financial Aid
Tweet Share on Facebook November 29, 2011 Comment (3)If your child will be heading to college next fall, now is the time to prepare for applying for financial aid.
Your first step is to know what type of financial aid applications you will have to complete.
Students won't be eligible for financial aid unless they complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA. Filling out the FAFSA is a must for anyone who hopes to receive financial help from federal or state programs, as well as need-based aid from colleges themselves.
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Good Luck Finding a Net Price Calculator
Tweet Share on Facebook November 15, 2011 Comment (1)Can families easily find the new net price calculators that colleges and universities are now required to post on their websites?
I suspected that the answer was no, but I wanted to see for myself.
For those of you who aren't familiar with college net price calculators, which have been mandated by the federal government, here are two recent posts that will bring you up to speed:
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Some Universities Could Be Hurt By Net Price Calculators
Tweet Share on Facebook November 1, 2011 Comment (1)It's been a long time coming, but the Congressional mandate that colleges and universities make their pricing transparent finally arrived. All schools had to install their net price calculators on their websites by October 29.
This is the second part of my examination of net price calculators; here's the first part on how the calculators may be too simple to use.
I decided to write another post on net price calculators after talking with Jim Day, a principal at Hardwick Day, a higher-ed consulting firm, which has created net price calculators for such schools as Carleton College and California Institute of Technology. Developing net price calculators is a smaller part of its business, which is advising private colleges on enrollment issues.
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Net Price Calculators May Be Too Simple to Use
Tweet Share on Facebook October 18, 2011 Comment (10)Starting Oct. 29, the nation's colleges and universities must have a net price calculator installed on their websites.
These calculators, which were mandated by Congress, should provide much-needed transparency in college pricing. While college tuition keeps climbing, about two thirds of students receive grants and scholarships that cut these costs. Knowing that price tags are meaningless, however, doesn't help a family that's trying to figure out what they can afford before they apply to schools.
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Digital Badges Could Significantly Impact Higher Education
Tweet Share on Facebook October 4, 2011 CommentThe college degree is the only game in town. At least that's the way it's been for a very long time.
Most Americans believe they need a college degree to succeed professionally and the statistics certainly bear this out.
College graduates earn considerably more during their careers. Among Americans ages 25 to 32, for instance, women and men with college degrees earned 79 percent and 74 percent more respectively than high school graduates, according to the College Board. What's more, the unemployment rates of college graduates has been consistently about half that of high school graduates.
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20 Surprising Higher Education Facts
Tweet Share on Facebook September 6, 2011 Comment (108)Every year, I love to dig into the latest issue of The Chronicle of High Education's almanac. While I cover the higher-ed world, some of the statistics that I find in the issue stun me each year. For instance, I certainly didn't know this: 9.4 percent of all college students attend community college in California.
For those who don't have access to the almanac, I am sharing some of the latest higher-ed statistics that you might find surprising:
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How Colleges Determine Merit Scholarships
Tweet Share on Facebook August 23, 2011 Comment (7)How do colleges and universities decide who will get their merit scholarships? Grade point averages, standardized test scores, and the strength of your high school curriculum often play a significant role. However, there are other factors, particularly at private schools, that can play a supporting role in determining which students pocket awards.
Teenagers who receive merit awards are happy to receive the money, but they often don't know what it took to earn them. That's why I was happy to stumble across the blueprint for the merit awards that the University of Rochester dispensed to its latest crop of freshmen.
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4 Things You Need to Know About College Cost Calculators
Tweet Share on Facebook August 9, 2011 Comment (2)One of the most infuriating aspects of the college admission process is this: Families usually won't know what a college is going to cost until they receive their financial aid package.
Often this critical information doesn't arrive until the spring, which gives families little time to digest the information and select a school by the deposit deadline, usually May 1.
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5 Things High School Seniors Should Be Doing Now
Tweet Share on Facebook July 26, 2011 Comment (9)If you are a rising high school senior, you probably thought you had all summer to get prepared for the upcoming college admission frenzy. But guess what? You're running out of time.
To avoid the time crunch in the fall, here are five things you can do now:
1. Examine school prices: I think it's reckless to apply to a school if you don't have some sense of what kind of price you would have to pay. Sticker prices, however, are often meaningless. At private colleges and universities, for instance, 88 percent of students receive some type of price break.
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Don't Rely On College Sticker Prices
Tweet Share on Facebook July 12, 2011 Comment (2)Everybody knows that college prices never stop rising.
What families often don't realize is that published college price tags are pretty much meaningless. Most students receive some type of price break, thanks to federal or state grants and/or discounts from the schools themselves.
