Blog
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I've moved my blog to Substack! Check out some of my most recent posts below.
Subscribe now to keep up with me and access exclusive perks, including live discussions with college planning experts, time to ask me anything, and more.
Looking for my older blog posts? Check out my full blog archive below.
Blog archive
FAFSA 2016-2017 EFC Formula
Detailed insights into The FAFSA’s EFC formula for the 2016-2017 school year.
Questions to Ask About Paying for College
A link to a helpful article on how and why to talk to your student about paying for college.
2016-2017 FAFSA Allowances
Back in May, the Department of Education released its needs analysis methodology for the 2016-2017 school year’s FAFSA EFC calculation. The big numbers to know from this are the Income Protection Allowance (the amount of parent and student income that is not considered available to pay for college) and the Asset Protection Allowance (ditto for nonretirement assets).
Tuition Discounts Increase at Private Colleges
Good news: according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers, tuition discounting hit an all-time high in 2014, with many believing it is a trend likely to continue. A survey of 411 private, non-profit institutions showed that the average discount rate* for first-time, full-time freshmen hit 48% in the 2014-2015 school year, and was over 41% for all undergraduates.
529 Plan Withdrawals
Strategies for using your 529 savings plan to pay for college expenses once the bills start showing up.
Do Schools Know How Applicants Rank Them? Yes.
College admissions officers have a couple of important metrics on which they’re evaluated: selectivity and yield. Selectivity is a concept you’re probably already familiar with: What percent of applicants are admitted? In the admissions officer’s world, the lower, the better. There are two ways to admit a low percentage of applicants: Get a lot of applications, and admit very few of them. Of course, in admitting few students, the college then runs the risk of not enough actually enrolling.