Featured
Most recent posts
Talking to your kids about money is awkward at best. Here are some strategies to make those conversations less fraught and more productive.
One of the best ways to save for college is to have other people do it for you. Here’s how.
What do the University of Alabama, Harvard, Pepperdine and Yale have in common? At least one student from each won a Rhodes Scholarship this year.
Highlights
What is and isn’t an asset on the FAFSA? Here’s a quick “is it or isn’t it?” for you.
We’re almost there: acceptance letters are arriving and the May 1 decision day is right around the corner. For most families, how much schools cost is part of the decision making process.
Happy 2023! Last year I made a New Year’s Resolution and kept it. That makes me a self-appointed expert on New Year’s resolutions. Here are some resolutions for parents planning for college— and my expert advice on how to keep your resolutions.
Parent assets seem to be the area that most families and planners focus on, despite the fact that they typically have the smallest impact on the formula of each of the components. Strategies and tactics to minimize parent assets abound, but for most families these result more in nibbling around the edges than actually making a significant dent in SAI.
The College Board’s annual Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid report was released recently. Among the headline findings: college tuition prices increased at extremely low rates for the second year in a row, reflecting both a combination of continued impacts of the pandemic and enrollment pressures from demographic trends.
Filing the FAFSA raises tons of questions for divorced parents. Here are some answers.
Happy FAFSA Day! Are you completing the FAFSA for the first time this year? While you’re waiting for the site to load, here are some resources that will help you get through it with a minimum of chaos and maximum of financial aid.
I think Oregon is one of the last places in the US that starts school after Labor Day so my apologies if you’re no longer in back-to-school mode. Here are some resolutions your family might make for the coming school year. And, here’s hoping they don’t get broken as quickly as the typical New Year’s diet-and-exercise resolutions!
Categories
The FAFSA & CSS Profile
Saving for College
Student Loans
Application Process
Miscellaneous
All blog posts
What Year? (2020 Edition)
It’s hard keeping track of what matters when in the prior-prior year world of the FAFSA and CSS Profile. Here is a table summarizing tax year and asset dates for the next few college years:
Noon today: Talking Student Athletes on Facebook Live
To Defer or not to Defer
Many students are considering deferring enrollment for the fall; surveys show that perhaps as many as 15% of college-bound students in the high school class of 2020 are likely to defer.
Essay Writing on Facebook Live
About that Facebook Live Event…
My apologies to anyone who tried to access my event on Facebook yesterday. The short story is, the stream went to the wrong place and when you’re in the middle of a live interview there isn’t much you can do to change that!
Common App and Coalition App Essay Prompts
Does your student have some free time on their hands? If so, now could be a great time to start working on college essays. The Common App and Coalition App release their essay prompts well ahead of time– January for the Common App, for example.
CARES Act College Funding: Cash for Students
Following up on yesterday’s post. How does a student get cash from his school’s emergency student aid grant under the CARES Act? It depends on the school, and most have not formalized their policies yet.
Podcast Interview on 529 Plans
College Students and Stimulus Payments
Parents of college students have likely heard that those students– if claimed as dependents on their parents’ 2019 taxes– are not eligible for the $1,200 stimulus payment.
What Can You Learn From a Crisis?
You know the saying, “Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want?” 2020 is setting itself up to be a year full of experience.
What Now? What’s Next?
If you have college students like mine, you’re probably figuring out how to move them home. If they’re seniors, they’re probably wondering about whether they’ll have graduation, how they’ll get job interviews, even how they could get started on a career.
Dept of Ed Guidance on Academic Interruptions due to Coronavirus
The Department of Education released guidance on 5 potential scenarios for academic interruptions due to the coronavirus and their impacts on Title IV financial aid: