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Paying for College: UPromise
A painless way to accumulate money for college is UPromise. It’s a shopping referral program run by Sallie Mae that gives you rebates on things you buy from participating companies. All you have to do...
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Paying for College: Loan Repayment Programs
Student debt is a big problem. We all know that. But it does not have to be an impossible problem. A number of programs can ease the loan burden through repayment or forgiveness. Many are specific to...
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Paying for college: Beanie Babies, hobbies, and investments
In financial terms, an investment is something that increases in value because it generates streams of money from dividends, interest, or rent. A store of value is something that, over the long term,...
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Paying for college: John Warner’s advice for freshmen and their parents
John Warner is a writer and an adjunct writing instructor at College of Charleston. He used to live in Chicago, and we hung out in the same circles back then. He’s smart and funny. John has a regular...
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Paying for college: Rich people and education
Recently, Allison Benedikt wrote a piece for Slate arguing that if you send your child to private school, you are a bad person. I don’t agree; I’ve never gone to public school and my kid is now in a...
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Paying for college: Planning if you don’t plan on getting aid
The handy FinAid calculator may show that your family will get little or no financial aid for the college of your kid’s dreams. It happens, and many families are surprised when it does. They may not...
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Paying for college: Should you go Greek?
Fraternities and sororities are expensive, but they are also a key part of life on many college campuses. Are they worth it? I was in a sorority. In hindsight, I’m not sure it was worth the money, but...
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Paying for College: For-Profit College Conundrums
Updated, October 30, 2013 The idea behind for-profit colleges is that they would deliver value to students through practical, career-focuses courses, scheduled at convenient times. They don’t have...
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Paying for college: Colleges will be closing and merging
Recently, the Wall Street Journal ran an article on enrollment declines facing private colleges that may lead to closures and mergers. The story is right on, but it made me wistful because I pitched a...
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Paying for college: #GivingTuesday and the fundraising juggernaut
Tuesday, December 3 has been dubbed #GivingTuesday by the 92nd Street Y in New York City. They created the event last year to promote philanthropy in contrast to Black Friday and Cyber Monday and the...
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Paying for High School: Scholarships for Chicagoans
This has proven to be one of the most popular posts on this blog, so it’s time for an update. The good news is that the update comes with more resources! Although the big bills are for college, the...
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Paying for college: Six myths about covering college expenses
T. Rowe Price is circulating a nice write-up about covering college expenses, broken down into six myths. You can read the full piece here; I’ve listed them again with a few of my comments: Financial...
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Guest posts: Dos and Don’ts for returning to school
An adult returning to the classroom is not an uncommon thing these days. Ever since the economic collapse of 2008, many out-of-work or temporarily unemployed adults are returning to the classroom to...
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Paying for college: Protecting the investment in human capital
Gary Becker died last week. He was a University of Chicago economist best known for his work on human capital. His research covered discrimination, compensation, family formation, birth rates,...
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Paying for college: Cash flow
A friend recently asked me for advice on how to pay for graduate school. I realized during our conversation that a lot of people don’t understand the mechanics of the payment – hence, this post....
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Paying for college: A credit to the alma mater
Who gets the accolades? Recently, a writer I know was bemoaning a trite parenting-type story that she wrote. After all, she was an Ivy League graduate, shouldn’t she be doing something more with her...
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Paying for college: free and low-cost SAT and ACT prep
College starts costing families money long before the acceptance letter arrives. SAT and ACT scores influence not only admission, but also financial aid: higher scores help students qualify for more...
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Paying for College: College pricing is like shopping at Kohl’s.
I recently had an insight about college pricing: it’s like shopping at Kohl’s. No one pays the list price, but you won’t know what you will actually pay until it’s checkout and all the special...
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Paying for College: Maximize Pass-Fail Credits To Graduate On Time Or Early
The fastest way to increase the cost of attending college is to graduate in more than four years. The longer it takes a student to graduate, the greater the cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses....
View ArticleCutting Inequality by Cutting (Some) College Giving
Harvard got a new president, Lawrence Bacow, on July 1, arriving as we are grapple with inequality as a nation. In the June issue of The Atlantic, Matthew Stewart wrote about the new aristocracy. They...
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