The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price [Paperback]

Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 16, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0132365707 | ISBN-13: 978-0132365703 | Edition: 1

“The College Solution helps readers look beyond over-hyped admission rankings to discover schools that offer a quality education at affordable prices. Taking the guesswork out of saving and finding money for college, this is a practical and insightful must-have guide for every parent!”

—Jaye J. Fenderson, Seventeen’s College Columnist and Author, Seventeen’s Guide to Getting into College

 

“This book is a must read in an era of rising tuition and falling admission rates. O’Shaughnessy offers good advice with blessed clarity and brevity.”

—Jay Mathews, Washington Post Education Writer and Columnist

 

“I would recommend any parent of a college-bound student read The College Solution.”

—Kal Chany, Author, The Princeton Review’s Paying for College Without Going Broke

 

“The College Solution goes beyond other guidebooks in providing an abundance of information about how to afford college, in addition to how to approach the selection process by putting the student first.”

—Martha “Marty” O’Connell, Executive Director, Colleges That Change Lives

 

“Lynn O’Shaughnessy always focuses on what’s in the consumer’s best interest, telling families how to save money and avoid making costly mistakes.”

—Mark Kantrowitz, Publisher, FinAid.org and Author, FastWeb College Gold

 

“An antidote to the hype and hysteria about getting in and paying for college! O’Shaughnessy has produced an excellent overview that demystifies the college planning process for students and families.”

—Barmak Nassirian, American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers

 

For millions of families, the college planning experience has become extremely stressful. And, unless your child is an elite student in the academic top 1%, most books on the subject won’t help you.

Now, however, there’s a college guide for everyone. In The College Solution, top personal finance journalist Lynn O’Shaughnessy presents an easy-to-use roadmap to finding the right college program (not just the most hyped) and dramatically reducing the cost of college, too.

Forget the rankings! Discover what really matters: the quality and value of the programs your child wants and deserves.

O’Shaughnessy uncovers “industry secrets” on how colleges actually parcel out financial aid—and how even “average” students can maximize their share. Learn how to send your kids to expensive private schools for virtually the cost of an in-state public college...and how promising students can pay significantly less than the “sticker price” even at the best state universities.

No other book offers this much practical guidance on choosing a college...and no other book will save you as much money!

 

•  Secrets your school’s guidance counselor doesn’t know yet

The surprising ways colleges have changed how they do business

•  Get every dime of financial aid that’s out there for you

Be a “fly on the wall” inside the college financial aid office

•  U.S. News & World Report: clueless about your child

Beyond one-size-fits-all rankings: finding the right program for your teenager

• The best bargains in higher education

Overlooked academic choices that just might be perfect for you

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Lynn O’Shaughnessy has been a professional journalist for three decades. She is a former Los Angeles Times reporter and syndicated columnist, and a financial journalist. Her previous books include Unofficial Guide to Investing, Investing Bible, and Retirement Bible. She has contributed to such publications as BusinessWeek, Money Magazine, USA Today, Chronicle of Philanthropy, AARP The Magazine, Wealth Manager Magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Kiplinger’s Retirement Report, Bottom Line Personal, and Consumer Reports MoneyAdviser. She is a graduate of the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

A curious story appeared in The New York Times one day about the university that's the academic equivalent of the Yankees. The article captured the concerns of faculty, who worry that the teaching taking place at Harvard University isn't meeting the school's own vaunted standards. In fact, a professor lamented that some undergraduates, after spending four years at Harvard, don't know a single faculty member well enough to ask for a letter of recommendation.

Hmmm.

One student, who was interviewed, suggested that undergraduates ought to know that professors are too focused on research to put much effort into what happens in the classroom.

"You'd be stupid if you came to Harvard for the teaching," a Harvard senior and a Rhodes scholar told the Times reporter. "You go to a liberal arts college for teaching. You come to Harvard to be around some of the greatest minds on earth."

And he had more to say: "I think many people (at Harvard) spend a great deal of their time in large lecture classes, have little direct contact with professors, and are frustrated by poorly trained teaching fellows."

Concerned about the quality of Harvard's undergraduate education, a small group of the university's professors cranked out a report that advocated for institutional changes that would place greater value on teaching. Whatever happens, Harvard's institutional angst about what occurs in its classrooms is hardly going to dampen its star power among high school students. And that was true even before Harvard unveiled an incredibly generous financial aid policy that has dramatically cut costs for families who make even $180,000 per year.

So why have I begun this book by sharing something that should embarrass Harvard? Because the incident aptly illustrates one of the primary reasons why I wrote The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price. When many families begin their college search they assume that the Ivy League owns a monopoly on the nation's best schools. Unfortunately, the media perpetuates this nonsense. A ridiculous number of books on college are dedicated to cracking the Ivy League even though the only ivy that most kids are going to come into contact with will itch and require calamine lotion. A mere .2% of the nation's incoming college freshmen end up at the eight Ivy League schools.

What plenty of teenagers and their parents don't realize is that there are many, many schools scattered across the country that will provide an education as good as or superior to the one they'd receive at the most elite East Coast schools.

Rather than worship at the Ivy altar, The College Solution is dedicated to the 99.8% of students, who head off to the thousands of other colleges and universities in this country. It's about time that a book is dedicated to everybody else's kids—and there are millions of them out there. The book contains advice for teenagers who are blessed with the brilliance of theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking as well as all the typical kids who would fit in quite nicely at Lake Wobegon.

One of the book's overriding aims for this eclectic group of teenagers is this: helping them find the best academic matches possible, whether public or private, for the least amount of money. Parents and students, who use the book's road map, will discover that college costs can be far lower than they imagined and their college options are more plentiful than they ever would have believed.

Many families, for instance, assume that they can afford only an inexpensive school—perhaps the state university or community college that's nearby. The affluent, meanwhile, assume that they will have to pay full price for their children's education because their chances for any kind of assistance are laughable. Plenty of families, regardless of their net worth, believe that only the very brilliant or the athletically gifted can win scholarships.

All of those assumptions are wrong. College can be more affordable than you might think. "B" students can earn merit scholarships from plenty of colleges, and even families with six-figure incomes can position themselves to capture financial aid.

In fact, many families who use the book's strategies will be able to send their children off to expensive private schools for the same cost of a much cheaper in-state public school. Private colleges and universities today, according to the College Board, are discounting their tuition by an average of 33.5% for the students they want. Students who attend public universities, including prestigious flagship institutions, can also pay significantly less than the advertised sticker price. The average tuition discount for public schools, which cost less to begin with, is nearly 15%.

It's much easier to shrink the college tab once you appreciate that colleges and universities are now pricing bachelor's degrees in much the same way that airlines set their ticket prices. The passenger sitting next to you on the plane could have paid significantly more or less than you did for the identical ride. This same phenomenon is playing out on college and university campuses throughout the country.

The College Solution also urges parents and students to consider what is important in a college education. One of the chief aims of the book is to help students determine which schools are best for them and to encourage them to consider some overlooked academic gems. The book shows teenagers how to evaluate schools from research universities and community colleges to public and private liberal arts colleges.

Investigating schools, as you'll learn, should go far beyond noting what ranking a school got from U.S. News & World Report, which happens to rely on dubious methodology. When selecting schools, a student also needs to be comfortable with the academic departments where he or she will be spending a great deal of time. You want professors who will engage students with innovative teaching, not approach classes, particularly the introductory ones, as an opportunity to wash out kids by dispensing failing grades. You'll also discover how to find large universities that have worked hard to make their learning environments more intimate.

Most students will have only one shot at college, but too often they put about as much effort into finding the right academic matches as they would shopping for a new cell phone plan. Families often take shortcuts because they swallow the conventional wisdom that the higher education industry has pushed down their throats about what their options are. Your best defense against all this is to keep reading this book.

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: FT Press; 1 edition (June 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0132365707
• ISBN-13: 978-0132365703
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #54,694 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #43 in Books > Education & Reference > Education > College Guides

More About the Author

I am a financial journalist and the author of The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price.

I am a former Los Angeles Times reporter, who has been writing about financial issues 15 years. My work has appeared in countless magazines, newspapers and Web sites. I am also the author of three other books, including Retirement Bible and Investing Bible (John Wiley & Sons).

I've contributed to such publications as BusinessWeek, USA Today, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Wealth Manager Magazine, Consumer Reports MoneyAdvisor, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Medical Economics and Kiplinger's Retirement Report. For several years, I was also a syndicated newspaper columnist.

A native of St. Louis, I graduated with honors from the University of Missouri's School of Journalism. I live with my husband and our teenage son in La Mesa, CA. Our daughter is attending a liberal arts college in Pennsylvania.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-have for every parent with a (hopefully) college-bound kid, August 16, 2008

By 

Parent "Mares" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price (Paperback)

As a mother of a HS junior who attends a local school in France, I have to take a more active role with the US college search since his school has no guidance counselor and there are no college road shows in the vicinity. I find myself reliant on word of mouth and written sources : guidebooks, blogs ,, newspaper articles, books /websites & advice and have invested the better part of son's junior year compiling information for the college search.
I ordered this book after reading a reference on a college admissions blog. I finished it during a train ride - and found it so riveting that I missed my stop.
Based on the title, I had expected to find just tips for affording college education but was pleasantly surprised by the author's insistence on quality -how to get your money's worth. So often the writers authoring these books report from the hallowed halls of academia. This author is a parent - and bases her experience as a mother of a college freshman while wearing her financial reporter thinking cap. How many college admission books are written from this point of view?
One innovation is that the book reverses the criteria for the college search by starting with match schools , not reach, where the student has more chance of obtaining scholarship money. The bottom up approach also instructs on how to find the best fit academically with several chapters on grading academic departments and discussions on professor ratings. Not stopping with the college admissions process, she addresses another under looked category - undergraduate research. And thanks to the author's chapter on freebies & best buys, I have added another school to the list.
The book closes with a list of informational websites, helpful cheat sheets and timelines in the appendix.
The author has packed an enormous amount of information here but has addressed the most salient points in a practical college admissions and quality education search. I could have saved a considerable amount of time and money had I read this book first and feel more empowered now for the final year of the search.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The College Solution, August 2, 2008

By 

Clifford Kramon "Collegiate Choice" (Tenafly, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price (Paperback)

This is a most helpful guide. As we make college videos, I was particularly interested in what you had to say in chapter 36, Visiting Campuses. You made two excellent points: one is usually wrong in newspaper articles and the other is almost never mentioned. First, I hate being told that summer is a great time to visit the colleges. Yes, the students may be off from school, but small colleges are deserted and even the large state universities have only limited students on campus. The campus itself, however, will look better than at any time during the academic year.
Very important too is the need to have the college build a file on the student. The best way is to visit the college itself. It shows real interest. Admissions counselors say that all things being equal, a "stealth" candidate (one where the college first learns about your interest when the application arrives) has a lower chance of acceptance than one who has shown previous contact with the college. You are a realist in saying that because of financial and time consideration, an actual visit may not be possible, and you urge your readers to show their early interest "through a request for literature, a call to the financial aid office, or a conversation during a college fair." That advice alone could justify the cost of the book.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars #1 Book on College Today - The Best Fit at the Least Price!, July 8, 2008

By 

P. Bishop (Bellevue, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price (Paperback)

This book covers it all in the college search to include both the academic side as well as the financial side. Most college books focus on how to get in - this book teaches you how to pursue the schools that value your student's profile and rewards them financially for being a good fit for their college. The author goes into depth on how to find the best academic programs for the majors your student wants to pursue, and how to evaluate these programs and the professors. She discusses the importance of undergraduate research opportunities, leading to active student engagement, and consequently a more successful college experience. Lynn understands the financial aid process, and addresses both the FAFSA form as well as the CSS Profile, a much more comprehensive form that many private colleges use to dig deeper into the financial lives of families. Very few financial aid books cover the Profile form with such useful information in an easy to understand and interesting manner. This book is recommended for parents, students, high school guidance counselors and independent college admissions advisors. 'College Solutions" is the current #1 leader of the college search books, and highly recommended!