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college costs, spotlight on

How Presidential Candidates Address Rising College Costs

presidential candidates
Image by kp yamu Jayanath from Pixabay

As the 2024 presidential race heats up, one key issue weighing heavily on the minds of many Americans is the rising cost of higher education. With tuition rates and student loan debt continuing to skyrocket, families and students are eager to know where the candidates stand on making college more affordable. From proposals to cancel student debt to ideas for tuition-free college, each of the presidential candidates offers a unique vision for the future of higher education.

These policies will not only affect you, but your student who will most likely be voting in their first presidential election since turning 18.

Continue reading How Presidential Candidates Address Rising College Costs →
college majors, college planning, spotlight on

Educate To Career: Helping Students Chart a Course for Success

 

Today’s guest post is from Mike Havis from Educatetocareer.org, a non-profit organization with the goal of providing free, online college and career planning tools for high school students and their parents.

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educate to career

There is a huge problem affecting our young people today – those very people who wish to go out and start making a life for themselves – and do great things for our society.

The problem is evidenced by the massive amount of college graduate unemployment and underemployment – coupled with the absolute crisis of $1.1 trillion in non-performing college student loan debt.  It is hard to find a family in the U.S. that has not been touched by these problems.  I learned all about this myself when my son Ben graduated from Rancho Buena Vista HS (in Vista, CA) in 2008.

My wife and I, along with our son, asked ourselves questions such as:

  • Should Ben go for a college degree in the subjects that he likes and is good in?
  • Do all college degrees lead to an actual job in that field?
  • How much does a college education cost?
  • In actuality, which degrees lead to obtaining a real job?

The answers to these questions were not readily at hand, or even easy to find.  The crisis that I referred to stems from poor choices made due to lack of good information + an abundance of misinformation.

This inspired me to create Educate To Career (ETC). We feel that students should make well informed and pragmatic decisions about college and career – based on the reality of what the job market is looking for and the ROI of a college education.  ETC’s tools and programs are very easy to use, and address these issues with real facts and figures.

The innovative CareerBuddy program allows students and parents to apply the student’s personal academic strengths and weaknesses to research college majors for over 6,000 two and four year colleges.  The CareerBuddy program assists users in selecting majors which lead to real careers with good employment opportunities and earnings.  The program is free, easy to navigate and requires no registration by the user.

The information provided includes:

  • Recommended colleges
  • Recommended careers
  • Starting salaries

CareerBuddy, used in conjunction with ETC’s other programs – CollegeBuddy and SalaryBean, enables a student to find all of the pertinent information they require to sensibly plan his or her post high school career and college path – all in one place.

Students have been unable to find the proper tools to assist them in making informed decisions about their future – as evidenced by the over $1 trillion in nonperforming college student-loan debt, coupled with the very high unemployment and underemployment of college graduates.

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Educate To Career was founded to provide high school students with free, online navigator and calculator programs to ultimately guide them to a real career – defined as one in which their education leads to a real job with a good salary.

Educate To Career is the leader in providing information, data, tools and programs in the area of college and career outcomes.

Educate To Career : The Leader in Educational Attainment to Career Outcome Information.

 

academics, spotlight on

The GPA isn’t everything. Or is it?

 

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Photo courtesy of Zinch

GPA’s enter our teen’s world in high school. Everything they do academically affects their GPA. If they start out strong and stay consistent, that GPA could mean offers of admission from multiple colleges. Colleges look at a student’s GPA to determine their capabilities to perform well in a college academic setting. Less that stellar grades, or even average ones, could communicate a lack of commitment or even an attitude of laziness.

If their grades begin to falter, not all is lost. There are things they can do to bump up their grade point average and get back on the path to improved academics. Is it easy? No. Is it worth it? Absolutely.

Our friends at Zinch have given us some simple tricks that can save your GPA. Follow their simple steps and your student could see rapid improvement and also improve their chances of getting into the college of their dreams.

Read Zinch’s “Simple Tricks That Can Save Your GPA”

spotlight on

Pay4SchoolStuff: An innovative tool for parents and schools

 

Sign up for my FREE parent tips email and get my FREE Ebook on college financing! Or subscribe to my blog via email on the left.

pay 4 school stuff

As a recently empty-nested parent of three Montgomery County Public School children, Jay D. Bass, Ed.D., President Payment Partners, Inc., and his wife have written checks for many years for everything from AP tests, to trips to the Zoo.   Using their children as “fee messengers” had never been a good strategy, as attested by the innumerable lost checks and forms mysteriously “eaten by the dog.”   Writing checks in this day and age is an archaic process and a time-consuming burden on parents.  Collection of these checks (and related forms) by school administrators and affiliated organizations such as PTSAs and booster clubs, is labor-intensive and often is fraught with confusion and lack of coordination.

Clearly, based on this story and others that have (and have not yet) appeared, there is abundant opportunity for fraud, theft, and mismanagement.  Recent estimates for PTA fundraising alone indicate that over $4B changes hands in just elementary schools in the U.S.  Coupled with fees for field trips, tests, membership dues, tickets, sport apparel, and other items, industry experts estimate that between $10-12B changes hands annually within the U.S. school system. Schools such as Thomas Jefferson, which offers a full array of extra-curricular activities, probably processes over $1.5M in cash and checks annually.  That is a tremendous amount of money to be handled in such a cavalier and archaic manner.

Online payment processing systems for schools have been developed to provide a safe and convenient tool for parents to pay for school items.   These systems offer a secure environment for paying, reporting, and administering school payments.  My partner and I, also a parent of three public school children, recognized this need and recently developed an online payment system specifically for schools,

Pay4SchoolStuff.com.  To date, many local PTSAs and booster clubs have subscribed with great enthusiasm.  Why haven’t these systems been more widely adopted?  Why are schools and school systems themselves so reluctant to change?  How many more cases of theft will we read about before the benefits of online payment become obvious to everyone?

Pay4SchoolStuff offers the only comprehensive payment and management platform on the market that allows an organization to customize one payment menu for multiple school groups; eliminate all paper forms and registrations via a form creator; eliminate the need for postage; offer no-cost items to collect needed information in a multi- functional database; e-mail any account holders or create a directory in seconds; and take advantage of date, price and inventory controls. Pay4SchoolStuff is currently used by over 150,000 parents nationwide.

spotlight on, Uncategorized

PrepTalk for students and parents

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In today’s world of technology, it’s much easier to connect with colleges and other students. It doesn’t require a plane ride or a car trip to talk with college representatives. Imagine being able to interview before the college visit. Imagine having a college available to ask a question, verify receipt of documents and connect about financial aid.

preptalkIn a nutshell, PrepTalk has created a virtual, 2-way webcasting platform designed to connect college representatives with prospective students and parents.

For students/parents: One of the most influential factors when determining where to attend college is a live conversation with a college representative. Unfortunately, due to time and budget constraints, a college is only able to visit an average of 500 of the 27,000 high schools in the United States. These high school visits often take place during school hours, making it difficult for parents to be involved. The PrepTalk platform allows colleges to expand their reach by offering virtual, informational webcasts targeted at students and their parents. It also allows colleges to interact with prospective students on a one-one basis, for mentoring and support through the application process.

For colleges: Through the platform, colleges will have the ability to broadcast information about their college, and students will be able to ask questions and interact directly with the college in a live setting. Colleges now have a new tool to interact with prospective students and their parents prior to applications being submitted, and can monitor a student’s level of interaction and interest in a college. The platform allows colleges to educate students that they might not discover otherwise due to budget or accessibility constraints.

Signing up is easy. You can use your Facebook profile or sign up for PrepTalk using an email address. Once you’ve signed up following are the pages you can explore. Take it out for a test drive!

Continue reading PrepTalk for students and parents →

spotlight on, websites

A new college comparison tool-Abacus 100

 

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As I’ve said before, determining college costs is key to making a wise college choice. Comparing college costs should be simple, but it’s not. You have to factor in so many variables: tuition, room and board, books, living expenses, travel expenses, and even miscellaneous costs. Don’t forget, when comparing colleges, to factor in the less obvious costs.

Thankfully, though, parents and students can compare the basic costs and expenses before shelling out the often large application fees. Why go to a college you can’t afford? Why apply to a college only to get accepted and disheartened when you look at the families finances and find out it’s just not possible based on the financial aid award? It just makes sense to take a look at costs before applying using a college comparison tool.

How do you compare costs?

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You can make a physical list and visit the college websites and use their net cost calculator. Or you can go to one place and get comparisons of the colleges you are considering–one stop shopping so to speak! That’s why CollegeAbacus.com created the Abacus100, permitting personalized comparisons of the top 100 universities and top 100 colleges, as determined by U.S. News. This service, which costs the same as Harvard’s application fee, is now offered alongside College Abacus’ free net price search tool, which allows comparisons of up to three schools’ costs simultaneously.

Their personalized net price calculations incorporate likely financial aid, cost of living and other considerations absent from tuition. Federal law now requires colleges and universities to post net-price calculators on their websites. Complying with the letter of the law, but defying the spirit, many schools bury their net-price calculators in little-trafficked corners of their sites.

How does Abacus 100 work?

Relying on information directly from over 4,000 schools themselves, College Abacus aims to end the tradition of students and families applying to schools without knowing whether they can afford to attend. College Abacus relies solely on data provided by the schools themselves, permitting students to compare school-created cost estimates with ease.

Interested? Watch the short video and try it out for FREE. Enter up to three schools and see how the program works. You might be surprised at the information gathering process and you also might be surprised at the great colleges which will fit into your budget.

If you like what you see and want to compare up to 100 colleges and universities, College Abacus has provided me with a 20% discount code: COLLEGECASH. Take advantage of this GREAT offer!