Summer is the perfect time to start getting smart about finding a college and figuring out how to pay for it.

Sure, it would be nice if your teen was motivated to start researching colleges, but that’s a hit-or-miss proposition for most parents. But there’s nothing keeping parents from educating themselves about the process. After all, who has more motivation than the person who will actually be paying the bill?

Here’s the best part, you can start your education process for free.

Michelle Kretzschmar of Do It Yourself College Rankings and I will be offering FREE live webinars this summer that focus on what you need to know about making college affordable. The first webinar will cover:

1. Why College Sticker Prices are Meaningless

It’s a lot like airline prices or buying a car but not as transparent and no Priceline equivalent.

2. The Real Story Behind College Scholarships

There really aren’t millions of dollars of scholarship money out there that goes unclaimed. But there is money if you know where to look.

Best of All….

We will be taking your questions live during the event because otherwise, what’s the point of doing a live webinar–right?

Whose Behind the Webinars

I assume that since you’re on my college blog, you already know something about me. I am the author of The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price (2nd edition) and a college workbook. I started this college blog back in 2008 when my daughter was finishing her freshman year in college.

For those who don’t know (and you really should so consider this your first lesson), Michelle Kretzschmar, the mother of a college sophomore, created Do It Yourself College Rankings, a website that’s an excellent resource for families looking for answers.

I stumbled across DIY College Rankings more than a year ago and I’ve been a huge fan ever since. I approached Michelle about launching this webinar series.

Unlike me, Michelle is an adroit number cruncher and she uses this skill  in researching schools and writing her blog posts. She’s also developed a spreadsheet that families can use to find  schools that is valuable. This is a complete coincidence, but both of our sons attend Beloit College!

Mark Your Calendar for June 2

The best part about this free webinar is that you don’t even have to register to get the link. You can participate in the college webinar by heading to The College Solution’s  college webinar page on June 2nd at 7 pm Eastern time. Currently on the webinar page, you’ll find a five-minute introduction from one of my recent presentations to a group of parents.

If you want a reminder about the webinar or upcoming ones, just email me at Lynn@TheCollegeSolution.com.

Looking forward to meeting you then!

Lynn O’Shaughnessy

Parents and teenagers rightly wonder what they are buying when they invest a huge chunk of money into a college degree.

It’s hard to know.

We have no accurate records of what college students at a specific college or university earn, much less what kind of salaries that grads with a particular major, whether it’s art history or biochemistry, are making.

Beyond  salaries, which understandably attract the most attention, we don’t have a clue about whether the graduates of a particular school are better thinkers, writers and reasoners by the time they don those silly graduation robes and mortar boards.

In the Dark

When shopping for schools, consumers are largely in the dark about education outcomes.

The only salary information for individual schools that you can generally find is through Payscale, but that’s self reported by individual workers.

There is a way to get some sense of the academic growth (or stagnation) of students through a test called the Collegiate Learning Assessment. Only 500 or so schools, however, use the test and very few of them release those scores.

Your best bet to find CLA scores would be to look at the institutional research home on a school’s website. Or Google the name of the school and Collegiate Learning Assessment.)

Suspect Job and Graduate School Statistics

We also can’t count on schools to provide meaningful statistics on job placement rates of new grads. The percentage of grads responding to their alma mater’s requests for career information is typically  low. Grad school stats are going to be sketchy too.

When a school says it’s recent grads have a job placement rate of say 90%, ask how many grads actually participated in the institution’s survey. One school that has done a great job of tracking down grads and sharing their employment status by majors is St. Olaf College. Too bad more schools haven’t been so diligent!

In general we know that students who major in the liberal arts and sciences fare better academically than students who opt for vocational degrees, which are the rage now. A landmark study called Academically Adrift discovered that students who exhibited the least growth – or none at all – were in business, education, social work and communications.

Shining the Light

Clearly for families who want to research the academic chops of any schools, the data available is pathetic. This, however, could be changing.

There has been a growing call in Congress to authorize the federal government to track salary information for graduates of individual schools, as well as specific majors. Higher-ed reformers have wanted the federal government to pursue a national salary database for a long time, but opponents have stymied them.

Chief among those standing in the way of progress have been lobbyists for private colleges and universities. They have argued strenuously against collecting salary data and making it available to the public. Their stated opposition — privacy concerns — is a canard.

In the past, conservatives have also expressed opposition to a salary database, but GOP opposition has significantly eroded.

In the last authorization of the Higher Education Opportunity Act back in 2008 (this is when major federal higher-ed changes happen), the supporters of keeping families in the dark won. The act forbade the federal government from collecting and disseminating salary information. The act, however, is coming up for renewal next year.

A Bipartisan Effort to Empower Families

In the meantime, legislators on both sides of the aisle are clamoring for higher-ed transparency. Last week Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Mark Warner (D-VA) introduced legislation called the Student Right to Know Before You Go Act that would empower families to make better decisions when shopping for schools. The legislation got a boost from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor who endorsed it in a speech earlier this year.

Under this legislation, families would finally be able to get reliable data about what kind of salaries graduates at individual schools are earning. If the bill is passed, average post-graduation earnings would be broken down by:

• Program of study
• Credential received
• Educational institution
• State of employment

What’s Next

I’ll keep you posed on what happens to this bill. This move towards transparency is obviously a much needed and welcome development.

Beyond empowering families with better data, making salaries public should also prod schools into getting serious about preparing students for the work world. Regardless of their majors, many students graduate from college without having any idea about how to find a job, much less how to lay the ground work for a career beginning freshman year. That has to change. And if it takes schools becoming embarrassed first, tough luck.

Today I’m sharing a highly informative guest post that explains some excellent, but overlooked options for students who are interested in attending a music conservatory or an art and design school, which are typically extremely expensive options with miserly financial aid packages. The author is Stuart Nachbar, who is president of EducatedQuest.com, a college admissions blog and guide to some of the best values in higher education.

If you haven’t visited EducatedQuest yet, I’d urge you to do so. Lynn O’Shaughnessy

By Stuart Nachbar

I have a nephew, currently a high school junior, who is very talented. He loves to sing and play the flute, the oboe and the piano. He has had a solo in every musical he has appeared in since middle school. He has made All-State Chorus twice. He loves singing more than anything and wants to study voice in college.

His mother, a high school teacher, is understandably worried. It’s obviously hard to make it to Broadway. Teaching, a traditional fall-back for artists, musicians and writers, is not a secure alternative. She is insistent on her son having a ‘Plan B’.

The Plan B is better supported by a liberal arts college or a larger university than a specialized music conservatory or an art and design school. Here’s why:

Reason No. 1:

Students need to consider whether they want to work for themselves or for others. Artist-entrepreneurs as well as creative workers need business acumen. The artist-entrepreneur needs to understand career management, marketing and accounting. The creative worker needs to understand how business and consumer purchasing decisions are made. Marketing is useful to know, but so are economics, geography, psychology and sociology.

You’re less likely to see these offerings in a conservatory setting, although the best, such as the  Juilliard School, are equipped to advise the artist-entrepreneur. However, Juilliard is more the exception than the rule. So are art schools such as Parsons, the New School for Design. You might recognize that school as the workroom site for Project Runway, the Emmy Award-winning fashion reality show.

Reason No. 2:

So much is connected to the arts. Artists make political statements through their work or use new media to highlight it. It is very hard to work in contemporary art or music without understanding technology. It is easier to write lyrics when one understands poetry as well as rhythm. It is easier to make art when one appreciates nature and human behavior. Not to mention that anyone who tries to write a play or movie script should also be a good writer.

Reason No. 3:

What will be the market for your work? An artist-entrepreneur does not need to wait for graduation. They can call on others for business, as long as the school’s equipment and facilities are not used.

The student who wants to work for others should consider a school where the employers are most likely to be. They need to be ready to knock on doors for internships and kick those doors open to full-time employment.

Reason No. 4:

How much risk can you take? Any student who expects to be an entrepreneur should not borrow too much for college. It will be too difficult to start a venture if you graduate with excess debt. The same is true for students who expect to work in fields that do not pay very much to start.

School Options for Musical and Artistic Teenagers

What choices does that leave in the way of schools? The best buy will be the best combination of academic flexibility, price and quality (retention and graduation rates). I’ll use an example.

This past weekend my nephew, his mother, and I attended an open house at Ramapo College of New Jersey, an excellent state-supported liberal arts college. Ramapo’s freshman retention rate for the class that entered in the fall of 2011 was 88 percent. Sixty percent  of the students who entered in 2006 graduated in four years, excellent for a state school.

Ramapo has a School of Contemporary Arts which hosts the communications studies, music, theater and visual arts programs, each of which has several concentrations. But students may also develop their own majors, choosing courses across several disciplines. For example, a student may choose the Music Industry concentration or major in Music and minor in a core called Business Essentials (basics such as accounting, finance and marketing).  The student that has already formed a band might prefer the first option. The one that wants to join an orchestra might prefer the second.

A student who is interested in taking journalism courses may choose the major or a creative writing minor. A student may major in theater and take Business Essentials. Or they may major in business and minor in theater. This flexibility makes it easier for students to pursue their interests and graduate on time.

Ramapo is also a $12 bus ride from New York City. Around half of their internship students work there every semester. Peter Mercer, the college’s president, often meets them at the campus bus stop.

Ramapo is cheap compared to private liberal arts colleges. This year New Jersey residents paid just over $13,000 in tuition and fees. Out-of-state students paid just under $22,000. Merit-based scholarships range from $3,000 to $18,000 per year.

Applicants who would be the “bread and butter” student at Delaware, Rutgers or Penn State can probably get at least $3,000 off those sticker prices. Unless you’re regarded as one of the “best-of-the-best,” it’s hard for a New Jersey resident to expect a private college to discount to Ramapo’s charges.

I chose Ramapo because the college makes it less difficult for students to combine a creative educational experience with a practical one.  I also chose it because it is a state school. Schools that are similar to Ramapo in other states include:

• College of Charleston (SC)
• Georgia College and State University
• St. Mary’s College of Maryland
• SUNY-Geneseo (NY)
• Truman State University (MO)
• University of Mary Washington (VA)
• University of Minnesota-Morris
• University of North Carolina-Wilmington

Your best combination of academic flexibility, price and quality does not necessarily need to be at small public liberal arts college. Not every state has a college like Ramapo It can be available at a fine regional university such as James Madison (VA), Towson (MD) or Western Washington. It can also be available at a private liberal arts college or university that is also known to be considered to be generous with financial aid such as Clark University (MA) or Muhlenberg College (PA).

Bottom Line:

No one needs to go to an elite school or brand-name conservatory to become a creative genius. However, when money is an issue, a little financial sense and a lot of academic flexibility can help a creative genius to a great education.

Stuart Nachbar is President of EducatedQuest.com, a college admissions blog and guide to some of the best values in higher education. He can be contacted at stuart@educatedquest.

Read More:

So Your Child Wants to Major in the Arts

Many parents assume that college is a seller’s market, but except for the elite schools that are perched at the top of US News & World Report’s college rankings, this belief is laughable.

Schools are so eager to attract freshmen to their campuses that they are now discounting their tuition at historically high levels. That’s the conclusion from the latest annual study released this week by the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

Private schools are currently offering typical scholarships/grants that cover 53% of tuition and fees. Schools have never offered such high discounts. In 2011, schools discounted their tuition by an average of 51.7%.

Where nearly everyone gets a merit scholarship

As I’ve mentioned many times, these discounts are hardly reserved for just the stellar students. The report noted that 86.9% of freshmen attending private colleges and universities received some type of price cut via scholarships/grants. Schools need to cut their prices to compete with state universities with lower sticker prices and also to remain competitive with their private school peers.

The schools that accept more than 50% of their applicants tend to have a higher percentage of students receiving price breaks. Colleges and universities that reject the greatest percentage of students tend to have the largest average sticker prices and average net prices.

You can see from the chart below that small institutions, defined by this study as having a student body of 4,000 or lower, are doling out the greatest percentage of students discounts.

In general, the popularity of a school is linked closely to how much an institution discounts. Despite the price cutting, small schools experienced more difficulty attracting enough freshmen.  Schools cited “price sensitivity” as the No. 1 reason for declining or flat enrollment. Changing demographics was the second specific reason cited for enrollment challenges.

Discounting for All Undergrads

When you look at the discounts for all undergrads, the discounts decline and so do the percentage of students receiving them. When students receive a fixed grant for their freshman year, it’s value will erode each year. Also many schools require students to maintain a certain GPA to keep their scholarships.

Discounting by Region

It should be no surprise that the schools that offered the smallest price breaks at located on the East and West Coasts. I highlighted the lowest discount rates in pale blue. (These particular discount rates were calculated as a percentage of a school’s overall revenue.)

The lower discount rate on the West Coast supports what I’ve noticed out here in California. With such notable exceptions as Stanford, Occidental and the Claremont colleges (Pomona, Harvey Mudd, Scripps, Claremont McKenna and Pitzer), and Occidental, the private schools in California are typically stingy. Some stunningly so.

If you will need substantial financial aid to attend a private school in California, but you aren’t smart enough or lucky enough to get into those seven schools, I’d consider not even looking in this state. I’m serious. Here’s just one especially egregious example of what I’m talking about courtesy of the federal College Navigator which publishes net prices for thousands of schools.

Gouging the Poor at Santa Clara University

Guess how much Santa Clara University, which is situated in Silicon Valley, charges the poorest of the poor? For a family making less than $30,000 a year, this school in 2010 charged $46,347!!!  As someone who grew up in a family where Jesuits were revered, I find the pricing policy of this Catholic university inexplicable and beyond REVOLTING.

Bottom Line:

At the vast majority of private schools, your child will win a scholarship just for showing up.

How valuable the scholarship will be will depend on the desirability of the applicant, as well as the desirability of the school itself. A college located 100 miles from the nearest Costco or Starbucks is going to have to come up with a juicy offer to attract students than a hot school like Santa Clara that’s located 11 minutes from Apple’s headquarter and 16 minutes from Google’s.

It’s up to you whether you will be a bargain shopper or not, but you’ve been warned.

If  you have to pay nonresident tuition, are public universities worth the price?

That is the question facing three families whose children are heading to a state university as nonresidents this fall or are contemplating one of these institutions in the future.

In my last post, I shared the issues the families faced and also solicited advice or comments from visitors to my college blog. I was thrilled to see so many of you come through with great observations.

If you missed the post and the comments, please go back and read them:

Should Students Attend State Universities Beyond Their Borders?

Today I wanted to share a few observations of my own.

1. Difficult state residency requirements.

Many families hope that their children will be able to become a resident in the state where they are attending school after the first year and then qualify for in-state tuition.

That was the hope of a teenager whose situation I profiled in my last post. The state university the girl expects to attend in the fall costs $50,000 a year for nonresidents. The parents will only pay for one year and expect the girl to qualify for in-state tuition and cover the remaining three years.

This is nothing short of financial suicide and if the parents think they can sign off on this and watch their child drown in debt, they are mistaken. The daughter would need to obtain private loans and no lender will hand over the money without a co-signer. I hope that puts the kaboosh on this insane plan.

 Most states have residency requirements to prevent students like the one described above from benefiting from lower in-state costs. The residency requirements vary significantly, but according to FinAid, a student typically must have at least one parent who is a state resident for at least one full year before the student starts college. You can find links to the state residency requirements at FinAid.

2. Elite flagships are fixated on rich students.

If you aren’t rich, I’d strongly suggest that you forget about attending flagships that enjoy golden brand names like the Universities of California, Michigan and Virginia or that are located in desirable geographic areas such as the Universities of Colorado and Arizona.  These schools and others with strong US News rankings are hungry for outsiders who can bankroll an education that can cost more than $225,000.

Some of these schools, such as Arizona and Michigan, provide token merit scholarships (the averages are  $7,642 and $6,816  respectively), but that won’t go far when you will be paying private school prices for state educations. Some flagships, such as the University of Wisconsin and University of California campuses, don’t give any merit scholarships to outsiders.

Prestigious state schools are charging high prices because they can. Plenty of wealthy families are willing to pay the tab because of the prestige attached to a school like the University of Virginia, UCLA, University of North Carolina or University of Michigan.

Unfortunately, some students heading to these flagships can’t afford the cost and will face scary debt loads just to earn a diploma from a school with a marquee name.

3. Don’t flatter yourself.

It’s easier to get into prestigious flagships as an outsider now because these institutions need the easy money. If parents are willing to pay $50,000 to attend Indiana University, (like one of the dads in my last post appears ready to do) IU will gleefully take the money.

State universities have been recruiting heavily across state lines, in part, because state governments have been reducing their financial support. Finding out-of-state sugar daddies is one way for these schools to survive financially. And it’s easier to attract rich students to their campuses than for these institutions to get serious about making meaningful structural changes.

I wrote a story for my college blog over at CBS MoneyWatch a couple of years ago about a dad, who works at Columbia University, whose daughter had planned to attend the University of Michigan in the fall of 2011. She attended the new student orientation before her dad noticed that he had misread the bill. He thought the tuition was going to be a total of $19,000, but that was the price per semester.

 4. Look beyond the obvious choices.

If you look beyond the most popular flagships, plenty of state schools offer significant discounts to nonresidents.

Like the flagship schools, whether you qualify for admission comes down to your academic statistics. You can often find a scholarship matrix on the websites of universities. The one below comes from the University of Nevada, Reno.

State institutions that are off  the popularity radar are interested in outsiders because they can generate more money from them (but the amounts will be significantly  lower than what the prominent flagships can charge).

Another prime motivator for the outreach to smart nonresidents is to inch up U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings. I frankly find this is craven, but it’s the reality.

A potential drawback to attending less prestigious schools is that they often don’t enjoy the level of resources as their brand name peers. One consequence of this will be lower graduation rates. The four-year grad rate at the University of Nevada, Reno, for example, is an appalling 13.6%.

I should add that some of the popular destination schools such as University of Colorado and University of Wisconsin don’t have great four-year grad rates (50% and 41% respectively) either and the price tags will be far, far higher.

One way to boost the chances of getting out in four years and to enjoy a better educational experience is to try to get into a state school’s honors college. These honors colleges were created as a way to attract smart students who normally might be heading to private schools.

5. Check education compacts.

You can also look for state schools that observe a reciprocity agreement with institutions in your state. Thanks to one of these agreements, you may pay the same price as a resident or capture a significant discount. Here are the four regional compacts:

• Western Undergraduate Exchange
• Academic Common Market
• Midwestern Higher Education Compact
• New England Board of Higher Education

6. Schools go by the numbers.

State schools don’t enjoy the luxury of evaluating students holistically. There are too many students applying.

Merit scholarships are awarded basically by looking at a child’s grade point average, test scores and class ranks. If your child is weak in one or more of these areas, the chances for money or meaningful money will drop significantly. Head over to a state university’s admission web pages and research what kind of out-of-state scholarships are available.

7. Throw a wide net.

In my last post, I  was struck by the mother who said her daughter is such a good student that she deserves to attend a flagship outside her state of New Mexico. I agree that smart students should conduct a broader search, but what upset me was that it only occurred to the family to check out other state schools.

They should also be looking at private schools. The latest report on private school pricing, which was released this week, documented that the average tuition discount at private colleges and universities is now 53%.

8. Check prices before applying.

Don’t let your child apply to any state or private school without first using a net price calculator that will give you personalized estimate of what that school would cost you.

When checking out state universities as a nonresident you need to be careful that you are getting an accurate price.  If the calculator doesn’t ask about your state residency, the cost estimate will probably be wrong.

In this country, 80% of students attend state colleges and universities. It’s not surprising then when students, who want to attend a school outside their state, look to other public universities.

I have received three emails lately from parents, whose children hope to attend state universities as nonresidents. I am sharing their stories today and in my next post I’ll weigh in on what parents and students need to know before they consider selecting public universities outside their borders.

Story No. 1

Here is a note from a mom named Kimberly:

My daughter is going to an out-of-state college that will cost about $50,000 per year.  We told her we would help with the first year, but after that she will be on her own.  The school will not consider in-state for one year and she will need to be on her own, no help from mom & dad.

How can she attend this school this year without getting help from us?

Story No. 2

Here is a note from a dad named Dwight:

I recently read one of your blog entries concerning test scores and the impact on financial assistance.

It caught my eye for two reasons, first and foremost, it referred to Indiana University, the school that my son plans to attend this upcoming fall (2013).  The second, and probably more important reason, is that it indicated that financial assistance may be linked to test scores.  He has fairly high test scores (33 composite, 36 in science) and, being an out-of-state student (Ohio), every penny can help.

However, I’ve not been able to understand how he may qualify for some assistance.  Do you have any information that might help me navigate the world of IU to determine what aid, if any, might be available to him?

In a second email, Dwight shared more:

My son applied very late to IU and was not seriously considering IU until he made a visit there about a month ago.  IU won him over at that point.  Due to that, he didn’t apply for any scholarships or awards.  Additionally, he wouldn’t qualify as a low income student. He has received an estimated $5,500 in a Stafford Loan but that’s the extent of it.

Story No. 3

Here is a note from a mom from New Mexico:

We have four children, ages ranging from 27 to 15. Our 27 year-old graduated, our 22-year old is finishing this year. Our third child is our most academically hard-working one, and she is on track to graduate next year with a 3.8 GPA, having taken all Honors and AP courses available. She has yet to take the ACT, but an estimated test given her by her high school resulted in a 30.

She wants to go to school out of state, at a private or public school in Colorado, Arizona or California rather than stay here at our local university in New Mexico. We support her, as we think she has worked hard, is more serious about college, and would benefit from being in an enhanced academic environment.

My husband and I chipped away at our degrees here at our local university, finally graduating from college later in life by using student loans.  When I became a nurse, our income increased enough that we no longer qualified for aid for our second son who had maxed out his Stafford eligibility at 23K, so we borrowed PLUS loan money so he could complete his last year.

Over the past three years, our income jumped from approximately 70K per year to 140K, which I am assuming greatly impacts how much need based aid our daughter will be eligible for. We pay approximately $1,600 a month in total student loan payments.

We still help both boys with certain expenses, and we also have our youngest to think about. Do you have any thoughts or advice for a family such as ours?

What Do You Think?

As I mentioned, in my next post I’ll be weighing in on this trend of students attending public universities beyond their borders.

If you have any comments, please share in the box below.