The recent October Comstock’s Magazine–a business publication in our Sacramento region–featured Art’s & Jill’s advice to plan for rising college expenses and answer the all-important how to apply for scholarships question. Click here to read more. Financing a college education is a series of choices–sometimes over years. However, waiting until the first tuition bill arrives…
Tag: Parent
What’s the Least Amount I Will Have to Pay for College?
Free. How do we find a free college education or at least greatly reduced from the published price? Makes sense families are concerned about the costs of college and their ability to pay for those continuing-to-rise costs. Scholarships seem like the likeliest possibility for reducing the out-of-pocket costs. They are free money…(i.e. you don’t have…
The Pioneers Take All the Arrows
Risk takers are often discounted, pooh-poohed and can be actively campaigned against for stepping outside the status quo. Their daring to question what’s accepted challenges our seeming comfort, shining a light on the constant change surrounding us, yet can sometimes go by undetected. Think: Steve Jobs, fired from his own company than rehired to take…
College Selection: It’s an Imperative
College selection. College selection. Let me say it one more time…College Selection. College selection is the foundation of the college application process. It sounds so basic and simple, that families may not invest as much effort into this step–relying on a few campus visits and a short browse through a website. Yet, taking the time…
‘Tis the Season for College Fairs…
College Fairs are the trade shows of higher education. 100’s of colleges’ admissions officers standing behind long rows of tables, set up in a high school gym and everyone’s got shiny, thick papered brochures with 1000’s of parents and students wandering around, wrinkled maps in hand, waiting in lines for one, maybe two minutes of…
Guest Post: The Saving for College Challenge, Part One – How Can I Save For College
About the authors: For over 25 years, Cynthia S. Meyers, CFP®, MBA, has assisted people with their Lifetime Financial Planning–helping to build and preserve wealth in every area of life. Jenny Hood, CFP® has been a paraplanner with Cynthia S. Meyers for five years and enjoys being a part of the financial planning process. They…
Only 4% the Class of 2012 SAT Takers Scored 2100+
Ok. Ok. Mention the SAT to any senior and their parents, then take a step back. The anxiety of a 3 hour and 45 minute test, on top of the concerns about being accepted to a college or not, with the effort of 16-17 years worth of homework and driving all over the state for…
B.A. in Common Sense
“Common sense can be uncommon.”–Art Baird Every parent knows with certainty their kid is smart. As Montaigne said, “Everyman has within himself the entire human condition.” Yet, what does smart mean? How smart is smart? Is our current generation of budding adults–actually legally an adult–but mere months away from teenager-dome, lacking common sense? Have we,…
California’s Prop 30 and Possible CSU Tuition Increase
If Proposition 30, a tax increase initiative on the November ballot, doesn’t pass, CSU students and their families could be faced with an additional 5% tuition increase mid-school year, on top of the 5% increase that was instituted for before the Fall 2012 school year started. Similarly, UC students and their families are facing a…
Huh? A School Profile? What’s that Got to Do with My College Application?
The school profile comes through the counseling office and is sent as part of the counselor’s recommendation to private universities, as part of a senior’s college application. Often, its included alongside the Secondary School Report, as part of the Common Application. Why does this matter?
MAAAAIL CALL: ‘Tis the Season for College Brochures
This time of year glossy, thick papered brochures in big 8.5″ x 11″ envelopes, with personalized letters from colleges in far off places–like North Dakota and Ohio–as well as more known places, like Los Angeles or Seattle, begin arriving by the mailbox full to high school seniors all over the country; not to overlook the…
What?!? Colleges Possibly Going Bankrupt?
The changes to higher education and its price in California are partially in response to the recent state funding cuts. Students (and their families) are being asked to shoulder more of the costs of their education–in the form of increased tuition and fees, parking costs, per campus student activity fees etc. At the same time,…
Guest Post: Budgeting for the College Years
By: Lisa Dalton, California parent of a senior at the University of Oregon, and sophomore at Washington State University _________________________ With two kids in college, both at out of state universities, friends and neighbors ask all the time, “How do you do it?” The answer is planning, financial education, and sometimes hard choices.
College: Path to Adulthood?
“We treat our kids like adults when they’re children, and we infantilize them when they’re 18 years old.” –Jean Twenge (The Atlantic, July/August 2011) We routinely hear parents share concerns as their grown children are preparing to leave for college that laundry and food and budgeting–basics of managing life–won’t be done, nor learned. (Rarely, do…
Math May Not Be as Solid As You Think
Math problems may have one answer–yet not only one solution.