The College Solutions Blog

January 5, 2010

For  some parents, the FAFSA form has gotten simpler. And you can thank the Internal Revenue Service for that. Families which complete the online application for the spring 2010 semester will be able to push a button and import their IRS tax figures right into their Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Thanks to the IRS’s involvement, parents won’t have...

December 15, 2009

This is the time of year when families of high school seniors start asking questions about financial aid forms. Most parents will only need to complete the FAFSA or Free Application for Federal Student Aid. A few hundred private schools also require the CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE. I just got a call from a dear friend, who had been notified by...

December 10, 2009

This is the time for parents of high school seniors to start thinking about applying for financial aid. I was reminded of that today when the college counselor at my son’s high school asked me to talk to his advisory group about the FAFSA and the CSS Financial Aid Profile. Just about everybody in the room had heard of the...

November 28, 2009

College Drinking: Top Five Risk Factors Which college students are more likely to be problem drinkers? One of the three college blog posts that I wrote for CBSMoneyWatch this week shared the top five risk factors for college drinking.  I bet most people can guess that one of the biggest college drinking risk factors is a heavy Greek presence on...

November 18, 2009

Wondering if you should apply for financial aid. Here’s the answer: Yes.  You should file for financial aid. During the past few hours, I heard that advice over and over. I was on the phone for a good part of the day interviewing financial aid experts for a story about the upcoming changes to the FAFSA or Free Application for...

October 18, 2009

As usual, I’m sharing with you the posts that I wrote for my college blog for CBSMoneyWatch.com last week.  It was challenging for me to get them done because my son and I were traveling in the Midwest looking at colleges for the last time. Here are my three most recent posts: Want to Succeed in Business? Play Poker. I’m...

June 26, 2009

I wanted to share with you three college posts that I wrote this week for my other college blog  at CBSMoneyWatch. Hope you enjoy them! 1. Shrinking Your Federal Student Loans A great federal program will begin this coming Wednesday that will provide relief to many borrowers who are struggling with repaying their federal student loans. 2. Declawing the FAFSA...

June 24, 2009

Hallelujah. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is getting simplified. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan  announced plans to make the FAFSA, which includes 135 questions on assets and income, more user friendly today. The news isn’t surprising. At his confirmation hearing, Duncan had this to say about the FAFSA form: “You basically have to have a Ph.D. to...

April 28, 2009

Everybody whose child is in college or is heading there in the fall needs to repeat after me:  I will not leave money on the table. Huh? I suggested the oath after I discovered that millions of students are not applying for federal student aid. According to a new analysis by Mark Kantrowitz, who runs FinAid.org, 8.4 million students never...

February 22, 2009

It’s hardly news that the FAFSA is a pain to fill out. There’s been many calls in Washington to dumb down the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, but nothing has worked yet. The New York Times published a front-page story today on the latest calls to simplify the federal financial aid form. Reformers suggest there are a couple of...