The College Solutions Blog

Valuable insights from Lynn O’Shaughnessy
a nationally recognized college expert.

Net Price
Featured image for “Measuring a School’s ROI with College Reality Check”
April 29, 2013

Measuring a School’s ROI with College Reality Check

In February, the U.S. Department of Education rolled out a new College Scorecard that families can use to research schools. If you missed it, I wrote a post on the day of the unveiling: The New Federal College Scorecard. The scorecard is a good first start to help families measure a school’s return on investment, but it needs work. If...
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August 7, 2012

Checking the Generosity of Your Child’s College Picks

When students are developing their college lists, most of them (unless their parents are wealthy and don’t mind writing monster checks) should be paying attention to the net price of all their school picks.  Net price is what a school will cost you after scholarships and grants are deducted. An email that I received from a mom over the weekend...
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June 14, 2012

Tuition Hogs: The Priciest Schools in America

This week the U.S. Department of Education released its second annual lists of college tuition hogs. For the record, the federal bureaucrats don’t call them them porkers. Congress mandated that the government compile and release annual lists of the five percent of colleges and universities that charge the highest and lowest tuition. The government assembles the lists based on each...
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June 14, 2012

Tuition Hogs: The Priciest Schools in America

This week the U.S. Department of Education released its second annual lists of college tuition hogs. For the record, the federal bureaucrats don’t call them them porkers. Congress mandated that the government compile and release annual lists of the five percent of colleges and universities that charge the highest and lowest tuition. The government assembles the lists based on each...
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March 30, 2012

A College with 942 Different Prices

College price tags are meaningless. If you’ve spent much time on my college blog you already appreciate that these numbers don’t mean anything, but most families don’t. About two thirds of students attending state and private schools receive scholarships or grants and the number rises to about 88% at private institutions, which have to offer more discounts for students to...
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January 5, 2012

Where You Can Find the Most Expensive Colleges and Universities

There are a lot of expensive colleges and universities in this country, but as I’ve mentioned many times before on my college blog, the sticker price is meaningless. The only figure that matters is the college’s net price. This is the price you get after any grants (free money) that you receive from a school are subtracted from the sticker...
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December 15, 2011

Searching for the True Price of a University

There are many websites that you can research the financial aid practices of individual schools. Today I’m going to focus on an especially helpful site — the federal College Navigator. The College Navigator is not flashy, but it contains incredible tools that tap into the US Department of Education’s vast college database. The College Navigator provides information on individual schools...
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July 26, 2011

The Nation’s 30 Most Expensive Colleges

If you’ve spent much time on my college blog, you already know that published college price tags are meaningless. Most students receive some type of price break, thanks to federal or state grants and/or discounts from the schools themselves. What is far more important than a sticker price is a school’s net price. It’s All About the Net Price A...
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July 1, 2011

Don’t Believe the Sticker Price: The Most Expensive Colleges in the Country

This week the U.S. Department of Education released lists of the most expensive state and private colleges and universities in America. The goal of pointing fingers, which was mandated by Congress, was to shine the spotlight on schools which don’t seem at all ashamed of their high prices. Here’s where you can find all the college lists. I wasn’t surprised...
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February 17, 2011

College Navigator: Checking a College's Generosity

There are many websites that you can research the financial aid practices of individual schools. Today I’m going to focus on an especially helpful site — the federal College Navigator. The College Navigator is not flashy, but it contains incredible tools that tap into the US Department of Education’s vast college database. The College Navigator provides information on individual schools...
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