The College Solutions Blog

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

Student debt
November 3, 2011

States With the Highest and Lowest Student Debt

Student loan debt is at its highest level ever. That’s the conclusion of a new report released on Thursday by The Project on Student Debt. Two thirds of students in the class of 2010 graduated with college debt that averaged $25,250, which is the highest it’s ever been. Students mostly borrowed through federal loans, but at least 22% of the...
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December 5, 2010

Should You Attend Your Dream College?

This is the time of year when high school seniors and their parents begin reciting this age-old advice:  Follow your dreams. Families tend to use this advice to justify their children attending expensive dream colleges even if these schools will require taking on crushing student debt. I am a huge advocate of families researching schools before hand to see if...
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May 30, 2010

New York University: Tale of 2 Students

Today I’m going to use New York University as a punching bag. I’m going to use NYU to illustrate how too many well-meaning families muddle through the college process and end up looking for the most highly ranked colleges without considering the price. Some of these families end up like Cortney Munna, a 26-year-old woman, who is facing nearly $100,000...
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May 11, 2010

Cushy Student Loan Repayment Plan: Will It Boost College Costs for Everyone Else?

Is a generous federal loan repayment program that Congress recently made even better going to increase the cost of college for everybody? It’s an interesting question that’s being posed by Daniel L. Bennett, who is a research and policy analyst at the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. In a Forbes article, Bennett argues that the federal student loan repayment...
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December 7, 2009

Student Loan Consolidation and Other Student Debt Strategies

What’ the right way to pay back your student debt? It’s a question that puzzles a lot of college graduates, who are trying to figure out how to best juggle their student loans. For some college grads, student loan consolidation will be a smart idea. What’s also important is choosing the right payment option for student debt. Kathy Kristof, a...
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December 6, 2009

States with High Student Debt and More

10 Best and Worst States for Student Loan Debt Many of the states with the highest student loan debt levels are in the Northeast. In contrast, the states with the lowest student debt levels are in the West and South. That was one of the subjects that I wrote about last week for CBSMoneyWatch.com.  In my post,  I shared the...
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September 25, 2008

The Student Debt Tipping Point

If a teenager plans to major in theater or social work should he or she assume more student debt than a kid who plans to become an engineer or an accountant? Most families aren’t concerned about the earnings potential of their children when exploring colleges. According to a recent commentary in The Christian Science Monitor, 70% of students and parents...
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