Test-Optional Admissions Defined If your student is not a skilled test-taker, we have great news for you. Now, more than ever, colleges are ending requirements that applicants must submit SAT or ACT scores. This new trend in college admissions is known as “test-optional.” A test-optional college lets students decide whether they want to submit their…
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In-State College Is Not Always Cheaper When I was in high school growing up in Vienna, VA, my parents told me “Tim, you can go to any school that you want……but it has to be in Virginia.” So, I did! The oldest of four, I proudly attended the University of Virginia, hoping to pave the…
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In recent weeks, the GI Bill has received new attention because of a major change that the Department of Defense implemented on July 12, 2019. The DOD instituted a 16-year cap barring members with longer service times from transferring their Post 9/11 GI Bill education benefits to a spouse or dependents. What is the Post…
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Tracking Expenses When it comes to college, many people often overlook or underestimate the costs above and beyond tuition. Housing, food, student fees, sporting event tickets, textbooks, and even gas— these miscellaneous expenses build up over time. A 2016 study found that 43 percent of students don’t track their spending, while 58 percent said they…
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The old saying goes “one bite at a time.” Paying for College One Bite at a Time We want to pose our own question today: Is college really that expensive? The short answer is…YES! College is a very large expense and if you have multiple kids going to school, it could end up costing more…
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Do Not Wait Until Senior Year I often hear from parents saying, “my son/daughter will start applying for scholarships in their senior year.” I have often wondered why. Senior year is a tale of two drastically opposed semesters. First semester is a frantic flurry of SAT/ACT’s and college applications, in addition to class work and…
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This article was originally published on March 16, 2013. It was updated on June 20, 2019. One of the biggest problems in planning to pay for college is that most parents simply don’t understand the rules of the game. And it’s not as if the colleges are doing a great job of teaching us the…
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Loans, Loans, Loans, and More Loans There has been much talk lately in the media about the staggering amount of outstanding student loan debt. The statistics are alarming: At the end of 2018, almost 45 million Americans had outstanding student loans totaling $1.57 trillion. Student loan debt is second only to mortgage obligations, passing credit…
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A Possible Strategy to Help Minimize the Cost of College When I was in my first semester of college in the late ‘90s, the first book I read was the course guide book (and yes, it was a physical book then). I used it to figure out which classes would help me graduate quickly with…
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After giving almost a hundred college funding workshops on the East Coast in the past three years, one of the most common questions I receive is this: “In layman terms, can you explain all this EFC stuff?” It’s a simple question that should have a simple answer. Per the FAFSA website, the EFC (Expected Family…
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