Tag: choosing a college


Podcast: Social media and college admissions

Posted on August 27th, 2014

How should you choose a college?

Do colleges follow prospective students on social media?

How does social media affect college admissions?

In the podcast below, productivity expert Erik Fisher speaks with Higher Scores Test Prep and answers these questions and more.

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Purdue president calls on colleges to reduce costs

Posted on August 25th, 2014

"Instead of asking our students' families to adjust their budgets to our spending, let's try to adjust our spending to their budgets for a while." -- Mitch Daniels

College costs have gotten out of control, but rarely do you hear a college administrator take responsibility for rising costs. Instead, they announce tuition increases with promises that they’ve “increased financial aid.” But Mitch Daniels, President of Purdue University, isn’t like most college administrators. In a recent appearance on CNBC, he blamed colleges themselves for […]

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College rankings haven’t changed in 100 years

Posted on August 19th, 2014

"The fact that a chart from 1911 — when 3 percent of Americans went to college — could so accurately predict the reputations a century later of the universities it did rate illustrates a central problem with ever-popular college rankings." -- Libby Nelson

Every year, U.S. News & World report famously releases a list of America’s Best Colleges. While many other publications create their own lists, the U.S. News rankings are taken the most seriously by parents and prospective college students. The list is so revered that colleges even attempt to game their admissions policies to appear more […]

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These 5 states have the best colleges for your money

Posted on August 6th, 2014

We recently wrote about a new set of college rankings based on which colleges provide the best value for your money.

A few states dominated the list and were home to several colleges that provide students with a great bang for their tuition buck. Watch the video to find out what they were.

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The best colleges for your money

Posted on July 29th, 2014

There’s no perfect method for ranking colleges, and every media organization that releases a list has its own standards and criteria.

We tend to focus on lists that take a college’s value compared to its cost into account and which colleges leave their graduates with little student debt.

That’s why we’re intrigued–and a little surprised–at these latest rankings from Time Money. The newsmagazine recently ranked 1,500 four-year colleges by which colleges offer the most bang for your tuition buck.

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Which college will give you the most valuable degree?

Posted on July 21st, 2014

It’s not easy to quantify how much a college degree is worth in dollars. While we know that college graduates make $830,000 more by retirement on average than their less-educated peers, that number can vary widely by individual, college, major and more.

And of course, there are many intangible benefits to going to college. But with costs topping $60,000 at some colleges and continuing to rise, more students and families are realizing they need to consider a college’s future value when determining where to invest their tuition dollars.

A new college-ranking system makes that easier by ranking colleges based on how much better off graduates are financially once they earn a degree.

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A community college transfer checklist

Posted on July 17th, 2014

We’ve written quite a bit about the benefits of starting your bachelor’s degree at a community college to save money on your education.

To make the process easier, SALT has put together a handy infographic showing a semester-by-semester breakdown of how to succeed at a community college and put yourself in the best position possible to get into and pay for a 4-year college.

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Cost of college tops $60,000 at 50 colleges

Posted on July 11th, 2014

It’s no secret that college tuition has risen dramatically over the past two decades. According to the College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees for the 2013–2014 school year was $30,094 at private colleges.

But the news that 50 colleges now charge more than $60,000 per year, according to Business Insider, makes that $30,000 bill look like a bargain.

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Did need-blind admission create the college debt crisis?

Posted on July 7th, 2014

"In sum, 'need-blind' admissions, summoning a mental image of the coal miner or bus driver’s daughter striding her way across the college green, quite often leaves that daughter 60 or 70 thousand dollars in debt." -- John McWhorter

Many of the nation’s top universities, such as Harvard, Stanford and Duke, are lauded for having need-blind admissions policies, meaning they don’t take into account a student’s ability to pay for college when making admissions decisions. These schools say the policy a way to make sure the best students are accepted because of their merit, […]

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1/3 of high school graduates didn’t go to college last year

Posted on June 30th, 2014

With college tuition rising every year and student debt at an all-time high $1.2 trillion, it’s not surprising that students and families have begun to question whether college is actually worth the cost.

Most likely due to high costs, high school graduates are choosing to forgo college in favor of working. But at what cost?

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