College Admissions Counseling Blog

President Bush today signed legislation today that will help low income and middle income students pay for college. The amount available under the Pell grant will increase over the next 5 years from the current $4,310 to $5,400 a year. While it is also helpful to have more money available for the Pell grant which is for the lowest income families, the reality is that the increasing costs of college will more than offset any minor increase in the Pell grant.

The other part of the legislation decreases the interest rate on federally backed student loans from the current 6.8% to 3.4% over the next 4 years. This is a direct benefit to those students who borrow to pay for their college education. While the benefit from this legislation will most likely be touted by both sides as evidence of their commitment to higher education, I would like to see even greater contribution to higher education by the federal government. Higher education is so critical today that it is incumbent on the government to be fully involved in helping students afford this education. Will it potentially increase taxes? Yes, but one of the critical jobs of the government is to help educate its populace. I think this is money well spent.

The project on student debt has released their state by state data regarding the student debt level at colleges around the country. The site lists the average debt of students graduating from college in 2006 for each state in the US. More importantly, you can look at debt information about specific colleges under each state. The information available includes the average debt of graduates from 2006 and 2005, the proportion of students with debt in 2006 and 2005, full time enrollment, the instate tuition costs and the percent of students receiving Pell grants.

To get to the particular college information just click on the state in which the college of interest is located. Knowing the average amount of student debt for each college of interest should be a critical piece of the puzzle in deciding which colleges you wish to apply to and ultimately attend. The information presented also will reinforce what I have often said. The stated cost of a college is not a number that most people should be concerned with. You want to know how much a college is going to cost you. The data available in this website provides some of that information.

A test prep company, ePrep, is now offering free PSAT prep including 2 full PSAT practice tests. I assume that the company is offering the free PSAT prep in the hope that students will then buy their SAT prep program. I don't know anything about this company other than what I read on their website but it rarely hurts to practice for any standardized test. There is little available on the web involving free PSAT prep as most sites just focus on the SAT.

I am not a huge fan of paying for test prep but there are students that can benefit from such a program. With a free offer, I would recommend that people give the prep a try to see if it helps. Although the PSAT is not used by any college for admissions purposes, it is the test used to determine National Merit Scholars so doing well on the test can have some real benefits.

The UCAN (University and College Accountability Network) today introduced their version of a college search site meant to provide information to prospective students. Although the format is colorful and generally easy to get around I was disappointed in the site overall. There are a number of well known colleges that are not listed when a search is done and when a search is done to find colleges within a certain distance of a zip code, there are colleges missed that are in the database. Futhermore, the search capability is weak and the available information is no greater than what is generally available in other sites.

I applaud the UCAN group for working on an alternative to the information provided by US News but this site needs a lot of work to be as useful as the IPEDS/COOL site which was just revamped this week.

The US Department of Education has a new college search site available called College Navigator. This site is part of the redone IPEDS/COOL site that I have mentioned before as providing information for students seeking a college. College Navigator allows students to search colleges for different criteria much like several other websites. The nice thing about this, however, is the results tie into the information provided by the colleges themselves to the Department of Education. This generally provides the most accurate information about the colleges that is available. Remember, however, that like most information about colleges, the data is at least one year out of date.

IPEDS/COOL was a helpful site before and the new website is even better.

Several weeks ago we mentioned that Yale was considering an expansion of its freshman class. Now the president of Stanford has opened the same discussion in the Stanford Alumni magazine. In the article the president of Stanford mentions many of the same arguments for expansion that Yale has raised. The effect of Stanford expanding would be the same as Yale's expansion. More students admitted into these extremely competitive colleges would mean more places available down the academic food chain. And if more students have the opportunity for a great education by going to Stanford, Yale or any of the schools that would lose students to those schools then everyone benefits.

Congress has passed legislation cutting huge federal subsidies to institutions making student loans and instead are giving most of the money to increased student financial aid. The Washington Post has reported the details as well as an indication that the president will sign the bill despite early objections to various portions of the legislation.

There are many problems with federal financial aid for college students but this legislation is a step in the right direction with an increase in the amount of money available through Pell grants and a cut in the interest for student loans. Although it may cause a small increase in tax rates, the importance of providing higher education for all students that desire such an education is so important that the tax increase should not be a deterrent. Moreover, providing higher education to more students through increased financial aid will ultimately result in a more educated populace that can generate greater income and thus greater tax generation.

So you think you know what college is going to cost? It may cost more than you think, particularly if you are planning on attending a public college. Many colleges are now adding on extra fees for a variety of campus activities including a technology fee, health service fees and even a fee to pay for a school to move to Division I sports. There is an interesting article in the New York Times on the rise of hidden fees in the cost of college.

The solution here is to ask lots of questions of the college you are considering attending to make sure you know what the true cost of attending that college is.

Yale University has announced that it is considering plans to expand future classes by 200 students per year. Expanding the size of each incoming class would make Yale's class sizes closer in size to those at Harvard. While this may be good news for those students considering Yale, there is a believe that it would have some impact on a number of other colleges that are ranked lower than Yale. Enrollment experts expect that if Yale does increase its class size, colleges such as University of Pennsylvania and Columbia would be the colleges most likely to lose those students to Yale. And if those students aren't going to Penn or Columbia, then Penn and Columbia would have more room for other students who might have otherwise gone to .... You get the picture.

So if you have an interest in attending a selective college, this may be good news even if you weren't thinking about Yale as other colleges down the academic food chain might have more room for other students if Yale goes forward with the possible size increase.