Five Key Strategies to Save Thousands on College

When talking about college debt, the statistics are never encouraging. In fact, the story gets sadder each year.  Statistics for 2021 indicate that 44.7 million Americans have student loans that collectively total $1.71 trillion in education debt. The key to avoid being part of this grim statistic is to consider some highly effective strategies.

1) When choosing potential colleges, students should not necessarily reach for the stars – unless it’s to a college with an impressive endowment. When students apply to colleges a tier below the level where they would likely get accepted, the scholarship money is almost always much greater.  Students planning to major in business, for example, often identify NYU’s Stern School of Business where the cost hovers around $75,000 a year. These same students could reasonably expect to be welcomed at St. John’s University in New York, Drexel and St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, and a host of other institutions with impressive business schools, substantially lower costs of attendance, and generous merit money (to attract strong students) which does not get paid back.

New Jersey College Education Now Affordable to All

New Jersey college-bound students in households with adjusted gross incomes of $65,000 or less will have many options, starting this fall, to receive their higher education tuition free.

Rutgers, New Jersey City, Saint Peter’s and Stockton universities have all pledged to cover tuition and fees for students with family incomes below $65,000 or $60,000. These universities are providing new options to the “Community College Opportunity Grant Program,” which was signed into law just weeks ago, offering free tuition at all of New Jersey’s two-year community colleges for up to five semesters. This program, as well, is open to families with adjusted gross incomes of $65,000 or less. Full time undergraduates receive grants to cover 100% of their tuition and fees after other scholarships and federal and state grants are applied.

Cut Time, Money and Stress on the Road to Success

College bound students who know what they want to do with their life can often cut years of education, a great deal of stress, and a substantial amount of money from their higher education experience.

Many colleges offer dual degree programs whereby students move right into a Masters or Doctorate degree program upon completing their undergraduate education.  They often do not have to take entrance exams, eliminating the need to repeat the stressful process of preparing for, and taking, standardized tests.  Basically, as long as they meet certain requirements during their undergraduate years, they move right into the advanced degree program in their chosen field.

End of SAT II Means Greater Emphasis on AP Exams

Students eyeing the most competitive colleges and universities, until now, had to post impressive scores on two SAT II exams as well as on the crucial SAT. But College Board’s recent announcement that SAT II exams will no longer be offered has shifted the focus to Advanced Placement (AP) courses and the culminating exams.  

There are currently 38 AP courses in the Arts, English, History & Social Science, Math & Computer Science, Science, and World Languages & Cultures, although not all are offered at every high school. The curriculum for each of these courses is written by The College Board – the same folks who bring you the SAT – and there is an exam for each course in May.  Students who score 3 or higher (on a scale of 1 to 5) are offered college credits at many of the nation’s colleges and universities. The popularity of AP exams has steadily increased from 2010, when 3.2 million tests were administered, to 2019, when 5.1 million tests were taken. (The number decreased slightly in 2020, to 4.8 million tests, as Covid moved the exam online, in a condensed version, throughout most of the country.)