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.)

Personalization Is Key to Successful Applications

The existence of The Common Application, which is accepted by more than 900 colleges nationwide, has resulted in many high school students applying to ten or more colleges.  This has significantly impacted the college admission process.  Colleges and universities are all concerned with their yield – the percent of accepted students who actually enroll – as this greatly impacts their rankings.  It is therefore only natural that colleges will favor applicants who display a strong interest in their school and indicate, in some way, that they will likely enroll if accepted.

The key to standing out from the hundreds, or even thousands, of other applicants with similar SAT scores and GPAs is to personalize all applications.  Let colleges know exactly why you are particularly attracted to their school and the specific ways you would contribute to the campus community.

Common App Essay Prompts 2021-22 Now Revealed

Back in 1975, administrators from fifteen colleges got together and decided to create one application that students could use to apply to any or all of their colleges. This was the birth of “The Common App” which, as of 2021, is accepted by more than 900 colleges and universities across the United States.  More than one million students are expected to use this year’s Common App – which will go live with its latest updates on August 1st – to file about six million applications. But college-bound students can get started on the most time-consuming part of the application right now.

An integral component of The Common App is an essay of 250 to 650 words that is required by the majority of its participating colleges. Students have a choice of seven essay topics, one of which states, “Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.” So, the topic options are truly limitless!

High School Grades Can Earn a Huge Monetary Reward

“High School Grades Could Be Worth $100,000. Time to Tell Your Child?” That’s the title of a recent New York Times article, written by the prestigious newspaper’s “Your Money” columnist, Ron Lieber, who also penned a newly-released book, “The Price You Pay for College: An Entirely New Road Map for the Biggest Financial Decision Your Family Will Ever Make.”  

The focus is the huge impact that “merit aid” plays on discounting the price that students and families actually pay for their undergraduate education. Lieber compares college classrooms to airplane cabins, with people paying vastly different amounts for the same experience.

There are certain criteria that affect admissions and financial aid offers that are out of a student’s control, such as parents’ income, zip code, and other demographic information.  But there is much that is within a student’s power, such as high school grades (starting with the first semester of freshman year) and SAT scores. That’s the topic that Lieber recommends parents and their children talk about.