‘Tis the heart of FAFSA season and though I’m on deadline (1 week till most priority financial aid applications are due) and buried under a mound of paperwork, I wanted to take a quick break to share the contents of a new study. The report, produced by the Center for the Study of Education Policy […]

Happy New Year! For many, today marks the first ‘real’ day back after the holiday revelry. Most people — my wife/partner included — like to spend that first week of the New Year slowly easing back into to their routine. Not so me. Once the ball drops in NYC, I get buried in FAFSAs. I’ve prepared […]

It’s been an exciting year at College Funding Specialists, and we are grateful to you, our subscribers, for tuning in each week as we share with you college planning insights and advice from the ‘trenches’. As the holiday season approaches, we want to inspire you with some of the most popular posts from our blog, […]

I received a call today from a frantic mom (let’s call her Lisa — not her real name), concerned about a conversation she had over the weekend with some peers about college and financial aid.  Lisa was told that financial aid was all loans, and she shouldn’t bother with the FAFSA. Let’s take a closer […]

 PSAT scores should be arriving at your local high school any day now.  Soon thereafter, the 11th and 10th grade students who took this exam back in October will receive their scores.  And once that happens, if you’re one of these students (or their parent), your college admissions process will have officially begun! Within a […]

I’ve received several questions this week about Bright Futures, the popular Florida scholarship funded by our Lotto dollars. The application for this state scholarship opens on December 1, so high school guidance counselors across the state are distributing information to students and parents about how to apply. There are a few different Bright Futures awards, […]

Today’s topic is price differentials in college tuition.   Huh!?! As many of you have heard me say, one of the more complicated concepts in all of college today is not figuring out how much college ‘costs’, but rather in calculating precisely how much it will cost you (as in personally).  It’s not the sticker […]

To a college finance geek like me, this is what I imagine ‘earning’s season’ must be like for a Wall Street whale. Several reports about college costs, value and debt have appeared in national publications, and I’m mired in college numbers. It seems like every time I hit refresh, I’ve got a new financial report […]

I love October! The Fall Classic. The start of stone crab season. The first crisp morning (theoretically, at least). And the endless virtual pile of the ‘almost perfect’ college applications that I am privileged to review every morning and evening as my students find their voices, dot i’s, cross t’s and eventually press ‘submit.’ October […]

I’m not usually one to sound an alarm, but I did want to give everyone a quick heads up about what the government-proposed mandatory spending reductions, also known as sequestration, could mean for families seeking financial aid in 2013.   According to a report released Friday (9/14/12) by the White House’s Office of Management and […]