The Tools of the Rich Propel Poor Kids Through College
A girl grows up on food stamps and becomes an engineer. New research shows why. Educators have long struggled to help students like Tiaja Harley earn bachelor’s degrees, the surest route to the middle class. Raised by a single mother … Continued
College Financial Aid: What Parents and Students Need to Know Starting Oct. 1
Special attention for the 2021-22 school year will be given to appeals based on family income reductions due to Covid-19 For many families, this year’s process of applying for financial aid might be notably different than it was in the … Continued
The Secrets of Elite College Admissions
In the final ‘shaping’ of an incoming class, academic standards give way to other, more ambiguous factors Last year, when high-school seniors applied to college, they never could have imagined the mess that a global pandemic would create for their … Continued
How to Appeal College Financial-Aid Decisions
The coronavirus and economic downturn will make it easier for parents to make a case for more money. But it also means the competition for aid will be greater. Financial-aid award letters have arrived or will soon arrive for graduating … Continued
The Alphabet Soup of Financial-Aid Abbreviations
College-aid offers are often filled with abbreviations students and their families might not understand. Here is a cheat sheet. As high-school seniors mull college acceptances and decide where to attend college in the fall, the economic turmoil created by the … Continued
How to Get a Big Break on the Cost of College: Just Ask
The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated a yearslong shift in bargaining power away from colleges and toward families, which are quite prepared to treat tuition as they would a car’s price: something to haggle over. When a college accepted Frances Marcel’s … Continued
Being first in family to go to college can be bumpy road
A caravan of aunts, uncles, and cousins drove Alexandra Bernadotte from Mattapan to Dartmouth College in 1988, a triumphant parade of sorts for the Haitian immigrant family. But if getting into Dartmouth was a dream come true for Bernadotte, graduating … Continued
The Long Way Round: Insights From A First Generation College Student
Troy Seppala, student of Communication at the University of Colorado, is in the first generation of his family to attend university. He transferred to CU-Boulder from a community college in his hometown of Vancouver, WA. Now entering his final semester … Continued
Low-income students remain rare at elite universities
As the Trump administration takes aim at race-based college admissions policies, many of the country’s most competitive schools, including Ivy League universities, are struggling with an equally vexing problem: how to create more economic diversity on their campuses, giving strong … Continued
What Should Teenagers’ Summer Plans Include? Adult Mentors
As teenagers make plans for the summer, several questions pop up. What do they want to do? Do they need to make money? To these we should add a question that might not always jump to mind: Will they have … Continued