College Affordability Archives - Educational Avenues | College Planning | Boarding Schools

Control Your College Costs!

College planning means knowing which strategies will work for you. Control your College Costs instead of college costs controlling you!

Learn the key terms in the college financial aid alphabet soup! For example, the Cost Of Attendance, COA, is like the MSRP (Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price) of a car. Unfortunately, colleges don’t announce the upcoming academic year’s costs until the summer before the student starts, so many parents are paying for college not knowing the sticker price until just a few months before the new academic year.

In a discussion with the Associate Director of Admissions at Boston University, said if parents […]

Control Your College Costs!

College Affordability for Everyone

Would you like to know how to pay less for college and get a good return on your investment? I’ve watched college prices increase exponentially, over the last thirty years. If I learned anything, it is that families really worry about the whole college “thing” from when their child is born, in elementary, middle, and high school. The national psyche is focused on this preeminent goal. Parents want to make sure their kids will be successful adults, able to support themselves and be happy.

There are 5,300 colleges in the U.S. alone. There are choices. In fact, there are so many […]

College Affordability for Everyone

SATs/ACTs and Scholarships

The headlines among the college counseling community is that most colleges have gone test optional, which means they will not be requiring standardized tests scores such as the SATs or ACTs for admission. Many students cast a sigh of relief! Few students enjoy these high-stakes tests. Starting in March 2020, the College Board and ETS cancelled the testing dates and closed testing sites due to the fear of spreading the Covid-19 virus. Students are fearful of sitting for the three-and-one-half hours in a potentially crowded, unventilated room to take these tests. As a result, many colleges have gone test optional […]

SATs/ACTs and Scholarships

Strategic Enrollment Management’s Effect on Students and Parents

Many parents and students don’t know that colleges employ specific strategies to recruit students. They may wonder “Why did I get this amount of financial aid?” or, “Why did one college give a larger scholarship than another?”

There’s a little-known strategy that plays a major role in the amount of scholarship and financial aid that colleges award to families. It’s called “Strategic Enrollment Management” or SEM. This is a powerful tool that colleges use to recruit students. It involves regression analysis to predict enrollment results. It’s like running an experiment and assigning a value to an independent variable and watching the […]

Strategic Enrollment Management’s Effect on Students and Parents