The Wall Street Journal had an informative article yesterday about the 529 college-savings plans and how best to take advantage of them when saving for the college educations of your progeny. The 529 plans were a bit murky for a few years—confusion as well as unsettling rumors about ‘bad’ 529 plans that would end up being more of a hindrance than a help. Jane J. Kim has written an excellent article about the whole concept of the 529, how they work, why they make economic sense, which states have the better versions and which have the plans to be avoided, and why implementing an out-of-state plan can still work to your advantage (even after taxes). Read up and start saving.

Tax-advantaged 529 plans have exploded in popularity in recent years, becoming the college-savings vehicle of choice for many parents. In a 529 plan, savers put after-tax dollars into an account that typically offers a wide range of mutual funds. Distributions and earnings are tax-free, as long as they’re used for higher education. Investors can invest in any plan, although they may get an additional state tax break if they invest in their own state’s plans.

Below are the best and worst plans as assessed by investment researcher Morningstar Inc.

Best 529 College-Savings Plans:

Colorado Scholars Choice College Savings Program
Illinois Bright Start College Savings Program
Maryland College Investment Plan
Virginia CollegeAmerica
Virginia Education Savings Trust

Worst 529 College-Savings Plans:

Mississippi Affordable College Savings Program
Mississippi Affordable College Savings Advisor Program
Nebraska AIM College Savings Plan
New York 529 College Savings Program
Ohio Putnam CollegeAdvantage Plan

Posted by Alexa Harrington

The New York Times did a story on the growing trend of public universities charging higher tuition for degrees in lucrative fields such as business and engineering. This practice brings up many issues including price sensitivity for poor students who may stay away from majoring in business. Some worry that students who are charged more for their major will stick to the courses in their field to feel that they are getting their money’s worth. Many are concerned that public universities have disregarded the premise that a well-rounded higher education is for the common good of society. Private universities who are not faced with the same budget constraints are avoiding differential pricing.

Starting this fall, juniors and seniors pursuing an undergraduate major in the business school at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, will pay $500 more each semester than classmates. The University of Nebraska last year began charging engineering students a $40 premium for each hour of class credit.

And Arizona State University this fall will phase in for upperclassmen in the journalism school a $250 per semester charge above the basic $2,411 tuition for in-state students.

Such moves are being driven by the high salaries commanded by professors in certain fields, the expense of specialized equipment and the difficulties of getting state legislatures to approve general tuition increases, university officials say.

“It is something of a trend,” said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.

Even as they embrace such pricing, many officials acknowledge they are queasy about a practice that appears to value one discipline over another or that could result in lower-income students clustering in less expensive fields.

“This is not the preferred way to do this,” said Patrick V. Farrell, provost at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “If we were able to raise resources uniformly across the campus, that would be a preferred move. But with our current situation, it doesn’t seem to us that that’s possible.”

It’s not that I’m condoning bank robbery (people tend to get hurt). Plus, you know, it’s wrong. But aside from the danger, the stupidity and the blatant law-breaking, there’s a tiny part of me that’s glad for this excellent illustration of how impossible tuition rates have become. Maybe we’ll all get lucky and the Powers That Be will take note and change their tuition-jacking ways. It’s funny that when schools do it, it’s called “tuition increase”, but when students do it, it’s called “bank robbery”. Perhaps the students lack the requisite authority to rob people blind.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

The Princeton Review, for 25 years, has been coming out with a list of best value schools, both public and private.

Here’s their newest list of “best value” public schools:

1. New College of Florida
2. Truman State University, Kirksville, Mo.
3. University of North Carolina at Asheville
4. University of Virginia, Charlottesville
5. University of California — Berkeley
6. University of California — San Diego
7. University of California — Santa Cruz
8. University of Minnesota, Morris
9. University of Wisconsin — Madison
10. St. Mary’s College of Maryland, St. Mary’s City, Md.

And now a drumroll for the “best value” private colleges:

1. Rice Univ. (Houston, TX)
2. Williams College (Williamstown, MA)
3. Grinnell College (Grinnell, IA)
4. Swarthmore College (Swarthmore, PA)
5. Thomas Aquinas College (Santa Paula, CA)
6. Wabash College (Crawfordsville, IN)
7. Whitman College (Walla Walla, WA)
8. Amherst College (Amherst, MA)
9. Scripps College (Claremont, CA)
10. Harvard College (Cambridge, MA)

It’s difficult to value these rankings without know what criteria was used. Here’s a quote explaining the logic behind the numbers.

Said Robert Franek, Princeton Review VP-Publishing, “Families searching for colleges with excellent academics, generous financial aid packages and / or relatively low costs of attendance will find outstanding choices in this book. We selected the 165 schools for this edition and its two top 10 ranking lists based on data we collected from 650 institutions during the 2005-2006 academic year and our surveys of students attending them. To winnow our list of “best values,” we considered more than 30 factors in four areas: academics, tuition, financial aid and student borrowing.”

With students graduating from college with more loans than ever before, this might not be a bad list to make a note of. The average student graduates with about $19,000 in loans. Check out this article for some advice on how to pick a school you can afford. One piece of very good advice the author offers is to stick to federal loans - you’ll be thankful when your loans start accumulating interest. Private loans will have higher interest rates and might start accruing interest immediately rather than when you graduate.

Posted By Sindya Bhanoo
School | school, college, greek

If you are an undergraduate or graduate student, you’re most likely filling out a FAFSA - the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. I filled mine out recently and was curious about all the information that I was being asked to excavate like - “my credit for federal tax on special fuels.” A recent New York Times article just shed some light on this for me. The article suggests that perhaps, the government is collecting more information than it needs through the FAFSA.

“The government is collecting way more information than is needed to calculate someone’s aid,” says Judith Scott-Clayton, a doctoral candidate at Harvard who is studying higher education.”

For most families, all that matters in the final number crunching is the adjusted gross income from the year prior, according to the Times article. As a result some industry specialists are calling for a simpler, shorter FAFSA form. I’d be all for that.

A useful tool that I found out about through this article is the Fafsa4caster, a nifty tool that allows families to calculate approximately what sort of financial aid they can expect.
Posted by Sindya Bhanoo
school, college, greek | tips

College, and graduate school, are great opportunties to learn a language. Languages require at least a little bit of dedicated study time every day, and since you’re already in study mode this isn’t as hard to do. And in an increasingly globalized society, language skills are some of the best skills you can acquire.

There is quite a bit of funding for students who are interested in learning languages. Here are a few scholarships and grants that are out there:

1) Foreign Language And Area Studies (FLAS) - This scholarship covers tuition and provides a generous stipend. Contact your university’s scholarship office to find out more. They also offer $4000 scholarships for summer study.

2) NSEP Boren Programs - These scholarships fund students to study foreign languages in the United States and Abroad. There is, however, a service component that you must satisfy aftwards - this may involve working for the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, State, or the Intelligence Community.

3) Corinne Jeannine Schillings Foundation scholarship - Scholarships for Girl Scouts who are pursuing a college major or minor in a foreign language.

4) Foreign Language Enhancement Program - The Committee of Institutional Cooperation is a consortium of 12 universities that sponsor students to study languages at other universities over the summer.

5) Rotary Cultural Ambassadorial Scholarship - The Rotary Club offers scholarships in the amounts of $10,000-$15,000 to study a foreign language for three or six months abroad.

Posted By Sindya Bhanoo

College | Foreign Languages

Getting into medical school, any medical school, is tough. The top medical schools in the country only accept about 5% of applicants.

Now, if you want to be a doctor, you can study in Cuba, and you can do it for free.

The New York Times recently did a story on the Latin American School of Medical Sciences.

The Latin American School of Medical Sciences, on a sprawling former naval base on the outskirts of this capital, teaches its students medicine Cuban style. That means poking at cadavers, peering into aging microscopes and discussing the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power 48 years ago.

The curriculum includes studying medicine, and a bit of communist theory.

The Cuban government offers full scholarships to poor students from abroad, and many, including 90 or so Americans, have jumped at the chance of a free medical education, even with a bit of Communist theory thrown in.

Tahirah Benyard is one such student.

Tahirah Benyard, 27, a first-year student from Newark, said it was Cuba’s offer to send doctors to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, which was rejected by the Bush administration, that prompted her to take a look at medical education in Cuba.

Those from the United States in particular insist that they want to become doctors, not politicians. They recoil at the notion that they are propaganda tools for Cuba, as critics suggest.

Most students who are lucky enough to get into American medical schools end up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

It’s an interesting proposition - study medicine on an island for free. Of course, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Posted by Sindya Bhanoo
Medical School|Tuition

As bizarre as it may sound, a recent New York Times article revealed that parents believe that a higher tuition at a university translates into a better education for their child.

Ursinus College in eastern Pennsylvania, realized this and a few years ago made a decision.

“…in 2000 the board voted to raise tuition and fees 17.6 percent, to $23,460 (and to include a laptop for every incoming student to help soften the blow). Then it waited to see what would happen.

Ursinus received nearly 200 more applications than the year before. Within four years the size of the freshman class had risen 35 percent, to 454 students. Applicants had apparently concluded that if the college cost more, it must be better.”

The same holds true, apparently, at many other schools around the country - including some brand name ones like Bryn Mawr and Rice University.

While increasing tuition, the universities also end up sweetening their aid packages. It all, essentially, works out to be the same. The originally price tag, though, suddenly looks more Louis Vuitton than Coach, or Jansport for that matter.

Posted by Sindya Bhanoo
Tuition|College Admissions