More than 50 colleges including elite private schools and flagship state universities in Virginia and Maryland, have eliminated or capped loans in their financial aid portfolios for some or all students, promising enough aid in grants and work-study to cover most of the gap between what they charge and what each student can afford to pay.

What does this mean to you?

No loan doesn’t mean no cost, but by participating in work study and by taking advantage of university programs that are working to reduce the overall debt of students, the financial impact of a college education can be a softer blow for both parents and students.

Aid pledges help, but a college education remains a long-term investment. Parents either plan for the expense and sock away money, perhaps in a tax-advantaged 529 plan, or they leave the student to carry the debt burden into adult life. Many colleges with aid pledges still expect students to carry some loan debt, even if their families have saved for their schooling. It’s a higher-education maxim that students with a financial stake in their education are more likely to complete it.

For more information on how to participate in programs like these, call Reecy for a consultation and buy: How to Pay for College Without Going Broke

For the first time in the history of the Federal Pell Grant, students who have used all of their Pell Grant eligibility in the fall and spring semesters can receive additional grant funding for summer school.

The change, legislated by the 2008 Higher Education Opportunity Act, is designed to encourage students to enroll in summer school so they can graduate sooner.

If you would like more information on how to maximize your summer tuition savings, call Reecy for a free consultation.

Reecy’s prescription for success entailed having the family send him all award letters and financial documents including the 2009 tax return and access to the FAFSA and SAR.  After a thorough review, Reecy decided that a deftly crafted appeal letter was the only recourse. 

The family hired him for a one-time fee of <$500.  The appeal letter was mailed on 4-10, and 2 weeks later - success!  The student will join the Class of ‘14 in the fall!

If your student has been wait-listed, deferred or not been offered enough financial aid, call Reecy ASAP - 866.347.7890!  You’ve nothing to lose on a FREE evaluation, and everything to gain.  His most recent financial aid appeal resulted in $29,600 of financial aid when NONE was initially offered at Tulane!

1. Did you get a $5,500 guaranteed Stafford Loan?  If not, one awaits.  
2. Did you get a Federal Work-Study Award.  If not, did you request one on the FAFSA?  If you didn’t, correct your SAR and then ask for one - up to $4,000
3. Did You get a Perkins Loan?  If not, ask for one - max $4,000
4. If you live in the South and will attend in the North, did you get a winter clothing allowance?  If not, one can be obtained, but this takes craftiness and cleverness.  As much as $2,600 has been rec’d by students whose parents have hired me to appeal. 
5. If you’ll attend cross country, did you get an adequate travel allowance?
6. If 2010 income and assets are or will be substantially less than 2009, Professional Judgment can be invoked to completely revise your award
7. The list goes on…

In just a few short days the new revised FAFSA will be available at www.fafsa.ed.gov   But don’t carried away and submit it instantly!  Care should be taken to first qualify for maximum financial aid, before you submit your FAFSA.  We will be making suggestions and offering FREE advice assistance to any family who asks for it!  Just send us your comment or question, and you’ll get a live answer, not some canned response.  We’ve been helping college and college-bound families reduce the cost of a 2 or 4-year education since 1977 - longer than virtually all of the so-called “college funding experts.”  Tune in shortly after New Year for an update and our take on the new FAFSA.

Labor Day has come and gone and the serious business of applying to college awaits millions of students across the country.  SAT & ACT prep also continues at a feverish pace, and perhaps less schools will require those scores for the 2010-2011 school year.  Don’t think that just because you can withhold your scores that they won’t count!  If a colleges asks for them on the application, you had better tell the truth, because if a school finds out later that you didn’t report whatever they asked for, you could be in for trouble! Letters of recommendation (LOR’s) are being requested, and if they’re not fantastic, they won’t carry much weight.  Don’t send a college more than 2 LOR’s other than what they requested - that’s overkill and they won’t have time to read them.  More to follow…

For the past three decades Reecy has helped thousands of families send their kids to the college of their choice for less than they ever dreamed possible. If you have a question on admissions and/or financial aid, call the show, Reecy will surely have an answer!

Texas’ main college opportunity financial aid program would add tough academic standards and not just be based on a student’s economic need beginning in 2010 under a plan approved Thursday by a state higher education governing board.

The change in the Texas Grants program voted on by the Higher Education Coordinating Board is contingent on the Legislature approving $77 million in additional funding for scholarships for students attending community colleges.

Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes said changing the program to include higher academic standards would make the program fairer to students who apply for a Texas Grant. He said it also would make it easier to sell the Legislature on funding the program if it has a high success rate.

“I would like to make an argument to the Legislature that these are well-invested dollars,” Paredes said.

If the Legislature approves the additional funding, the new academic standards will be phased in over four years beginning in 2010.  For the rest of the story, click here.

Reported by Anne Ryman in The Arizona Republicrent a car bulgaria

Double-digit tuition increases could be in store for all undergraduate students at the University of Arizona and for new students starting in fall 2009 at Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University.

But students at two of the three state universities, ASU and NAU, would get a bit of a break in future years as they would be part of a guaranteed-tuition program designed to give them more predictability over future costs.

Presidents of the three state universities announced their tuition recommendations this afternoon, which range from increases of 10 to 14 percent depending on the university. If approved by the Arizona Board of Regents in December, it would mark the first time that base undergraduate tuition and fees cross the $6,000 mark at ASU and the UA. For the rest of the story, click here.

Reported by Peter Sacks in Newsday

“Society likes to think that the SAT measures people’s ability or merit. But no one in college admissions who visits the range of secondary schools we visit, and goes to the communities we visit - where you see the contrast between opportunities and fancy suburbs and some of the high schools that aren’t so fancy - can come away thinking that standardized tests can be a measure of someone’s true worth or ability.”

When I saw that quote in my morning newspaper the other day, I did a double-take to make sure I wasn’t in some odd parallel universe. The speaker wasn’t some rabble-rousing outsider to the higher education establishment - like me, for instance - taking another pot shot at the venerable SAT. No, that was William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard, who was now rocking the SAT’s boat.

He was referring to his work on a commission sponsored by the National Association of College Admissions Counseling, which has called upon the nation’s colleges and universities to reconsider their heavy reliance on standardized admission tests like the SAT. For the rest of the story, click here.