College Sticker price has a real chilling effect!

The New York Times

By MATT FLEGENHEIMER

Published: April 13, 2012

Last fall, the Department of Education began requiring that colleges and universities install a “net price calculator” on their Web sites. The calculators estimate how much a student might actually have to pay, based on parents’ income, family circumstances and other factors that would guide a financial aid office at a particular campus. The goal, according to the secretary of education, Arne Duncan, is to “help potential degree seekers better understand which schools they can afford to attend and how much debt they will have to take on to get a degree.”

How is it working so far?

Like all things in their infancy, there are growing pains. For one, with the diversity of calculator options, comparisons between schools can be difficult. Many universities and colleges use a template provided by the Department of Education. Others have built their own, with more detailed surveys of users. More than 650 campuses subscribe to a calculator provided by a company called Student Aid Services. About 330 institutions use the version developed by the College Board.

“I tend to describe these as being good ballpark estimates of affordability, but not yet suitable for comparing colleges,” says Mark Kantrowitz, an expert on financial aid who founded the Web site finaid.org. “You can’t tell the difference between home plate and center field,” he says.

And so we asked a few currently enrolled students to test out the calculators using their own financials. They gave the calculators mixed reviews, in accuracy and ease in filling out. Read what they said

I'm Ron Denaro and thanks for joining College Campus Chatter today!

Ron Denaro is the president of College Campus Trips, a tour company providing high school students with tours of college campuses, nationwide. For more information, call (954) 567-5751 or e-mail: ron@collegecampustrips.com

The Private Sector to Build and Finance On-Campus Dormitories.

The New York Times
By RONDA KAYSEN
Published: January 24, 2012

With state budgets tight and demand for a college education at a high point, public universities across the country are increasingly turning to the private sector to build and finance on-campus dormitories.

Even before the recession, states found that companies that specialize in student housing could build residence halls more rapidly and cheaply than universities could. They can ease the burden of being a landlord. And perhaps most important, these partnerships free capital for facilities like classrooms and laboratories.

But as bad economic times make these arrangements even more appealing, the new efforts raise questions about how private ownership of dorms will affect student life and costs in years to come.

Public universities that have entered into or are considering such partnerships include the University of California, Irvine; Arizona State; Portland State; the University of Kentucky; and Montclair State in New Jersey, which in the fall opened the Heights, a two-tower complex with 2,000 beds and a 24,000-square-foot food court that officials say is the largest residence hall complex in the state. Read More

I'm Ron Denaro and thanks for joining College Campus Chatter today!

Ron Denaro is the president of College Campus Trips, a tour company providing high school students with tours of college campuses, nationwide. For more information, call (954) 567-5751 or e-mail: ron@collegecampustrips.com

On the Road Looking At College Campuses - Are you having fun yet?

The Boston Globe
By Joan Wickersham
July 22nd, 2011
Illustration by Gabriel Polonsky for The Boston Globe


WE ARE on the road, looking at colleges with our younger son. Enjoy the process, we have been told. Well, we sort of can, and we sort of can’t. He sits in the back seat, reading a book. A lot of the time he sleeps. Asleep, he still looks like the baby we brought home from the hospital.

We pull into the college parking lot. No matter what school it is, no matter what time of day, the lot is full. So is the admissions office: packed, jammed, kids and their parents and younger siblings, slumped in chairs, or standing, shifting nervously from foot to foot. There’s always a girl standing arm-in-arm with her father, and another girl scowling as her mother urges her to pick up the brochure, and a solemn family huddled together on a couch reading the brochure.

The admissions officer comes in, expresses amazement at how many people have showed up, and moves the group over to some larger venue: a chapel, a lecture hall, an auditorium. We trail across the quadrangle after her, a big straggly shuffling mob, crossing a street, stopping traffic: make way for anxiously-hoping-to-matriculate ducklings.

Once we are all seated, the admissions officer tells us how wonderful the school is. It excels in the humanities and in the sciences. It cares about its undergraduates, despite the fact that it’s a big university. Or: It offers its students the chance to do research, despite the fact that it’s a small college. Famous people teach there. Famous people went there. It has a core curriculum, or distributional requirements, or it doesn’t, for excellent well-thought-out reasons. It has dozens of student clubs and organizations, and if the one you want doesn’t exist then you can start it.

People listen, don’t listen, whisper, check their cell phones. A mother sitting near the front takes copious notes, filling three pages of a legal pad. The presentation is mouthwatering and dispiriting. The school is very selective. The admissions officer quotes some figures: the astronomical number of applicants, the microscopic number of acceptances. “But have fun with the process!’’ she says.

We shuffle out again. Our tour guides are waiting. The big mob is divided into smaller mobs, each of which trudges off behind a bright, kind student guide, who tells us how wonderful the school is, that it excels in the sciences and in the humanities, that it has dozens of student clubs and organizations and if the one you want doesn’t exist then you can start it. We pass classrooms, crowd into the foyer of a library, step inside a science building, tour a vast gymnasium. We are invited to ask questions. A father wants to know if the bathrooms are co-ed. A mother wonders about campus security. No one asks the big unanswerable questions but we are all thinking them: Will my child get in here? Would he or she be happy here? If not here, where? Read More

I'm Ron Denaro and thanks for joining College Campus Chatter today!

Ron Denaro is the president of College Campus Trips, a tour company providing high school students with tours of college campuses, nationwide. For more information, call (954) 567-5751 or e-mail: ron@collegecampustrips.com

Getting ready to go to college for the first time - Transform your dorm and win a $1,500 dorm room makeover from Dormify!

USA Today
College


Getting ready to go to college for the first time can be stressful — trying to squeeze in plenty of time with your friends before you all go your separate ways and spending so much time shopping when you don’t know what you will really need until you get there. Thank goodness for college checklists, right?

You want to make a statement about who you are when you get to campus (especially if you are going to a big school). What better way to attract people’s attention than with a customized dorm room? At Dormify, they truly believe that your dorm room should be as stylish and unique as you are. And now, they’re making it even easier!

Turn your pre-college nightmares into dreams by entering to win a $1,500 dorm room makeover from Dormify! You will have Dormify’s style experts on-call to help you through the process (because let’s face it, we can’t imagine what mom will be like on move-in day). It’s really simple — like our page on Facebook and click “Sweepstakes” under our profile picture to enter to win. Read More

I'm Ron Denaro and thanks for joining College Campus Chatter today!

Ron Denaro is the president of College Campus Trips, a tour company providing high school students with tours of college campuses, nationwide. For more information, call (954) 567-5751 or e-mail: ron@collegecampustrips.com

Sleeping With Strangers

The Real College Guide

By David Replogle,
University of Virginia

Your random roommate is a total stranger who'll sleep by your side and share your air for at least a semester. Here, how to make things (a little) less awkward.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to make it through freshman year shacked up with a stranger: your new roommate. Um, awkward. Want to reach out to your roomie lay down some laws -- and hopefully the groundwork for a great relationship? Here’s a five-step plan to increase your odds of survival at the foundation of your school social life: your dorm room.

1. Make Contact
A proper introduction sets the tone of the relationship, and breaking the ice early gives you a head start on addressing more pressing issues (like who’s bringing the Xbox -- see No. 3). So, once you get your roommate’s name and contact info, put it to good use by shooting him an e-mail or a Facebook friend request. If you’re feeling particularly brave, pick up the phone and dial those digits.

By the way, be careful not to jump to conclusions while stalking your roommate. “Facebook is just a way of getting that initial impression of the person and taking the ease off the nervousness,” says rising junior Jasmine Laroche of the University of Pittsburgh. “Actually spending time with and getting to know your roommate is your best bet.”

2. Meet and Greet
Meeting up before school starts gives you the chance to make a casual but high-quality first impression. Plus, it makes things a lot less awkward on move-in day, when you’ll likely be towing your parents and breaking a sweat emptying your stuff out of the ol’ minivan. A pre-screening allows you to calm your nerves too, since it means you’ll have one more familiar face (and one less unknown factor) come fall. So, if you’re attending a state school and your roomie lives nearby, there’s no excuse not to get together. But don’t give up on meeting if you’re a beach bum in So Cal and your future bunk buddy lives in the deep woods of Maine. You don’t need to be majoring in rocket science to sync your summer travel schedules and meet up. Otherwise, there’s always video chat.

3. Set Ground Rules
First off, make sure the two of you have similar packing plans for stuff you’re going to share, like a TV, large rug or mini-fridge. After you figure out who’s bringing what, it’s time to lay down the law.

You should discuss each of your expectations about staying up and waking up, partying, having guests over, cleanliness and borrowing each other’s things. (These are the most common conflicts, but they might not be the only ones.) There is no better time than the present to voice your opinion or strike some compromises, even if it results in early head-butting. It’s better than letting issues build up later, which can lead to heated arguments and uncomfortable passive-aggression (and that really sucks).

4. Reach out (While You Branch out)
Roommates tend to spend a lot of time together early in the school year, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be the lone kid on campus if you and your roommate don’t hit it off. That said, many roommates grow apart after week one.

5. Keep It Real
Embark on your roommate relationship with a positive attitude, but realize that not all random roommate couplings are going to end up BFF. And you don’t need to fake it. If you follow all the above steps and it turns out you’re still like oil and water, hey, it happens.

Meanwhile, keep in mind that this is only the beginning of an illustrious college career, and you’ve got plenty of time to forge new relationships. Read More

I'm Ron Denaro and thanks for joining College Campus Chatter today!

Ron Denaro is the president of College Campus Trips, a tour company providing high school students with tours of college campuses, nationwide. For more information, call (954) 567-5751 or e-mail: ron@collegecampustrips.com

College Admissions: 4 Things to Do Before Saying “Yes”

Monday, March 28, 2011

Cristiana Quinn,
GoLocalProv College Admissions Expert

By April 1, all the college acceptances will be in for anxious high school seniors. Often, students and parents have difficulty assessing colleges and making a decision. While a “gut feeling” based on a campus information session and tour is one good factor to consider, there are other points that need to be reviewed. After all, this is one of the most important decisions and largest financial investments, you will ever make. Now is not the time to leap without looking VERY carefully.

Majors Offered and Course Availability
Some seniors will have a good idea of what they want to major in. If so, take a deeper dive into the courses offered, professor credentials, and internships or research opportunities. Remember that course catalogs are VERY deceiving. They usually contain every course taught in the last 5 years (or that may be taught in the next 5 years). It does not mean that those courses are taught every year (or even close to it). For a more accurate understanding of the classes that you will have to choose from in your major, call the department and ask for a course list for this year and next year. If you are a student who is undecided on a major, carefully consider the breadth of offerings at your potential colleges and make sure they line up with your interests.


Look at the Data
There are some important statistics that parents and students should review before choosing a college. These are readily available on websites like www.collegeboard.com or www.collegedata.com. The first one that I look at is “students returning for sophomore year” - this is a key indicator of how happy students are at a college and the support they receive. If a college has below a 70-75% return rate, I get concerned. The next data point I suggest you review is the “4 year graduation rate”. While nationally this is quite low (many students take 5-6 years to graduate), you should know what the likelihood is that your costs will extend beyond 4 years. Another item that can be important to students who wish to pursue an advanced degree is “percent of students going on to graduate school”.

The one published statistic that I find suspicious (and don’t put a lot of stock in) is “percent of students finding full-time employment within 12 months of graduation." Given the poor economy, I find the high numbers at many schools hard to swallow. Lastly, families should investigate the economic health of a college, including the endowment fund and state of the physical campus. In 2010, approximately 150 colleges in the U.S. failed the US Department of Education’s test of financial stability (which sets fairly low standards).

Beware of Student Review Sites and Gossip
The old adage “bad news travels faster than good news” is especially true with regard to colleges. So, please be wary of online sites that host bitter student reviews. Few happy students have the time or the inclination to go on and post a positive review. Also, take the gossip in your high school or neighborhood with a grain of salt when someone leaves a college. Look instead at the overall statistics; do not make a judgment based on one individual. For a great guide centered around hundreds of student surveys and interviews, I recommend The Insider's Guide to the Colleges by The Yale Daily News. It only reviews about 300 colleges and universities in the country, but it does a terrific job of giving insight into campus life, course rigor, professor access and the surrounding community.

Spend the Night (This is where College Campus Trips comes in!)
Finally, students should consider going for an overnight visit at their top choice college before accepting. The admissions office at most smaller colleges will help facilitate this, but at larger institutions, you may need to network with friends and family to find an existing student to host you for the night. This “real life” experience will give you a valuable feel for the flavor of the student body and even the quality of the classes and professors.

I'm Ron Denaro and thanks for joining College Campus Chatter today!

Ron Denaro is the president of College Campus Trips, a tour company providing high school students with tours of college campuses, nationwide. For more information, call (954) 567-5751 or e-mail: ron@collegecampustrips.com