Borrowing for College | College Admission

Media Madness: More Panicky Reporting on College Borrowing

Posted on Mon, 05/21/2012 - 19:04

There was more panicky reporting on the subject of student debt last week in the New York Times article, A Generation Hobbled By the Soaring Cost of College, an installation in the newspaper’s Degrees of Debt series that purports to examine the implications of soaring college costs and the indebtedness of students and their families.

As Sandy Baum and Michael McPherson of the Chronicle of Higher Education report: The New York Times made a huge statistical error in their overwrought article about higher education borrowing on Sunday. They reported that 94 percent of bachelor’s graduates leave college with educational debt. The correct number is around two-thirds. Few people will see the correction tucked into Wednesday’s Times – certainly not nearly the number who saw the lead sentence on the web version “Nearly everyone pursuing a bachelor’s degree is borrowing money …”.

College Admission in Sauk Valley Media

Posted on Wed, 05/09/2012 - 20:36

Thank you to Bridget Flynn of Sauk Valley Media and the Daily Gazette for the wonderful coverage of Christine VanDeVelde's presentations to students at Newman Central Catholic High School and Sterling High School in Sterling, Illinois. You can read it here.

Loans: A roundup of expert advice

Posted on Wed, 04/18/2012 - 21:03

For families evaluating their financial aid at this time, here's a roundup of advice from some experts on the role of loans in funding a college education.

Jonathan Burdick, dean of admission and financial aid at the University of Rochester, has an excellent guest post at the College Inc. blog for the Washington Post -- Five steps to a prudent student loan.

For more insight from an expert, check out our own guest post from Jon Boeckenstedt, vice president for Enrollment Policy & Planning at DePaul University for his thoughtful look here at when and where borrowing is worth it.