College Financial Aid

Financing a college education is a daunting task no matter what your circumstances. Best-selling author and personal finance expert, Eric Tyson offers tried and true strategic advice on how to understand loans, know your options, and how to improve your financial fitness while paying down your student loan debt.

If you are a young person, and you work hard enough, you can get a college degree and set yourself on the path to a good life, right? Not necessarily, says Sara Goldrick-Rab, and with Paying the Price, she shows in damning detail exactly why. Drawing on an unprecedented study of 3,000 young adults who entered public colleges and universities in Wisconsin in 2008 with the support of federal aid and Pell Grants, Goldrick-Rab reveals the devastating effect of these shortfalls.

Dave Shutler analyzes twelve faulty assumptions about obtaining a higher education and shows how they can lead to debilitating college debt. Analogizing to the two realities in the Matrix movies, he reveals underlying facts about the assumptions to high schoolers and their parents. These assumptions range from deciding whether to attend college in the first place, to the importance of selecting a major, to how to minimize college living costs. This book is a systematic guide to the many misconceptions that students hold in the college application process.