The fall is a great time to visit colleges.  Classes are back in session.  The culture of the campus is very evident.  There’s a lot of activity, energy, and you really get a chance to see what the college is like.  Now is the time to pack up the car or get your tickets and head to the colleges.

There are a few things you always want to make sure you get done on a campus visit:

Take a campus tour.  Although campus tours are typically heavily orchestrated by the admissions department, there is no better way to get a quick overview and feel for the college.

Sit in on a class.  Or two would be even better.  See if you might be able to get in on a lecture in a field that you might be studying while you’re there.  Pay attention to the lecture size and attendance by the students.  Then try to get in on a discussion class to see what the other side of the class structure is like.  If you’re visiting a relatively smaller campus, they probably won’t have the classes segmented into lecture and discussion; so you can go spend more time elsewhere.

Check out the dorms.  You’ll be living there, so you better know what you’re in for.

Take a drive around town.  Get a feel for the surrounding area.  Are there things to do while you’re not studying?

Imagine what the campus will be like year round.  Will there be lots of snow to deal with?  Are the summers scorchers?

Below is a college visit checklist.  Click on the picture to download a copy of it.  Use the “to-do” list to cover your bases.  Find a student, not on the tour, to ask questions of.  Rate your experience so you have solid information to compare this campus against the other colleges you will visit.  This information will be invaluable when it comes time to decide where you will attend or apply to.

You may not be able to get to all of the schools you want to visit.  That’s ok.  In fact, you may want to visit some close by colleges you might not be seriously considering just so you can get a better feel for college in general.  The more colleges you visit, the better decisions you are likely to make.

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High school seniors should already be deep into the college search process.  If you’re not, it’s time to get on the ball!  Some of you are already moving on to the college admissions applications.  Congratulations!  Way to stay ahead of the game.  But for the majority of us, here are 4 steps for the fall.

Step 1: Don’t get hung up on knowing exactly what you want to study.  It’s great if you know your chosen field, but it is not critical to the admissions application process.  Many schools will allow you to apply as “undecided” or under the general “liberal arts” banner.  Even if you do apply under one major and decide a year or two later to change your major, you are not alone.  Half of college students change their major at least once.

Step 2:  Identify at least six colleges that you feel comfortable applying to for admission.  I cannot stress enough the importance of avoiding the idea that there is only one or two schools that are worthy to apply to.  That is a recipe for disaster.  Try to get in as many campus visits as you can.  The more college campuses you visit, the easier it is to identify what you want in a college.  Applying to multiple colleges will give you real options when it comes time to decide where you will ultimately go for your first year.  Applying to multiple schools is also an important aspect of securing the best opportunities for the monies available from different colleges.  Here again, don’t think that your choice will be set in stone.  One third of all college students transfer to another college at least once.

Step 3:  Complete your admission applications.  I recommend you have your admissions applications done by the end of October.  If the schools require letters of recommendation, make sure you get your letter requests to your teachers, guidance counselors, pastors, etc. as soon as possible.  The later you wait, the more requests they will have to sort through.  And here’s a tip that will be a huge help… Write up a recommendation cheat sheet for those who you make requests.  On this cheat sheet (no more than one page) include your high schools activities, interests, achievements, etc.  This will be a big help to those who are trying to sort through 30 or 40 or more different letter requests.

Step 4:  Do not make a decision of where you will be going to college anytime this fall.  You still don’t know what college is going to cost you.  There is no other purchase that you would make without knowing what the cost is, so don’t start now.  You still have the financial applications to go through.  Most of the financial application won’t be available to you until next January (the FAFSA form).  Some colleges will want a CSS Profile, but even that isn’t available until October or November.  99% of the time, you need to wait until the financial forms are filed and you have the financial award offers back from the schools before you should make any decision of what school to choose.  And that won’t be until next March or April.

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US News and World Report is expected to publish its 2010 list of the “Best Colleges” this week.  In anticipation of the report, the journal Inside Higher Ed published a scathing review of US News’ faulty methodology.

After accessing the original survey responses, Inside Higher Ed found some very telling responses:

As already publicized, Clemson University leaders rated their school far higher than others in an effort to increase their school’s standing.

The University of Wisconsin at Madison gave top rankings to only two schools in the survey, itself and the school that the Provost’s son attends.  Every other college was ranked second to the bottom including Harvard, Yale, the rest of the Ivy League, MIT, Stanford, and UC Berkeley.  Only one school was given a different rating, Arizona State University, which was rated at the lowest possible rank.  The vice-provost at the university who completed the survey responded that he was trying to be as neutral as possible.

The surveys returned from the President of Ohio State and the university Provost were identical.

The Chancellor at UC Berkeley rated all UC schools but two as distinguished, the highest rating available.  Well higher than many nationwide and worldwide premier schools.

The President of the University of Florida gave his college the highest ranking, but did not rank one other Florida college above good.

These are just a few examples of the big problems with the US News college report.  Too much of the report is based simply on biased opinion of those who want to market their university as best they can.  There is nothing objective about it.

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The FAFSA income protection allowance used to compute financial aid eligibility is taking a big jump for 2010’s dependent student filers.  According to the Department of Education, the income protection allowance is being increased from $3,750 (2009/10) to $4,500 (2010/11).  This is the largest single year increase I can recall in 10 years.

The income protection allowance is the amount of money a dependent student can earn in a non-work-study job, before that money is assessed towards their expected family contribution (EFC).  The increase of the allowance will allow students to earn more money without fear of losing half of it on their EFC.  This is very good news for many students who feel they are being punished for taking responsibility for their own education costs.

Here’s how this works.  Under the 2009 rules (applied to 2008 income), a student who earned $5,000, would be assessed on $1,250 of their income towards their EFC.  This would increase their EFC by approximately $625.  This year, the student earning $5,000 will be assessed on only $500 of their income; increasing their EFC by approximately $250.

Now here’s the really good news.  For many students, this will mean they could earn up to $7,000 or more in 2009 without it negatively impacting their expected family contribution.  How is this so?  Remember that work-study income is not assessed towards the EFC at all.

So let’s assume that a student is awarded a work-study position at their college for $2,500.  They work this job over the school year.  The student can have a second part time job or a summer job as well where they earn up $4,500 for a total of $7,000 in annual income… and not increase their EFC.

The key is maximizing work-study income.  The more you can gain in work-study, the more benefit the student gets out of their income protection allowance.  If the student can get $1,500 in work-study, they can earn $6,000 total.  If they can get $3,000 in work-study, they can earn $7,500 total.  This is an excellent example of why you always want to include work-study in your FAFSA application.

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College Freshmen walk out the door with all kinds of new educational “equipment” every fall.  The computers, the dorm fridge, the microwave, the iPod have all become practical necessities of the college life.  It takes a lot for a new item to be added to the list of college “must-haves”.  I’m wondering if Livescribe has come up with the next item to be added to the “must-have” list.

Yesterday, I came across the Livescribe Pulse Pen and was blown away.  Now I haven’t got my hands on one of these yet, but I am looking forward to one soon.

In a nutshell, the Pulse Pen records everything you write and hear and synchronizes it for playback and transfer to your computer.  Imagine reviewing your lecture notes for an exam and wondering what you were trying to write about a particular point.  Tap on your computer screen or, now get this, the paper in your notebook; and your professor’s voice is played back from that very point.  This is one very cool gadget with some very serious applications.  Check out these two videos below.  The first is from Livescribe, and the second is a review from Wired Magazine.  There are also a links to Amazon after the videos.

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There are two great times to update the freshman college dorm shopping list:

1. Christmas – when you have to get rid of your student’s money, and you’re wondering what useful things you can buy them.
2. Now – when they are about to take off for college and they still don’t have everything they need.

Here is my checklist of what you need to outfit a good dorm room…

The Gizmo’s and Gadget’s

The Computer (let’s start with the really fun one): if your student does not yet have a computer of their own, or the one they do have is outdated; you should certainly consider this as the “A” #1 top of the list. Consider a multimedia computer with a TV tuner card. You can kill a lot of birds with one stone here. Not only will a multimedia machine act as their computer, but it will also be their TV, their DVD player, their TV recorder, and their stereo. It is truly the Jack of all appliances. And it makes for a great entertainment system for the very few hours they will not spend studying.

A laptop is preferred. There isn’t much room in a dorm room, so you don’t want to take up precious space with a big desktop unit. Besides, they’ll want to be able to take the computer to the library, or class,
or home.

If you don’t want to send your student out the door with one do it all machine like above, here are the minimum requirements for a student computer (considering Microsoft Vista is now standard):

• Processor: AMD Turion or Athlon, Intel Core 2 Duo or Quad.  Avoid the budget chips like the Intel Celeron or AMD Sempron.
• Memory:
  at least 1GB (I would recommend 2GB or even 4GB; more memory is often
  the single most important factor to computer performance)
• Hard Drive: at least 100GB
• Disk Drive: DVD+RW
• Wireless and wired networking equipped
• Operating system: Windows Vista Home Premium or Apple MAC OS X (ten)
• Software: Microsoft Office 2007 Home & Student edition
• A webcam: If you want to use a service like Skype to stay in touch, then get a computer with a webcam built in.

Standard computers would include:

• Dell Inspiron 14 (I am on my second Dell laptop and love their customer service)
• HP G60 (Two of our desktop machines are HP and we’ve had great success with them)
• Apple MacBook

More capable multimedia machines would include:

• Apple MacBook Pro
• Dell XPS
• Alienware Area 51m17x (the gold standard of super horsepower gaming machines)
• HP Pavillion dv7
• Acer Aspire 8920

Details of some of the suggested computers are available here on my website.  I’d recommend checking out www.cnet.com for reviews and information on computer comparisons.

The Printer: although many schools and professors are now allowing students to submit papers in electronic format, this is far from being the norm.  So, your student is going to need someway to print off that earth-shattering report on Machiavelli. Printers are dirt cheap today compared to what you got yesterday. You can often pick up a good printer/scanner/copier for less than $150 or even $100

Surge protector: protect the investment you just made.

Phone: I grew up in a telephone family — literally. My family has
been in the telephone business since before there was copper wire; so what I am about to say would have been heresy at my family’s Thanksgiving dinner a few years ago. Go get your student a prepaid wireless phone. Don’t bother with the hard wired phones anymore. Phones can double as MP3 players as well.

A digital voice recorder for class lectures: skip the old tape recorder — your student will likely
download the recording to their computer anyway. If you bought a good phone, the phone may double for a voice recorder as well.

Digital camera: they’ll want to preserve the rest of their high school year and college. www.cnet.com has excellent reviews of digital cameras. You can get one heck of a good camera for little money these days.

Other appliances:

If you didn’t go the multimedia computer route, then your student is going to want these as well —

• TV – small LCD TV’s are very reasonable now
• DVD player
• Portable Stereo or iPod dock

• Coffee Maker – they can’t be a Starbucks all the time
• Microwave – if you check out www.sears.com, you’ll find quite a few small microwaves for under $100
• Refrigerator – you can get several dorm-sized refrigerators for under $100 as well
• Art – Most college art isn’t much more than posters on the wall

For around the dorm room

• Kitchen type tools: bowl, cup, glasses, can/bottle opener, etc.
• Desk Lamp
• Alarm clock (one with a really loud and annoying alarm — they’ll need it)
• Bulletin board and dry-erase calendar board
• A small toolkit (I do not suggest the Craftsman, rolling tool chest; a small bag will do)
• Bed linens & Bedding

I also recommend you check out Consumer Reports’ articles on Back to School.

HAPPY SHOPPING!

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The college financial aid system can be a great friend to farmers and small business owners.  The FAFSA, free application for federal student aid, has specific provisions built into the form to accommodate the unique financial situations of farmers and small business owners.

Farmers do not have to report farm assets if they live on and operate the farm.  These assets include

• land
• buildings
• tractors, combines, and other equipment
• livestock
• crops
• and farm accounts

If your family is only an investor in a farm and does not actively participate in its operations, you cannot exclude the farm assets from the financial aid calculations.  Farmers must be active operators to exclude the farm from their FAFSA.

Small business owners receive very similar treatment.  If your family controls and owns at least 50% of a business that employs fewer than 100 full time or full time equivalent employees, the value of that business does not have to reported on the FAFSA.

“Your family” does not necessarily mean your immediate family of Mom, Dad, 2.5 children, and the dog.  “Your family” can include any immediately related family members such as:

• parents
• brothers & sisters
• cousins
• spouse
• step-parents
• and brothers or sisters in-law.

For instance, if your father owns 30% of the business, and your uncle owns 30% of the business, and a family friend owns 40%; then your family owns 60% and can qualify for the small business exclusion.

Just as with the family farm exclusion, all business assets are excluded from the FAFSA calculations.

This gives business owners and farmers tremendous flexibility in the financial aid process.  They have a ready made shelter available to them at anytime.  If families find they have assets in excess of their asset protection allowance, they can easily move assets from their personal accounts to their business or farm accounts.  And when working with a good accountant, the family business or farm can often absorb taxable income while ensuring needed cash flow.

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I still remember a few years ago when in an online discussion a student asked, “is a hundred thousand dollars a lot of money to borrow?”  The question nearly knocked me out of my chair.  I know I’ve become desensitized when the question now is “is $250,000 a lot of money to borrow?”, but I only shake my head.  Students in particular need to get an understanding of what is reasonable debt, and what is a life-killing nightmare.

A good place to start is a college debt calculator like the one at Collegeboard.com. Calculators like these give students and parents a much clearer picture of just what their student loans are going to cost them over the long term.

Let’s look at an example…  According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), the average 2008 starting salary for a college graduate (B.S. in Business Management) is around $43,800.  Typical monthly take home pay for that level annual income would be about $2,823.

If a student took out only the Stafford loans (typical loans included in the financial aid package) and graduated after four years with $27,000 in debt, then his or her monthly payments on those loans would be $311 per month.  That’s just about 11% of the graduate’s total monthly take home income.  11% is considered pretty reasonable by most experts.

Now what if the student borrows that $100,000 as I mentioned in the first paragraph?  We’ll be generous and assume they can get the additional $73,000 at the same interest rate as the Staffords (in reality, the interest rate will be higher).  The graduate’s monthly payment is now $1,151 every month.  That payment represents over 40% of their monthly take home income.  That kind of payment is insane.  There is no way a newly minted college graduate is going to be able pay for those students loans and cover the cost of their rent, their car, their utilities, their groceries.  It’s just financial suicide.

Before you decide that you just can’t live without the degree from a college that is going to put you in the hole above you neck, you better get a handle on what the real cost of that debt will be.

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