Evolving Personal Finance » college
Why Harvey Mudd College Tops the Payscale ROI Rankings
… and why prospective college students should ignore the rankings. Payscale.com comes out with a yearly ranked list of the colleges that produce the highest-paid graduates. My and Kyle’s alma mater, Harvey Mudd College, has topped the list (some permutations of it, anyway) for the past few years. And while I love that Mudd gets nationwide press coverage every time the new rankings come out, I don’t recommend that prospective college students use them to choose … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, college, grad school, income
Is “Live Like a College Student” Good Advice?
One oft-repeated piece of advice for young adults who need to get their feet under them financially is to continue to live like a college student for several years after graduation. Maybe this advice applied a couple decades ago, but now that colleges compete for students by enhancing the perks and amenities they offer, I’m not so sure. I think that in many ways I had to decrease my standard of living post-college to live … Read entire article »
Filed under: college, grad school
My Sister’s Awesome Financial Decisions
I don’t talk about my family of origin a lot on this blog (for privacy reasons) but I want to suspend that policy for today’s post to brag about my sister. My sister is 25 and not a nerd. Like, I’m a nerd, right? I went to a nerd high school and a nerd college and now I’m doing a PhD in engineering and I picked up an interest in PF along the way, which … Read entire article »
Filed under: college, debt, family, goals, investing, retirement, savings, stock market
Using Upromise to Pay Down Student Loans
Like zillions of other college graduates, I have student loans – and, like a good chunk of those debtors, my loans are through Sallie Mae. When I graduated from college I was automatically enrolled in Upromise, which is a rewards program that is affiliated with Sallie Mae. I accumulated rewards in Upromise through various means and transfered those rewards to Sallie Mae to directly reduce my student loan balance. Apparently the program can also be … Read entire article »
Filed under: college, debt, found money
Financial Wrongs from the Past
I recently found out that my family got kinda screwed over by the financial aid office at my college. I don’t know if my parents were mad about it at the time because they didn’t discuss it with me – when my dad mentioned it to me over this last Thanksgiving he seemed pretty casual so I don’t think they’re still hurt about it. I received one merit scholarship from my college for about 25% of … Read entire article »
Filed under: college
Expectations of College Attendance
In Episode 12 of the Two Guys and Your Money Podcast several PF bloggers discussed the financial impact of having children. They briefly touched on savings for college. In what kinds of vehicles to save for college is a very popular topic around the PF blogosphere but I was surprised to hear that several of the participants did not plan on saving for their children’s college educations within tax-advantaged education accounts. More than that, they … Read entire article »
Filed under: college
Double Check that Your Meal Plan Isn’t Screwing You
When I finally sat down and did the math before my senior year of college, I realized that I had been wasting money on my meal plan nearly every week for three years. I don’t mean that the meals were overpriced for their quality, though they probably were, but that the meal plans were set up to take advantage of the limited options available to the students. I discovered that the meal plan price was calculated … Read entire article »
Private School Angst
Kyle and I received an excellent undergraduate education a private college – a very, very expensive private college (it’s on this list). Our college was an absolutely perfect choice for me. There are only around three institutions in the country that offer a similar educational setting and none are in nearly as desirable a location. For my personality, my academic interests, and my career aspirations – and my love of warm weather – it was very … Read entire article »
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