These days, many students and parents are asking a simple question:  How can college costs continue to rise even when families like ours face lower incomes and less job security?  

Unfortunately, the answer isn’t an easy one:  The combination of state funding declines, plummeting college endowment valuations, and record student enrollments has put upward pressure on tuition prices, even in the midst of economic recession.

The result:  According to a recent report by the College Board, tuition and fees at 4-year private colleges rose 4.4% to $26,273 per year, while tuition and fees at 4-year public colleges rose 6% to $7,020 per year (in-state students) and $18,548 (out-of-state students). 

As I was going through some papers recently, I came across a list of goals I had written when I was thirteen years old.  Reviewing these was like peering into a time capsule – offering a sense of my dreams and aspirations at the beginning of my teenage years.  While I still haven’t achieved some of these loftier goals, such as winning a Nobel Prize (they say to dream big, right?), as I peered through the pages of this yellow notebook, I was taken aback to see just how many of these goals had become reality.

Back in the mid-1990s, our son, Ben, was a teenager attending South Eugene High School in Eugene, Oregon.  As he was still a few years away from becoming Scholarship Coach Ben Kaplan, seeking out college funding was something totally new to all of us.

I spoke with a group of new admission counselors last week while they were participating in state wide training.  I thought of how students and families may under utilize this valuable resource.

Every college hires admission staff who will be excellent representatives of their college and work toward the collective goals of the college.  Yet you may not realize that they also hire individuals who are advocates for students and are willing to abide by a code of conduct.