Whether you open a bank account, a brokerage account, or a mutual fund account, you have to provide the financial institution with some bare-bones information about yourself, namely your name, your address, and your Social Security number. You may also have to provide employment information and your date of birth. With this information, the institution can report your annual taxable earnings to you and the government for income tax purposes.

Download Saving For College Using Personal Investment Accounts: Registering Your Account

Parents of college students face added financial pressure. The federal Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students (PLUS) loan can alleviate some of that pressure.


Download PLUS Loans: A Loan Just for Parents (and Grad Students Too)

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DO use the Internet to help with schoolwork. The Internet is a source of great volumes of information. It's like having the world's largest library at your fingertips!


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Being aware of international travel adviseries is an extremely important prerequisite for studying abroad. Before you even begin considering certain programs or countries for your experience abroad, you need to determine which countries the U.S. government considers unsafe and either make a note of them or promptly remove them from your list of possible places to study. The U.S. government issues warnings with the safety of its citizens in mind. Given recent world events, take these warnings seriously.


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15 factors which influence adult learning, course design, and classroom teaching are presented and discussed providing strategies for supporting continuing education.

Download Adult Education Learning Experiences

The Project on Student Debt's recently released report, titled "Student Debt and the Class of 2009," estimates that college seniors in 2009 graduated with an average of $24,000 in student loan debt. For those continuing on to obtain advanced and professional degrees, the situation is even more dire. For example, the American Bar Association's Legal Education Statistics for the academic year 2008-2009 indicate that the average amount borrowed by law school graduates attending public school is $66,045 and by private law school graduates is $100,002.

Download Graduate School Debt Often Curtails Plans of Nonprofit Work

It has been common knowledge for many years that the percentage of students accepted via early decision is usually higher, sometimes much higher, than the percentage accepted during the regular cycle. Colleges have routinely asserted that the files of early applicants are stronger as a group than those that arrive for regular review and that differences in qualifications account for the higher acceptance rate, not differences in standards. A group of researchers at Harvard University, however, has analyzed admissions data from fourteen of the most selective colleges in the country (all of which agreed to participate under the condition that the names of the colleges would not be revealed) and reached a different conclusion. Christopher Avery and his colleagues showed that early decision applicant pools, overall, were academically weaker than regular decision pools and that an early decision applicant on average received an admissions boost that was roughly equivalent to an increase of 100 points on the SAT, even when legacies and athletes were excluded. These findings directly contradict what most colleges have been saying publicly for years about their early decision programs.

Download Deciding About Early Decision and Other Early Options: Does Applying Early Help Your Chances?

The Common Application is an application form accepted by 350 public and private colleges and universities across the country. It was designed to simplify the college admissions process for students who would otherwise have to provide identical information in different formats to each college. A few colleges offer applicants a choice between their own form and the Common Application, including Princeton University, the University of Chicago, and Bard College. Many others now use the Common Application exclusively. This list includes Dartmouth College, Villanova University, Stanford University, Haverford College, and about 120 others. A few selective colleges (for example, Columbia University, Georgetown University, MIT, the University of Michigan, and the University of California) still don’t accept the Common Application, but the number is dwindling. Be sure to check the Common Application Web site, www.commonapp.org, for new additions as well as for the forms themselves.

Download College Admission: Using the Common Application

There are a lot of benefits to a 529 College Savings Plan, and besides the obvious preparation of a college savings fund for your children or grandchildren, you also have a good chance of saving money on your state taxes as well, making it a very good investment for you and the one you're putting away money for.

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There was never a better feeling than the day I stepped on Baylor University's campus for the first time as a real student. Oh, I had been there before, but never as a real student with a real student ID. I knew this was where I needed to be, but I still had my concerns. Would I meet anybody, would they like me, would I like them, and what about my roommate?

Download Going to college: Preparing for a new life