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Tip #03

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Blog

Read TuitionCoach co-founder Dr. Paul Wrubel’s blogs on all kinds of topics related to college financing, including choosing the right school and education tax benefits.

Teaching Teachers
During my many years as a high school administrator, I observed hundreds of classes. Liberally...

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A Time for Character: A Lesson in Decency
George Vecsey wrote a piece in the April 30th New York Times. It was a gentle reminder about what...

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A Modest Proposal: Addressing the Student Loan Dilemma
Across the nation, there has been a good deal of discussion relating to the student loan market. ...

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The "Hammer": Using Public Financial Aid Programs as a Tool to Improve College-Based Financial Aid Practices
Like a reenactment of the San Francisco earthquake, everywhere you look in the college financial...

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College Costs: Who are the "bad guys"?
As they say, "Things are not always what they seem." In these times of rising college costs,...

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Choosing a College: How to Make the Final Decision
The results are in. You have a few college options. Some may come with financial aid awards and...

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Financial Aid Evaluation: Mastering the Financial Aid Award
Over the next several months, millions of American families will receive financial aid awards from...

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How to Pay for College: A Recipe for Success
Like any recipe, you must begin with the menu. For college, there are really two courses: ...

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Financial Aid and Identity Theft: A Time for Prudence
The U.S. Department of Justice website prefaces its discussion of identity theft with a quote from...

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What's in a Name?: College Prestige and the Quality of Life.
Many parents think that the end of the world is at hand if their children fail to get into an...

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Education Tax Benefits: 2007 (Part III of III)
Here we will look at a few more items related to college costs that could result in a tax saving...

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Education Tax Benefits: 2007 (Part II of III)
In the first installment, I provided a brief overview of the tax benefits from the Hope and...

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Education Tax Benefits: 2007 (Part I of III)
Families with students attending college should always try to stay abreast of current tax benefits....

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The FAFSA and the CSS Profile: Invitations to the Dance
Financial Aid forms are due and while they are not entirely mysterious, they can be confusing and...

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Code of Conduct for Financial Aid Professionals: Raising the Behavior Bar
As a spinoff of the shady student loan practices of some colleges, the National Association of...

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A Message Too Often Forgotten: A Better Business Logic
You know the story and you remember the words: "But you were always a good man of business,...

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Harvard: Crimson Turns to Gold
The blog I had intended to release today was put on hold because of a landmark announcement by...

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Packaging Applicants: Students as Cornflakes
In the November 28th edition of the New York Times, Joseph Berger wrote an enlightening and...

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Living in Denial: A System Designed for Another Planet
The college financial aid system in general and the qualifying formula in particular, is arcane and...

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A Reminder of Another Time: Subtraction by Addition
After work last Friday, I drove home in the usual way and when I arrived at my house in a small...

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Math 101: A Primer for Legislators and Policy Makers
Education is by far the best investment any society can make to ensure its own survival and to...

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Early Decision: Bound and Gagging?
The New York Times can always be counted upon for timely information. For instance, in the...

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College and Life's Time Sheet
Maybe it is parental pressure; maybe just a congenital urge but somehow we feel it is necessary to...

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The Aisle: Dividing the House
Americans are frustrated by the glacial pace of needed legislation coming from Congress. Every day...

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Freshman Year in College: For Some a Short, Unhappy Journey into the Unknown
It happens every year about this time. The migratory routes between colleges and the homes across...

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NACAC: Keepers of the Flame
This week, members of the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) will...

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The College Cost Reduction and Access Act: A Band Aid for a Broken Patient
What began as a visionary bill has morphed into yet another victim of partisan politics and the...

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Luke: A Gentle Life
Just before the Labor Day weekend, I lost a nephew. Luke was a kind and gentle soul but somehow he...

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The College Board: Into the Light
For years, I have had bittersweet feelings about The College Board. On one hand, I have always...

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Semester Abroad: "Déjà vu all over again!"
With apologies to Yogi Berra, there is a new, unsettling breach of trust emerging among...

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Talent as Raw Material: Brains Alone May Not Be Enough
In a recent edition of the Stanford University alumni magazine, Marina Krakovsky wrote an engaging...

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College and Retirement: The Perfect Storm
Somewhere out there, a perfect storm is brewing and its name is not Katrina; it is college. Like...

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Emily University and Brian College: Selecting a College
College is not about names or ratings...It is about fit. The way the deal works is that parents...

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The College Ratings Game Takes a Hit
On May 7th of this year, Paul's Corner featured comments called The College Ratings Game: The Tail...

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Minority College Dropouts: A New Perspective
Not long ago, I reported on a study which showed an astonishingly low rate of graduation among...

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Financial Aid Awards: An Ambiguous World
Mark Kantrowitz, a veteran authority on financial aid, has written a sensible plea for transparency...

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Divide and Conquer: Some Thoughts on Independence Day
Think about it. We Americans spend too much energy pointing fingers at our neighbors or at the...

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Teacher: A life worth living
In my other life, I was a teacher. I taught government to ninth graders in Weston, Connecticut, a...

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Need Blind Admissions: Vassar College Injects New Life into a Fading Concept
For years, the true meaning of "Need Blind Admissions" has been eroding. Most colleges still admit...

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The College Cost Reduction Act: A Sign of Congressional Action on Behalf of Real People
Flying somewhere under the Paris Hilton headlines is the emergence of the most important college...

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Commencement 2007
I want to take a moment to exercise what may be described as a touch of executive privilege. As a...

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College Admissions and Summer Vacation: Sand, Sun or Schooling
The days are getting warmer and longer and the beach is beckoning. But, looming in the background...

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Reforming Financial Aid: An Enigma Wrapped in a Mystery
Susan M. Dynarski and Judith E. Scott-Clayton recently authored a discussion paper as a part of the...

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College and Minorities: College Opportunities Unevenly Bestowed
The Chronicle of Higher Education ran an interesting and unsettling article featuring college...

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The College Rating Game: The Tail Wags the Dog
One of the more destructive annual rites is the college rating system used by The Princeton Review,...

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College Admissions Late Decision: When the Well Runs Dry
In its always useful education supplement, the New York Times included an article about ways to...

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AP Courses: Another View
In the April 27th issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, David Oxtoby, the President of Pomona...

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Selecting a College: The Final Choice
It's that time of the year when students across the nation must choose a college. Oddly enough, for...

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The Student Loan Controversy: Letting the Light Shine In
Dallas Martin, the leader of NASFAA, has done a good thing by sending a letter of apology to Andrew...

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College Admissions: Parents fuel the frenzy
In his Newsweek column, using a novel titled, "Acceptance", by Susan Coll as a backdrop, George...

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Self-Help Financial Aid: A Reality Check
Lots of parents don't want their kids to have a job while in college and thus turn down work/study...

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Preferred Lenders: Fraying the Edges of Trust
As in any family, there emerge from time to time differences that result in some alienation and...

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Education Tax Benefits (Part III)
Here we will look at a few more items related to college costs that could result in a tax saving...

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Education Tax Benefits (Part II)
Last week, I provided a brief overview of the tax benefits from the Hope and Lifetime Tax Credits...

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It's That Time Again! (Part I)
Families with students attending college should always try to stay abreast of current tax benefits....

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529 Plans: A Moving Target
Kathleen Pender's column in the February 15th issue of the San Francisco Chronicle highlighted the...

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It's All in the Timing: Deadlines are only a part of the story
For those students in California and other states, financial aid deadlines abound. In California,...

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Student Loans and College Choice
The new Congress kept some of its promise to lower student loans rates. It voted to lower the...

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US Department of Education Grants: Alphabet Soup
How great would it be to have someone else pay for you to attend college? That's the idea behind...

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Older Students Entering and Reentering College: It's Never Too Late!
Today, I received an email from Sara, a devoted parent from Tennessee. In her note, she said that...

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Imagine - A Holiday Message
In the holiday season, it might be a good idea to pause between trips to the mall and reflect upon...

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The Gap Year: A Meaningful Detour
If I controlled the world, I wouldn't let a kid go to college until he or she took a year off. The...

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Education and Technology
At last, there's some intelligent, largely zero-based thinking about our system of education. In...

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Choosing College Majors and Careers: Another View
As parents, we get a little nervous about our kids' apparent lack of direction. We find ourselves...

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Ask Paul: 5 question college podcast #2
Dr. Paul Wrubel answers five questions in this Ask Paul podcast: 1. How important is the college...

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Ask Paul: 5 question college podcast
Dr. Paul Wrubel answers five questions in this Ask Paul podcast: 1. How do you choose a...

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Financial Aid Administrators: Heroes
In this time of artificial heroes and reality-based TV and its instant super-stars, there are some...

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Divorce and College: A House Divided
According to the U.S. Census statistics, the national divorce rate in 2005 was somewhere between 43...

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The Gorilla in Your House: The real cost of college
We all know that college costs are rising dramatically. According to the College Board, the typical...

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College Doors will Open Wider Under the New Congress!
"No child left behind" is a nice, catchy slogan but, in the end, it is just a slogan. According to...

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Welcome!
On behalf of TuitionCoach, welcome to our site. We have launched our beta because while we believe...

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About Paul


Dr. Paul Wrubel has provided college admissions and funding advice to thousands of families around the globe. Along the way, he discovered the process of paying for college was needlessly mysterious and incredibly stressful. Paul co-developed TuitionCoach to provide an online solution that brings greater transparency and accessibility to the college funding process for all families.
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