Insider tips for the week of Nov. 26, 2018

5 tips to pay less for college – A great read worth a couple minutes from Jeanmarie Keller. I especially like #4 – build your list of colleges based on your situation and the college’s financial aid policies. Just because you need financial aid doesn’t mean the college has to give it to you.

How to figure out academic fit of a college – Barely half of all students who start college actually graduate from that same college within 6 years, and PossibilityU says one reason is because too many students choose fit based on outside the classroom factors and don’t consider inside the classroom fit. Jump to the 3:34 mark of this video and spend 3 minutes learning tips to help your child identify academic fit. One big takeaway: Major may be less important considering how many careers students of this generation will have.

7 things parents should do during a campus visit – HuffPost gets these insider tips straight from a VP of admissions. Most interesting: Leave the younger kids at home.

2 extra years in college could cost you $300,000 – A study by NerdWallet found the added school-related costs along with missed income and retirement savings could cost someone nearly $300K. Perhaps most interesting were the 3 reasons cited for extending the graduation time: Losing credits by transferring, taking unnecessary courses and too few credits per semester.