Heart set on a private?



Ellsworth Community College, Iowa Falls Iowa. Photo by Artin Gal



If you have your heart set on a private school, one way to save money is to compromise. Go to a public the first year and then transfer basic classes such as math, composition, pysch 101 to your private. It's not a perfect solution, but it can save you money.

Find out more about how others have done it at CNN Money.com.

An Ivy League Degree: A Poor Investment



Harvard University. Photo: David Paul Ohmer



William D. Cohan blogs for the New York Times this week about the high cost of an Ivy League degree and if, from a strictly monetory perspective, it's worth it.

"Generally speaking, in order to pay just Harvard’s tuition, someone would have to earn more than $100,000 in annual pre-tax compensation. Then there are all the other family expenses — among them, gasoline, the mortgage, food and medical expenses. Multiply all that by four, and then by other children, and very quickly the numbers get astronomical."

Read the whole post.





Trade-offs: Oxford vs. the Local Regional

Oxford University. Photo by Tejvan Pettinger. 

My counterpart at the blog Frugal Scholar, a university professor who practices frugality, has an interesting thread looking at one young woman's very difficult decision: Go to Oxford and pursue what she loves (at Oxford!) or go the more local, more affordable route, as her parents would like, and graduate debt-free.  And is there an in-between option?

Lots of people have weighed in and it points to the various opinions and tactics -- even among the frugal. Look, learn or even join the discussion at http://frugalscholar.blogspot.com/2011/03/college-debt-once-more-worth-it.html.