Making College Pay: Strategies for Choosing Wisely, Doing Well & Maximizing Your Return - Softcover

If you have heard the phrase knowledge economy, then you already know why the decision to go to college is different today than it was a generation ago. But most advice about college hasn't changed to keep up with the times. There is a dark side to the oversimplified message about the importance and value of college. This book helps you gain the understanding and perspective you need to make choices that maximize the return on your college investment. That means making choices that focus on three goals: minimizing college costs, increasing marketability, and improving your likelihood of graduating. Making College Pay helps you evaluate colleges based on four key characteristics, get a better understanding of the real cost of attending college, estimate how long it will take for you to see any payback on your education investment; gain the skills that will set you apart in the job market; and improve your odds of success.

Alice C. Stewart (PhD, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) has been teaching business strategy at colleges and universities for almost thirty years. During her five years as director of strategic analysis and planning at The Ohio State University, Alice identifies some of the underlying tensions universities face as they transition to institutions with higher student demand and higher expectations for economic impact and organizational accountability. In 2011, Alice's ability to articulate a new vision for business education was rewarded with first place and a $50,000 prize in the Ideas to Innovation challenge, a global competition sponsored by the Graduate Management Admission Council. Fran Stewart is a Cleveland-area writer, editor, and designer. She has spent more than fifteen years working for newspapers, including the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where she wrote about personal finance issues. She has written in the areas of economic development, public policy, and urban issues, her first book, In Their Path: A Grandmother's 519-Mile Underground Railroad Walk, examined Ohio's abolitionist history.

Fran Stewart is a Cleveland-area writer, editor and designer. She has spent more than 15 years working for newspapers, including the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where she wrote about personal finance issues. That's when she began to explore college choice in terms of its return on investment. In 2006, Fran helped found College 101, a twice yearly magazine for Ohio high school students. She has written in the areas of economic development, public policy and urban issues and has worked on projects for the State of Ohio, universities, a Cleveland-area think tank, a variety of non-profit organizations and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Her first book, In Their Path: A Grandmother's 519-Mile Underground Railroad Walk, examined Ohio's abolitionist history. She is a founding member of Restore Cleveland Hope, a non-profit organization dedicated to saving a local historic building and highlighting Cleveland's Underground Railroad past.