There’s a new tuition-reset movement that’s shaking up higher education.  Several colleges have actually lowered their tuition in an era where sticker prices to elite private colleges are upwards of $70,000 per year.  Yes, you read that correctly!

St John’s College reduced its tuition from $70,000 to just $35,000. Actually about 25 colleges have reset their tuition: Mills, Drew, Sweet Brian, Sewanee, Birmingham Southern, Elizabethtown and others.

Over the past 20 years, private college tuition has increased 166% — 2.5 times the Consumer Price Index. After the 2008 economic crisis (housing bubble), some economists wonder if higher education might be the next bubble to burst. Some believe that the college tuition price is a measure of its quality, which justifies the ridiculous tuition and housing costs parents and students must pay. Back when I was in college in the 1970s, annual tuition was less than $1000. How did annual tuition go from $1,000 to $70,000? Hmm.

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If creating 100 feet of defensible space around your home is something that you’ve put on the back burner (no pun intended), would losing fire coverage on your homeowner’s policy get your attention? It did for me. Since 2010, there’s been a 224% increase in complaints about rising insurance premiums for people who live in high-risk of wildfire areas. CALFIRE has designated specific zip codes to be at the greatest risk of wildfires and many insurance companies are not selling new policies and not renewing existing ones. Yup!

Besides moving to Alaska, the best way to position yourself so you don’t lose your fire coverage is to clear 100 feet of fuel (wood piles, brush, trees with low-hanging branches, wooden outdoor furniture) around your house. This will improve the chances that your house won’t burn if a wildfire heads your way. Insurance companies are being pressured to consider reducing premiums or renewing policies for homeowners who protect their homes by mitigating wildfires. It could also save your life if you get trapped and can’t evacuate.

As California Mother of the Year, I’m urging everyone to dedicate 4 hours per weekend to clearing fuel from around your homes. Schedule a “family clearing” block of time each weekend for a month. Put it on the calendar so family members have plenty of time to make plans. Then, designate specific tasks to be completed each weekend. Start with moving piles of firewood, wood, or wooden furniture/toys away from the house. Then weed whack overgrown areas down to 2-4 inches. Next, limb up all trees to 8-10 feet. Then haul everything to the landfill or chip branches to create mulch and spread it around your property. In one month you’ll create a safe home for your family, and you may be able to keep fire insurance coverage on what’s probably your biggest asset. Even if you’re not in a zip code that has stopped renewing fire insurance policies, with temperatures rising and droughts in the forecast, you may be next. 

Share your family-clearing photos on the California American Mothers Facebook page. This will encourage others to create 100 feet of defensible space around their homes. Talk to your neighbors to do the same because insurance companies and CALFIRE will be looking at communities when delineating high-risk fire areas.

Let’s do this!

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If a parent gives up their custodial guardianship rights to their college-bound children and assign the role to friends or relatives, then their children can qualify for federal and other financial aid. The parents involved in this scam in Chicago (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) are doctors and lawyers with deep pockets to pay their attorneys to bail them out of this hot mess. They claim that their over $250,000 income isn’t enough to support their $600,000 spending habits. Hmm.

I wonder about wealthy people who CHEAT to get their children scholarship dollars for college. I wonder if they’re so self-absorbed that they don’t realize that they’re stealing money from students who really need the financial aid.  Have we become a dog-eat-dog society? Many of these low-income students (the real ones) opt not to attend these pricey colleges if they don’t get scholarships or grants, and they often settle on community colleges or no college at all.

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As California’s Mother of the Year, I’ve designed a simple disaster plan for families. Check out the Micro-Community Disaster Plan with tips, guidelines, and forms – all laid out for you to use.

Here is the Micro-Community Disaster Plan: https://americanmotherscalifornia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Micro-Community-Disaster-Plan-and-Information-Packet.pdf

Create your own Micro Community that includes about 6-12 households.  Talk to your neighbors to designate your Micro Community, and then use the “Micro-Community” form to fill in their names, contact info, and vital information about non-ambulatory people, pets, and livestock.

Then select a Micro-Community leader to represent the group. Ideally, this would be someone who is home a lot and capable of calling, texting, or emailing their community in the case of an emergency.  This leader should be able to walk to each of the houses in their community in 30-45 minutes. 

Send a copy of your Micro Community to your local fire department. Knowing that the fire department and your Micro-Community leader has this information will be comforting for all of your neighbors. Your Micro-Community leader will communicate with the fire department and keep you informed of evacuation orders and other life-saving information.

Share this with your neighbors, family, and friends. My hope is to get every family to join a Micro Community to prepare for disasters so everyone can work efficiently to mitigate problems. I’ll be blogging about setting up phone trees, Go Bags, and more in the weeks ahead!

Preparing for a disaster can save more than just things – it can save lives!  The more you prepare, the more time you have to get your family, pets and important items out of harm’s way.  Putting together a Go Bag is an easy thing that anyone can do with things you already have.  It took me less than 30 minutes to put together a Go Bag for my whole family, and we recorded a video while I was doing it.  Check it out:

Amidst the Me Too era, Swarthmore banned their only 2 fraternities as a result of pressure from the student body. The Phi Psi brothers used to boast about sexual violence and spread bigotry amongst their community. They took pride in their reputation and even named a bedroom on the top floor of their frat house the “Rape Attic.”

One of the victims started a blog where other victims could anonymously share their stories of rape and sexual harassment. They’ve chronicled over a 100 stories of abuse from victims as well as “brag” stories from frat brothers that were logged in their minutes.

Swarthmore president Valerie Smith banned frat activities while minutes and documents were reviewed. Meanwhile, the fraternities disbanded under peer pressure and admitted that the wounds from their behavior were too deep to repair. I’m glad to see college administration listening to their students and taking bold steps to protect them.  

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Leave it to Sesame Street to include foster kids in their Muppet family. In the US, we have over 440,000 children in our foster care system.  These children need to see that their family situation is part of our society so they understand that they aren’t alone. Karli, a new Sesame Street Muppet, is a foster child, and her plight and uncertainty is portrayed in Sesame Street shows.

Having Karli interact with the other Sesame Street characters normalizes the lives of foster children. It also helps other children understand the situation and empathize with children who live with temporary families. Check out this episode with Elmo and Karli:

Sesame Street is one of the best academic and social teaching tools that TV offers to our children. That’s why I continue to support it, even though my kids are in their 30s.

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Every year when I brainstorm about topics to write about on college application essays with rising seniors, I find the most difficult part is helping them find their own voices. Many think there is a formula that’ll get them into an Ivy League college or others make up stories with the intent of winning over the reader. For students who didn’t win a national award or cure cancer, they’ll need to do some soul searching to tell a story that reveals something interesting about themselves so the admissions officers get to know them a little better. If they did a project, their personal statements and main common application essays will focus on their experiences.

Because one essay worked for a student who got into Stanford, that doesn’t mean that a similar essay would do the same for you.

Don’t write:

1. That you understand poverty because you saw it on a service trip (trust me, you don’t).
2. About the amazing successes of your grandfather (unless you tie it back to how he influenced you)
3. About your exclusive vacation at a resort (sounds like entitlement)
4. About how clever you are (instead, tell a story that will make the reader think you’re clever)
5. About how you won the championship for your team (remember, it takes a team)
6. About wanting to go to XYZ college because your boyfriend does or everyone in your family did (you’ll look shallow and clueless)
7. That you overcame something irrelevant (boredom)
8. That you want to go to ABC college because you like their winning football team. (clueless)
9. That you are the best at something when there are lots of students who do the same (8 million kids play sports and 22 million participate in music in high school)
10. About why you like the college by summarizing their home page of their website (Research your major, clubs, professors research, and more to validate your decision to apply)
11. Using humor or sass unless you are very good at using it (nothing worse than a joke that fell short)

Remember, college admissions officers read thousands of essays each year. Open with a hook to pique their curiosity. Then share with them something about yourself that makes them see the real you. Make them want to read more to learn about you. If your essay just drones on and on, you’ll lose the reader. If you’d like help, Merit Educational Consultants has coaches who guide you through the process while maintaining your voice and your message. 

Susan is spreading the news about ProjectMerit and the book Beat the College Admissions Game with ProjectMerit!  Her latest interview is with Larry and Robin with WOCA: The Source in Ocala Florida.  The interview is an excellent way to spend 30 minutes and is available on YouTube here:

There are a number of EASY things you can do to prepare for an emergency.  I’ve created an easy checklist anyone can use to start preparing for a disaster.  The checklist is located on the AmericanMothersCalifornia.com website here, and I’ve also recorded a 30-minute podcast that goes into a lot more detail – you can listen to it here, or find GakkoMom on iTunes and subscribe to my podcast.  It’s also embedded here:

Please take a few minutes to read the checklist, or listen to the podcast when you have some free time.  With a little bit of preparedness, you can save precious things – and even lives.