Six Great College Websites

(MoneyWatch)  When I Googled "college," today, I got 681,000,000 hits.

If I spent one minute on each of these websites, it would take more than 129 years to visit them all. And by then my great-great-great grandchildren would probably be ready for college.

The amount of college information on the Internet is intimidating and too much of it is garbage, but it will be vastly more manageable if you know where to look.

Here then are some of my favorite resources for researching college scholarships, financial aid, student loans and much more.

The Choice from The New York Times
Strangely enough, I've found hardly any blogs devoted to college issues that parents and teenagers would find helpful. Most college blogs that I've seen are written by academics for other professors, which isn't helpful.

MeritAid.com
If you think your teenager isn't smart enough to earn a scholarship, think again. That's one of the scholarship myths that MeritAid.com dispels on its website. What I like about MeritAid.com is that it provides a directory of merit scholarships at thousands of schools.

College Navigator
There are zero frills on this site that belongs to the U.S. Department of Education, but you can get an awesome amount of data on any college or university in the country. I particularly like the numbers that the site shares on what percentage of students receive financial assistance at a individual school and what kind of aid they obtain.

Inside Higher Ed
If you want to get a feel for what's happening on college campuses check out Inside Higher Ed, which is an online trade publication of colleges and universities. It's the free online alternative to The Chronicle of Higher Education, which is a paid site.

The Project on Student Debt
This nonprofit group is devoted to helping families make the best economic choices when grappling with college costs. I've referred many people to the site's financial aid pledge list that's been signed by schools that have promised to limit or eliminate student loans from their aid packages.

Paying for College Blog
This blog belongs to Student Lending Analytics, which helps colleges and universities evaluate lenders for their students. Hang around this blog and you'll get quite an education.

Research image by Fishbel, CC 2.0.