College Finance

While most attention in the ongoing student debt crisis narrative has focused on new graduates, it turns out the federal government has been quietly targeting a different group of debtors: retirees.

It's a painful and pricey college tradition: Buying expensive new textbooks at the beginning of the term, only to turn around and sell them at cheap at semester's end. But Amazon.com hopes to change all that with its move into the textbook rental business.

Middle class Americans are fairly fervent in their belief that the route to career success has to run through a good college. But the numbers don't lie: Vocational studies might offer many the best chance at a solid career and a lifetime free of debt.

As fiscally painful as it is to send a child to college, you can actually save money when your son or daughter goes off to school. Here are five areas where you can find that extra cash, plus one "cost-cutting" trick you should actually avoid.

Ready or not, it's time for back-to-school season. Like the Christmas shopping season, it seems to begin earlier every year, and you have to play the game if you want to catch the sales. Or do you? Personal finance guru Jean Chatzky has some surprising advice for parents.

More than 80% of parents of 16- to 18-year-olds believe college is important to their child's future -- and a similar number are worried about how to pay for it. Here are a few tips that could make solving the college financing puzzle a little easier.

In recent years, the number of students enrolling in for-profit educational institutions has more than quadrupled. Tuition is lower that at private colleges, and there's more flexibility. But there's good reason to worry that most of those students are wasting their money and time.