Do You University Launch Update

Greetings all!  I wanted to let you know that after days, and weeks, and months of planning, meetings, researching, analyzing, writing and coding, etcetera, Do You University has officially launched today--finally!  I hope that you will continue to visit, and support me at the new Do You University website.  I have truly enjoyed posting to this blog when I could, and providing helpful scholarship information.

If you enjoyed reading my posts, you can continue to enjoy posts written by me at: http://www.DoYouUniversity.com.  If you are a high school student, join our free online community for high and secondary school students.  If you happen to be affiliated with a college or university you can also join the online community network as well.

Help us revolution higher education--JOIN the Do You University student movement, and let's revolutionize higher education landscape.  To join, click on the link above and then click on the sign-up or register here button located on the Do You University website.

Join the Do You University Movement!

Do You University Launches Next Week!

If you read this blog with any kind of frequency, hopefully by now, you have seen my announcement about ForwardUniversity.com rebranding as Do You University (DYU).  We are ultra-excited around these here parts of the world these days because we truly believe that DYU is positioned to really help a lot of students out there in Scholastica.  I almost posted here the other night, but we were experiencing some last minute hiccups that made me delay sharing my exuberance.

The DYU concept planning began last fall, and the more we looked at our research and the market--the more excited we became about building, and launching a new admissions consulting company that employs a more student-centered approach to college admissions consulting.  In February, we began our developer search, and after many days of deliberation selected our web developer.    Once we engaged our developer, it was nothing but days, and days of strategic plan reviews, content writing and rewriting, system and process reviews, conference calls, and meetings via Skype, and other fun things like dealing with corporate formation, intellectual property and vendor issues.  Launching a start-up is a lot of hard work . . . whew . . . and we are still working, and striving for perfection or at least optimality, and cohesion.

So, good people--DYU is scheduled to launch on Monday, July 28th,  Yes, that is this Monday coming up people--y'know the day after Sunday (LOL).  After waking up this morning for some final edits to the website, and integrity checks, DYU should go-live on Monday, and to say that I am excited is an understatement.  This calls for a celebration, but alas there is too much work yet to be done for that right now--so, my friends we must continue to work hard so that DYU will become the very best at what it does.  Hip-hip, hooray!
Ok, enough of my celebratory and festive ravings.  Let me tell you why you should join DYU if you are in high school or secondary school.  You should join DYU because DYU was created and launched with you in mind.  If you are a college-bound student--that means YOU!  DYU's platform was developed to create a pipeline between you and the many different colleges and universities that are out there in Higher Ed land.  I am not going to waste precious time telling you about DYU here--find out for yourself--take the plunge--sign-up for your free student member account today, and let's get it started.

Sign-up if you are a Senior, Junior, Sophomore or Freshman.  Tell your friends, let's start a chain reaction--because the more students like you that join DYU--the more effective we will be in taking over the world!  (Just joking!)  But, seriously though, the more serious students like you that join the DYU movement, well the larger the voice DYU will have, and we all know that there is strength in numbers.  So, Join today! Create your individual member profile, and let's move Forward To Your Future!  

Why I Started Do You University

The Do You University Revolution Has Begun

OK.  So, on last night I finally made the big announcement about the impending launch of Do You University.  I truly believe that Do You University is going to be a difference maker in the lives of many--if not all of the college-bound students that join the DYU movement by becoming a member of the DYU community.  Yes, DYU is a movement--a student movement to right the ship or let us say correct the current directional impact that higher education continues to have on hundreds of thousands of students in the United States, and around the globe.  As I am quite sure that you, and your parents are aware of the yearly rise in college and university tuition in the United States, it seems that every college or university whether small or large has joined the annual tuition increase parade.  Personally, I believe that such exorbitant ticket prices for a four-year college education are out of control, and similar to the way that American citizens get gouged at the gas pump--tuition paying parents are being gouged by U.S. colleges and universities.  So, what's a parent or guardian of an aspiring college student to do?

Middle-Class Family Incomes Cannot Keep Pace With Annual Tuition Increases

If you believe that I am being overly dramatic here let's look at some empirical data, and move beyond my mere conjecture.  Despite the fact that the economy is still in recovery, and the fact that the rate of inflation continues to outstrip the median family income in America--college and university tuition is up arithmetically at not only private colleges and universities, but tuition is also up at public universities that have for so long been subsidized for residents of the states in which those universities are located.  The Federal Reserve Bank chart below illustrates my point:

As you can see from the Federal Reserve's data, the difference in income and the cost of attending college in 2011-2012 is about 50 points higher than it was in 2001-02,  Furthermore, if I extrapolate, in 2014-15 the disparity will probably move to the 60-70 point mark. So, what does this do?  Increase the need for student loan indebtedness apparently, as more and more college financial aid packages constrict based on the parental and student income levels.  The irony here is that because household incomes are so grossly disproportionate to the perpetual tuition increases, it is nearly impossible for middle income families to keep up with such cost increases, and annual college tuition increases.  So, while colleges and universities continue to increase their tuition each year--most of them are doing nothing in terms of providing additional financial assistance in the form of grants, or scholarships. Instead, many middle-income families are left to their own devices, which usually amounts to government-backed Direct and Parent PLUS loans.

Student Loans Abound

The chart below delineates the stark reality of this new epidemic of student loan indebtedness:

Today's economic landscape impresses upon all future collegians, and their families to vigilantly prepare for their student's matriculation to the college campus.  Student loan debt in America has more than doubled from 2004 to 2012 to more than 900 billion dollars.  So, what's a family to do?  The simple and short answer is to start saving for your child's college education the minute that he/she is born; however, not everyone is able to do this effectively for a plethora of reasons.  So, the next thing you can do is try to save as much as you can, and be prepared to wing it.  That is to say, be prepared to set up a college payment plan to pay-off the balance of your student's cost of attendance once scholarship money, grant money or (un)subsidized loan funds have been applied to your bill.  This is always the practical alternative when you don't suddenly experience a major comeuppance six-months before little Stevie is about to go off to college because you found a chest of buried treasure in the back yard or the wall of your home using that ole' trusty metal detector.  Anyway, enough of my attempt at humor to lighten the mood.  My point here is simply this: college tuition around the country is exorbitant, and its about time someone started a movement to shakeup the higher education paradigm in America.  Otherwise, college truly will be for the children of the 1% alone, and eventually most of the 99% will be totally priced out of the market or if not, living beyond their college affordability means to keep up with the Joneses.

Why I Started DYU

So, this is effectively why I decided to start DYU . . . to try to fix the college affordability problem by creating an online platform that will empower each student member to recognize his/her power, and to know beyond a reasonable doubt that he/she has value, and true worth.  Join the DYU movement, and let's make this vision a reality together. Remember that you can sign up for your free student membership account at: http://doyouuniversity.com.

Why College? Why Not?

The title of this post is: Why College? Why Not? At a glance this brief question and answer may make no sense, but actually it does. You see the caption above was taken from a poster that I purchased when I was a college student. I loved this poster or actually the series of Why College? Why Not posters? I found these posters quite appealing because of their message: on one poster there was the quintessential dream house that sat atop a mountain. Underneath the mansion-like house were seven open garage doors which housed a car for everyday of the week: the Mercedes-Benz, the BMW, Lamborghini, Maserati, Porsche, Ferrari and one other which I can't seem to remember as I sit here writing this post . . . nevertheless, I am sure that you are beginning to see where I am heading in mentioning this.


To make a long story shorter, I had three of the aforementioned posters which I placed in 24 X 36 frames. My plan was to mount them on my wall to remind me of the myriad rewards in pursuing higher education any time I began to question my educational endeavors or the inherent value of pursuing a college education. Indeed, the posters served as nice daily reminders of what treasures can be amassed by pursuing higher education. Nonetheless, perhaps, my allusion to the Why College poster story appears a bit materialistic, but please don't misinterpret my intentions here for I do recognize that there are so many reasons that high school students and others choose to pursue formal higher education beyond the pursuit of luxury cars and big houses.


To the contrary, the point of this post is to merely highlight that there are so many individual reasons that those of us who choose to matriculate to our nearest university or college choose to do so. For some, well, it is to continue to excel and achieve in school so that they can achieve the American dream of white houses and picket fences. While for others, the pursuit of education is draped in family tradition or generational legacy--you were born to attend university (sorry, I had to say that). And yet for others, pursuing higher education is part of our individual recipe for success. Today, if you want to become a doctor, lawyer, engineer, nurse, teacher, psychologist, biologist or whatever your chosen field of human endeavor, guess what? You-have-to-go-to-college--plain and simple, no "ands," "ifs," or "buts," about it!


In the age of the New Millenium--the 21st First Century--it is paramount for young people to secure the necessary educational preparation and training that will equip them to be players in the global and ever-changing world economy. So, having said all that, I decided to start the blog Forward University to serve as a source of information, advice and encouragement, among other things, to prospective college students across the land. Recognizing the importance of education, I wish that all students will graduate from high school, and move on to post-secondary education. Perhaps, this blog will help to achieve that lofty goal.