Yes, Some Things in Life Are Actually Free

I’ll be honest. I started my Substack about a year and a half ago with a vague idea of where I wanted to go with it. My work is higher ed adjacent. I read a lot. I follow a lot of people in different higher ed adjacent roles: college/university admissions, enrollment management, financial aid, state policy, federal policy, legislators, think tanks, higher ed writers, educators. I live my value of lifelong learning.

College admissions in the U.S. is frustratingly complicated for students and families. Information is out there, but scattered. I didn’t want to write the same content that many other independent counselors post. (”Here’s a write-up of my visit to X University.”) My goal was, and still is, to synthesize information into useful, actionable guides or lists. For example, a propos to this time of year for juniors in high school, here are some previous articles, some of which link to my website because the Substack platform isn’t set up for embeds:

• College List-building

• How to find Tuition reciprocity / discount agreements

• How to find colleges if you don’t want to play at varsity level, but still want to play your sport competitively

• Coming soon: #HowIHowTo: This One’s for You, Juniors—on College Research, College Fairs, & Free Portfolio Review. Plus, a College Search refresher.

So what to do with Substack’s subscriptions in a field where students and families only really need the information for several months to a year? Here’s what I’ve decided to do.

Subscriptions are going away, and the Founder membership is going away for now.

All of the information I’ve synthesized has been freely available to the public until now. I’ll continue to work on building guides based on ideas that originate from the work that I do with students I’m mentoring individually. (It takes time, so yeah, I don’t post that often. And sometimes I’ll start a post, and work and life get busy. e.g., there’s another Notes from the Trenches draft that didn’t happen last Nov.)

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Future ideas

• For some posts, I may create a template you can use if you don’t want to create it yourself. Templates will be available for a nominal fee on my Ko-fi page.

• I’m ruminating on some one-off engagement opportunities. Those will accompany some posts where you’re given resources to use on your own, with an option to meet one-on-one with me if you’d like additional feedback.