Most high school guidance counselors advise their students to carefully research colleges they are interested in prior to applying to those colleges. This is great advice but unfortunately, they don’t tell students how to properly research these colleges. As a result, many students end up making bad, and ultimately, costly decisions.

Do not apply to a college unless you know the answers to the following questions:

Who is the college accredited by?
It is not enough to ask a college advisor if their institution is accredited.

Colleges seek accreditation because being accredited implies that they have met acceptable levels of quality. Learning institutions can request accreditation from as many accrediting agencies as they’d like. The standards for accreditation vary widely within each agency.

There are two types of accrediting agencies: national and regional. In general, public and non-profit colleges are accredited by regional accrediting agencies while for-profit colleges are generally accredited by national agencies. It is possible however, for colleges to be accredited by both regional and national accrediting agencies.

It’s important to know which agency accredits the colleges because accreditation can directly affect how much and what type of financial aid you receive. Also, the type of accreditation can affect your admission to graduate school, credit transfers to another college and ultimately, the ability to work in your field of study.

What is their retention rate?
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) defines retention rate as “the percentage of first-time students who are seeking bachelor’s degrees who return to the institution to continue their studies the following fall.”

In general, a college with a high retention rate means that the freshmen for that cohort were so satisfied with their first year at the institution they actually decided to come back for a second year. In contrast, colleges with low retention rates generally signal that the institution may not be meeting the academic needs of their students, pushing them to search elsewhere.

While there may be other reasons beyond the school’s control as to why students would leave a college within their first year, colleges with higher retention rates typically also have higher graduation rates.

Community or junior colleges are an exception to the low retention rule. Oftentimes, many of the students attend just for a few courses in order to save money and transfer the credits to another institution. Because ...