In 2021, my book LAUNCH hit #8 on Book Authority’s list of 51 Best-Selling College Financial Aid Books of All Time.
I was excited! But then I thought:
“OK—which book is the #1 best-selling college financial aid book of all time?”
I was overjoyed to see that the #1 best-selling college financial aid book of all time is Frank Bruni’s rockstar best-seller Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania.
I love this book because it echoes exactly what I say emphatically on my podcast here and in this article here. Gallup research shows that elite education does not actually lead to a happier life! Though I do recommend that everyone avoid for profit schools, students can attend lower-ranked colleges and still make their best, highest dreams come true.
Bruni’s book is a must-read not only for parents and students, but also for teachers and school counselors who sometimes inadvertently and unnecessarily pour gasoline on student anxiety by casually dropping this untrue sentence: “If you don’t get into a good school, you won’t be able to get a good job when you graduate.”
(This is not true! Frank Bruni explains why.)
Here’s the Amazon description for Book Authority‘s best-selling financial aid book of all time:
Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be
By Frank Bruni
“Over the last few decades, Americans have turned college admissions into a terrifying and occasionally devastating process, preceded by test prep, tutors, all sorts of stratagems, all kinds of rankings, and a conviction among too many young people that their futures will be determined and their worth established by which schools say yes and which say no.
That belief is wrong. It’s cruel.
And in Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be, Frank Bruni explains why, giving students and their parents a new perspective on this brutal, deeply flawed competition and a path out of the anxiety that it provokes.
Bruni, a bestselling author and a columnist for the New York Times, shows that the Ivy League has no monopoly on corner offices, governors’ mansions, or the most prestigious academic and scientific grants.
Through statistics, surveys, and the stories of hugely successful people who didn’t attend the most exclusive schools, he demonstrates that many kinds of colleges—large public universities, tiny hideaways in the hinterlands—serve as ideal springboards. And he illuminates how to make the most of them.
What matters in the end are a student’s efforts in and out of the classroom, not the gleam of his or her diploma.
Where you go isn’t who you’ll be. Americans need to hear that—and this indispensable manifesto says it with eloquence and respect for the real promise of higher education.”
You can purchase Frank Bruni’s #1 best-selling financial aid book here:
Frank Bruni’s book is the perfect complement to my step-by-step debt-free college book, LAUNCH.
The benefit of LAUNCH is its scope. It covers far more than just financial aid, and it does so in an easy, step-by-step way:
Important—> It’s a reference book, so nobody reads the whole thing cover to cover. Pick out what you need to read in it using the fast-paced, 10-minute video instructions here.
You can see hundreds of reviews of this book on Amazon by going to:
You can see why financial advising professionals love LAUNCH, here.
You can see the top 9 questions parents are asking me about LAUNCH, here.
Read just one chapter of LAUNCH every 1–3 months while your child’s in middle school and high school, and you’ll know every viable strategy for debt-free college at exactly the right time to implement it.
And if your child’s already well past middle school? That’s OK; you can run to catch up. But the process of getting your kids through college debt-free goes more smoothly the earlier you start it—especially if you’re not planning to save up any money to pay for college.
Let's you and I walk together toward the goal of debt-free college for your kids.
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Who is Jeannie Burlowski?
Jeannie is a full-time academic strategist, podcast host, and sought-after speaker for students ages 12–26, their parents, and the professionals who serve them. Her writing, speaking, and podcasting help parents set their kids up to graduate college debt-free, ready to jump directly into careers they excel at and love. Her work has been featured in publications such as The Huffington Post, USA Today, Parents Magazine, and US News & World Report, and on CBS News.
Jeannie also helps students apply to law, medical, business, and grad school at her website GetIntoMedSchool.com. You can follow her on Bluesky @jburlowski.bsky.social.
No part of this article was written using AI.