My daughter recently reached a dubious milestone in her life: She received her first credit-card solicitations in the mail. “A great rate is just the beginning …” read one of the offers, which were targeted at college students. Problem: My daughter is not a college student. She’s 12 years old.

My first reaction was to be angry at the mean, incompetent credit card companies trying to lure my tween into a life of debt. But as often is the case with parenting, and with finances, the story is more complicated than that. More

If you want to measure the impact of the recession, there’s no better place to look than college financial aid offices. According to a just-released survey by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, some 90% of colleges and universities reported a spike in financial aid applications during the last admissions cycle. To meet the surge in demand, schools provided financial assistance to a larger number of  students, as well as boosted the amount of grants, loans and work-study.

Another bullet dodged. But the scramble to meet the needs of last year’s freshman class raises a couple of urgent questions. Will the schools be able to provide adequate aid for students applying for next year’s freshman class? And over the long run, will colleges remain affordable for middle-class students? More

When you start searching for that perfect college for your child, you might think there's plenty of information to help you with your decision. Just for starters, every college has a website that will give you all the essentials.

Take Stephens College, a private, four-year women's school in Columbia, Missouri. A quick tour of its website will tell you that the college offers more than 50 major and minors, everything from English to event planning to equestrian science. Class sizes average just 13 students. Annual costs total $32,250, but nearly all students get some kind of financial aid. And the campus looks nice.

But what you  won't see without diligent searching is that half of Stephens students fail to graduate, even after six years. Not to pick on Stephens, which does mention that statistic deep in its website. Point is, little of the data that colleges provide really tell you much about the value of your investment: the quality of the education, the experience of the students, or how the graduates fare later in life. Instead parents have long accepted the value of the diploma on faith. And many assume that a college that charges $50,000 a year will give their child a better education than one that charges $25,000.

That may be about to change. As tapped-out families realize they can no longer borrow more and more for expensive colleges, they are increasingly focusing on lower-priced schools.  As two college officials recently warned, higher education may be the next bubble to burst. Many experts are even questioning the value of a college degree in an economy where B.A.s are competing, often unsuccessfully, with high school graduates and those with vocational training.

All of which may give momentum to long-standing efforts to improve higher education accountability, which is something that colleges have successfully resisted for years. (Ironically, these same schools have demanded increasing amounts of information about applicants and their parents' ability to pay.) As Kevin Carey, policy director at Education Sector, noted in a recent interview, "Families need more disclosure about value of the education their money is buying, and the federal government should encourage colleges to make this information transparent."

Truth is, many colleges do a poor job at graduating well-educated students. A recent study by the American Enterprise Institute found that on average four-year colleges graduate fewer than 60% of their students with six years. And there were wide differences among all categories of schools; even for the most competitive colleges, average graduation rates differed by 13 percentage points. (To find out the graduation rates for many four year colleges, go to collegeresults.org.) Other studies have found that good students who attended less prestigious colleges ended up earning the same as those who went to brand-name schools.

It wouldn't be that hard to provide data about educational quality, since schools compile most of it anyway. They just keep it private, which is curious considering that most colleges are public institutions or or least partially funded by taxpayers. The National Survey of Student Engagement gathers loads of data on how they spend their time in school and how they feel about their education.The College Learning Assessment tests students' ability to reason analytically and solve problems during their academic career. As for student outcomes after graduation, well, most colleges keep tabs on their alumni for fundraising purposes. So it's time that they shared some of that information with tuition-paying families.  And who knows? A little more disclosure might improve the quality of higher education and even slow the rate of tuition hikes.

Tell us, what information would you like colleges to provide?

by JEANNE FLEMING, PH.D. and LEONARD SCHWARZ

Question: When my father-in-law learned we were planning to move to a community with better schools, he said he’d send our sons to parochial schools here. He paid for their first semester, but hasn’t paid since. Doesn’t he have an obligation to honor this commitment? He’s not hurting for money, and we stayed because of his promise.

Answer: We sure hope you’re not counting on your father-in-law to help send your boys to college (and we’re not kidding).

Breaking a promise is, of course, never a nice thing to do. But the extent to which it’s simply crummy as opposed to seriously unethical depends on two things: 1) the degree to which the promise involves a quid pro quo and 2) the degree to which the recipient of the promise is hurt when the promise-maker reneges.

So, on the quid pro quo front, did your father-in-law agree to pay the tuition in return for your agreeing not to move? If he did, he has a moral obligation to honor his commitment (assuming he hasn’t suffered a serious financial setback in the interim). He’s obligated, that is, unless his failure to pay has had no real consequences for you and your family. You make the point that your father-in-law isn’t hurting for money, but how about you? If you can afford the tuition as easily as he can but you just don’t want to pay it, then his failure to keep his word, while unequivocally dishonorable, is not such a terrible ethical breech.

Questions? Email Money Magazine’s ethicists – authors of “Isn’t It Their Turn to Pick Up the Check?” (Free Press) – at FlemingandSchwarz@right-thing.net.

by JEANNE FLEMING, PH.D. and LEONARD SCHWARZ

Question: A wonderful art teacher at my daughter’s high school was quietly treated to a three-week “sabbatical” in Florence this summer by the wealthy parents of three of my daughter’s classmates. Was it inappropriate for him to accept their gift? If so, what should I do?

Answer: Inappropriate is putting it mildly. Dazzled as he may have been by the prospect of the sabbatical, the teacher should have realized how corrupting it is to accept a gift of that magnitude – a gift that, everyone’s honorable intentions notwithstanding, has all the earmarks of a bribe. After all, no matter how hard he tries to be fair, how can this teacher not give the gift givers’ children the benefit of every doubt when he’s grading their work, writing their college recommendations or simply deciding whom to call on in class?

Shame too on those parents for compromising a good teacher. Even had they waited for their children to graduate, their gesture would have been misguided, signaling as it does that rewards await the teacher who wins favor with the rich.

You need to right these parents’ wrong by bringing their actions to the school’s attention. If you fear this could make trouble for your daughter, do it anonymously. But do it. As fine a man as he may otherwise be, this teacher should be censured and the parents reprimanded. Indeed, the principal needs to make certain that everyone in the school community understands that there’s no place for payola in the classroom.

Questions? Email Money Magazine’s ethicists – authors of “Isn’t It Their Turn to Pick Up the Check?” (Free Press) – at FlemingandSchwarz@right-thing.net.

by JEANNE FLEMING, PH.D. and LEONARD SCHWARZ

Question: My great-aunt, a well-off widow in her eighties, has no children. I’ve been encouraging my kids to see her more often and keep her up-to-date on their activities. I know she will appreciate the attention, and since she has to leave her money to somebody, it might as well be my girls. I see this as a win-win situation, but my wife’s disgusted with me. Who’s nuts, her or me?

Answer: Suppose your great-aunt were inviting your attention while concealing from you the fact that she’s leaving her money to charity? Would that be okay? Well, faking affection in order to inherit her money is equally wrong. Each misrepresentation is intended to extract something that presumably wouldn’t be given if the relative being hoodwinked knew the truth.

Encourage a loving relationship between your daughters and your great-aunt and incidentally hope she leaves your family something, and you’ve done nothing wrong. But push your kids to fawn on Auntie in order to get into her will? Sorry, but then you’ve betrayed not only her trust but the trust of your children, to whom you owe better moral guidance.

Plus remember, true motives have a way of revealing themselves. If your family’s attention to your great-aunt is insincere, don’t bet that she – and your other relatives – won’t figure it out. Then too, people with good hearts can inadvertently undermine the schemes of their calculating kin. Imagine that your great-aunt loses most of her money and turns to you – her seemingly fondest nephew – for help with her bills or maybe even for a place to live. Touché … and that’s just what the rest of your relatives will be thinking.

Questions? Email Money Magazine’s ethicists – authors of “Isn’t It Their Turn to Pick Up the Check?” (Free Press) – at FlemingandSchwarz@right-thing.net.