<p>Hey, soozievt, I had a quick question: what are your views on this issue? </p>
<p>Really, I don’t mind that you post on my threads, but after saying the same thing half a dozen times, could you maybe wander over somewhere else for a spell? As you can tell by the first several responses, this struck a chord with a number of folks. You made your point, and then you hammered away non-stop. Are you like this in person?</p>
<p>MSUDad, this is a discussion. You made your point several times and I responded. New posts went up and I responded to those. </p>
<p>I also don’t get it anyway…I understand cost being a factor of course…but you also posted today on another thread that your D’s first choice is NYU which is one of the most expensive universities in the country and also doesn’t meet 100% of need based aid. I didn’t know your kid was interested in that school when I posted how I found the tuition on the bursar’s site on one of my kid’s college’s websites. That was NYU in fact where she just graduated. I did not realize your child is looking to be a VP major.</p>
<p>You win. I quit.</p>
<p>“their error is that this fall’s tuition is not updated on their site”, yet at the bottom left, one can see that this specific page was updated on July 10, 2009. As far as I am concerned, U of Toledo is withholding the information.</p>
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<p>This is not true in my state. If the legislature and media have a lick of sense, it won’t be true in other states, either. </p>
<p>“Tuition” is not just tuition; it’s actually “Tuition and required fees.” When our legislature is measuring the increase, BOTH are included in the total, and this is how it is reported to the state and elsewhere, and the way the media reports it as well. It’s a pretty basic reporting convention.</p>
<p>We have certainly seen instances of institutions being sneaky about costs increases, such as mid-year increases, but it’s not usually of the “oh this is just a fee” variety. If it’s a fee and everyone has to pay it, then it goes into the “tuition and fee” calculation each year.</p>
<p>This doesn’t deny that there can be a problem with fees from an affordability or surprise standpoint for some families–course and lab fees, for example, can add to some families’ total; as can a differential for upperclassmen or certain colleges within a University. Some institutions have them, and some don’t. But not every student will be impacted.</p>
<p>MSU, sorry to have disagreed with you in terms of using “finding cost of attendance on a college website” as one criterion for selecting colleges. This is a discussion thread and all are not required to agree. Some agree with you (I happen to agree with the frustration aspect you experienced, just not the selection criteria) and a couple did not. That is how discussion threads go on CC. </p>
<p>In my view, having now looked up some posts of yours, I would suggest looking far more deeply into the schools your D is considering than how easy or hard it is to find something on their website because I saw a list of schools you had in the fall and many of those schools do not match your D’s criteria that you listed. That’s where I would concentrate…your D’s selection criteria that will matter far greater than how well a website is designed in the long run. I am familiar with the schools that you listed and won’t take the time (or this is not the thread) to explain in what ways certain schools you mentioned do not meet the criteria you had listed.</p>
<p>msudad…at the school website…do a google search…</p>
<p>total cost of attendance </p>
<p>or total COA</p>
<p>sometimes this helps find the information quicker.</p>
<p>note what’s included in their particular COA…tuition, room, board, etc.
do they include books in the COA? </p>
<p>you might want to start a spreadsheet…have a COA column for each school but note what that particular school includes in their COA.</p>
<p>^^^condor…agreed…that has been suggested in a few posts…the search function on a college’s site can help when it is not obvious where they have listed certain information as it does differ from school to school’s sites in how the sites are organized.</p>
<p>one of my pet peeves on this front is schools that show their total costs on a clear chart and then (in small print) it says “per semester.” Found a great match and was thrilled to see a total cost of around $23K, then realized later it was per semester.</p>
<p>Also, on our school’s Naviance filter, it posts tuition only. Ridiculous to think costs without the R&B addition, it varies greatly from school to school.</p>
<p>condor, I notice that you added to your post after I had responded but I am glad you did as you mentioned something I was going to as well and is based on something I have observed on other threads on CC at times. When some discuss the cost of one college, they are including things like the personal expenses that the college will estimate for things like books, travel, spending money, etc. And others will use tuition, room, board and required fees only. And so the totals are comparing apples to oranges. It is important to add up the required costs and compare those from school to school. I would leave off the personal costs which can vary from the estimates a school provides (even though that is part of the money you’ll need to come up with) but for purposes of comparing schools, I would use tuition, room, board, required fees only and not go by the totals provided if those totals include personal expenses, books and so on which can vary.</p>
<p>MSU Dad: Please don’t quit. I think this is a legitimate concern and one that has annoyed me too. Just because one poster on here is focused on proving you wrong doesn’t mean others don’t agree with you. I think a school’s attitude comes through loud and clear on their website. As does a company’s. If the company where I’m looking at information makes it difficult for me to find it, I tend to go elsewhere.</p>
<p>I am not intent on proving MSUDad wrong as there is no right or wrong involved here. I actually understand his frustration! Several others do as well. </p>
<p>A few of us simply stated our opinions that we would not utilize this difficulty in finding the COA on a website in knocking schools off the list but others may feel differently about that. Some of us who feel as we do have already had our children go to college and so have some perspective of what really mattered in the end. The ease of the website had no affect on their attendance at the college. Also, others have tried to be helpful in suggesting to use the search function on a college site as each site is set up so differently that the tuition fees are found in different places per school’s site. </p>
<p>I just have seen people decide about a college based on some things of this nature…such as liking a tour guide or not or how the website is set up (I don’t agree that tuition is purposefully hidden in an attempt to be shamed about its value as the OP asserts). </p>
<p>I’ll give an example of what I mean… In junior year for D1, we did all of our college visits. We did many things on the visits, and not just a tour and an information session but really in depth visits that included meeting with faculty, students, heads of EC activities, sometimes overnights and so forth. But we did do the tour and info sessions everywhere too. At Brown, when we arrived at the admissions office for the information session and signed in (having made reservations in advance), we were in the waiting room with other prospective students and parents and we saw some were perusing a copy of the school brochure and we asked if we could have a copy and they said they were only giving those to seniors, not juniors. I was kinda shocked as we got this at other schools and anyway, shouldn’t juniors do college visits? I think so! Now, if we used that to consider or not this school, it would have been a grave mistake. Turns out, my D was admitted and later went back for a second two day visit in the spring for the accepted student events and loved it so much and chose to enroll. After four years there, I can’t begin to tell you what a perfect match school this turned out to be for our daughter and how much she loved every minute of it and she, nor we, ever had one complaint about anything all four years there. I cannot say enough of her experiences there. Had we judged the school based on this “brochure or not” experience, it would have been a mistake to knock off a school that was truly a great match and fit my daughter’s college selection criteria (which had nothing to do with how they handled brochures in the admissions office or the ease of their website). It fit her list of what she wanted in a college and that is what mattered so much in the end.</p>
<p>THIS is what I was addressing here. I get the frustration about not being able to readily find the tuition costs on a website. I truly do. But the premise of the thread is not simply that colleges should design the website to make that easier to find but suggests knocking off schools where a parent can’t readily find the information they want on the site and also suggests that schools purposely have hidden such information. That is what I am disagreeing with.</p>
<p>Ok. Fine. You disagree. We get it. But do you seriously think that if you post ten times we’ll agree with you?</p>
<p>The point was not to get you to agree. The thread is a discussion. Someone posts, then others respond. New posts go up and thus new responses like the one I just wrote in response to your post, go up. Some others had a similar viewpoint to me and some have a similar one to the OP. That’s fine. The idea is not to convince one to agree with the other. I also was clarifying my position in my most recent post as understanding why it is frustrating but the thread also was about such information being purposely hidden and so on. Having had kids already go to college, I can step back and say what really mattered in the selection of the college in the end. Just offering that up as it would be a shame to knock schools off a list for something like website design which may not affect the student’s enjoyment and experience at that college. It is just a discussion.</p>
<p>Ok. Now I see why MSU dad left. Bye</p>
<p>college websites can be frustrating…some are so incomplete in the info they give out.also, on a specific colleges website, the info available from dept to dept can be so different.its like theres no monitoring of content.it can be quite frustrating when you are looking for information.Someone recently asked me to look at a school’s dep’t with the same major my S is completing (senior this year) at another school.The info available was so scarce I couldnt give her an opinion.</p>
<p>Colleges should put great care into their websites (they truly do vary from school to school in how good they are) and realize how first impressions are made through this medium.</p>
<p>I agree that some college websites are easy to navigate and others aren’t. I don’t have enough experience with kids in college to tell you how the websites reflect what it’s really like to go to school. I do remember being amazed 30 years ago how much nicer the administration at Caltech was than either Harvard or Columbia - no idea if the same is true today though. And as annoying as an administration can be, is it enough to knock a school off the list?</p>
<p>mathmom…I know you have a kid at CMU. I have to say that CMU’s offices have made many blunders that we experienced, as have many who have shared on the Musical Theater forum, when it comes to lost materials, receipt of payments, confirmation of audition appointments, and I could go on and these details have all been shared on that forum over time. That said, CMU’s Drama program is tippy tops and I would have no hesitation to send my child there (she was Priority Wait listed for their program…they took three girls her year for MT). I don’t think the workings of the secretarial staff or drama admissions office for auditions and admissions would have had any bearing on what the program was like itself which to my knowledge is truly excellent and highly regarded.</p>
<p>soozievt…thanks for explaining further the total COA. i agree. it is best to try to always have listed the tuition, room, board, and required fees. also note that some fees may be required at one school and not at another school. </p>
<p>another thing to keep in mind is that some of these required fees may be for the freshman year only and then they go away after that first year, i.e., orientation fee, etc.
moving to off campus housing after the freshman year can produce some savings so columns on the spreadsheet for freshman year and then also for subsequent years might be helpful.<br>
be sure to note if on campus housing is required and if so, for how many years.</p>
<p>our basic formula for comparing was something like …
total coa minus free money (grants and scholarships) equals out of pocket expense (the bottom line).<br>
loans are not free money so they don’t get to be deducted.</p>