No hard feelings - you have very good points and I appreciate sharing your kid’s engineering path.
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Thanks. It was offered not as the “better path,” but simply as an example that a student can get very deep in the weeds in aerospace skills without an aerospace degree. In his specific case, the combination of mechatronics, not found in AE and a full graduate curriculum in fluid mechanics, made him a very attractive candidate in the industry. As @momocarly said, it’s about amassing skills and experiences that align with an area of interest more than it is about a degree title.
Since flight specifically is his interest, he could get plenty of fluids background in ME. He’ll get more germane examples though in AE. More importantly, he’ll get systems level experience in AE that he wouldn’t with any other path.
An interesting caveat in school choice is whether or not he wants to fly himself. If that’s the case ERAU would hold an advantage over most other schools except the service academies.
Best of luck to him!
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Eyemgh, and Eyeore and other are not wrong, you can absolutely get jobs in Aerospace without an Aerospace degree. But there is still the actual task of enjoying the act of earning your degree. Yes, you have the ability to take some (very few) technical electives as an undergrad, but if your school doesn’t even offer Aerospace engineering, they most likely aren’t going to offer any technical electives worth taking in that arena. That being said, the reason that a person can get a job in aero, let’s say in the space program, with an ME or CE or BME or whatever E degree doesn’t have anything do with how general or specific those degrees are. At the end of the day the employers and programs are looking for good engineers with certain skill sets and critical thinking skills and if you graduated from an accredited engineering school and can communicate well during an interview, they will know there is a pretty good chance you have developed those skill sets during school and also gained some varying level of mastery over the technical subjects, which your transcript will show them. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have made it through engineering. So, to the person doing the hiring it often doesn’t matter what engineering field your degree is in as long as you have an engineering degree, can communicate, are articulate, have good technical writing skills, and if you have co-op or research experience that is a bonus.
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The aero industry has had its ups and downs - In the space sector, (before my days) I am sure there was a lull post Apollo, pre Shuttle and I am sure there was a dip after Challenger. All aspects of the aerospace market in general were pretty dead in the early 90s. But then by 1996-1997 it was doing real well. The space sector continued to do well until the Constellation program was cancelled without warning in 2010, followed by the planned ending of the space shuttle program in 2011. That was about as bad as I ever saw it. But right now it is doing really well again and not only government side, but commercial side too. I have been fortunate enough to make it from grad school through now without missing a beat. So 25+ years and counting, one location, a couple different programs and a couple different companies but continual employment.
Aviation side has its own ups and downs - military is usually fairly consistent because contracts and programs are long term. Commercial aviation has had a couple hiccups. 9/11 hit the airlines pretty hard and Covid hit the airlines pretty hard again. So in 20 years, that has been two hits to commercial aviation. Working for Boeing (which i guess is the only large American company left, I sort of stopped paying attention) - they have always been cyclical with hiring, freezes and layoffs over the years.
For the most part, the people I have known who wanted to remain in Aero have done so over the years. Right now seems to be one of the best job markets for aero I have ever seen. Feel free to message me if you have more specific questions.
And I still haven’t added my notes on schools yet…
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I’d differentiate between space and commercial aero: space is at a cyclical peak, with lots of companies with nonexistent business plans that were heavily overfunded in the last few years now starting to run short of money. I expect a lot of bankruptcies in the next couple of years (basically a return to the early 2000s dotcom aftermath for commercial space companies). By the time a 2023 HS grad is looking for jobs in 4-5 years time the sector may just about be starting to recover. But internships might become scarce for a while.
Conversely, as you mention, aero has had a torrid time with both the pandemic and Boeing’s meltdown over both the 737MAX and 787 issues. It’s now turning the corner (though Boeing is still a huge worry) and things should improve there for the next few years.
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Remember that a high school graduating senior going to college will graduate from college about four years later if all goes well. Where the economy or a specific industry is today may be very different from where it will be four years from now.
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Onto a schools- ERAU is a very good school and while it may be small your son would be surrounded by students who have like interests. Classes would be much smaller than at UF for example and I guarantee every professor would know his name. Your son would be 45 minutes from the space coast. There is a lot to like about Embry-Riddle. There will be a lot of employment recruiting events at Embry-Riddle and those recruiting events will almost exclusively be looking for people to work in the aerospace industry. You could go to a recruiting event at UF (for example) and have 10 times as many companies there but 1/10th the number of aero opportunities.
Aside: On topic of “traditional” college experience - that is different for everybody. I for one, do not consider schools with 30,000-60,000 students, with their entire identity and culture centered around football and/or Greek life to be the “traditional” college experience. For me traditional was a small idyllic college campus with 4k-8k students, preferably in New England. (Which ended up not quite being what I had) I know the OP said his son kind of liked UF, but also said he really thinks ERAU is right for him. I know Daytona isn’t a thriving metropolis, but Gainesville is in the middle of nowhere. He has also only visited 3 college campuses so far, I don’t think it is fair at this point to say, the son has 100% decided what type of school he wants. Everybody is usually blown away by their first college tour (not counting their local school) I’m sorry, but if he really wants to do Aerospace, he can’t just write Embry-Riddle off because of a perceived traditional college experience. If he is there now (which I think he is), he will get a good feel for it and will get a feel for if he thinks he can live there for 4 years. It is good that he has visited UF though, so he has seen the campus. But there are plenty of other schools that people haven’t even mentioned which fall on the spectrum between the enormous UF and the small ERAU. That being said, ERAU isn’t tiny, with nearly 9000 students, there are smaller schools.
A problem with a lot of the giant schools is that they are a lot like super giant high schools. Hyper focused on athletics and game day and everything else seems to be on a lower tier of importance. Massive student bodies. Huge classes. Kid will be a tiny cog in a massive machine. That being said, many of the big state schools have compensated for that in recent years by setting up honors colleges within the university for a smaller feel, where students can get more attention and have a smaller college feel within an enormous university. Arizona has one, Alabama has one Mississippi State has one, just as a few examples. I don’t know if UF does, but my guess is they do. A bunch of schools have them now.
UF has a good AE program, but it is a massive school and I also agree with what people have said that being OOS makes it probably a reach. Also, as somebody pointed out above - there was a link provided, - I personally would absolutely not put a dime into the Florida public education system given the new laws enacted by the Governor and state govt. They are repressing the rights of teachers and universities, white washing history and trying to limit what students can learn, which is antithetical to the very concept of higher learning. Now they are going further, trying to eliminate tenured faculty, here is another link DeSantis signs bill limiting tenure at Florida public universities Maybe that doesn’t concern your son as much, or it may be something you may want to look at seriously consider. Although Embry-Riddle is in Florida, it is a private university, so it is immune to a lot of the DeSantis garbage. Plus, they have the Arizona campus option (although Arizona is another state to worry about the education laws, I don’t think they are impacting colleges yet). I told my D early on last year I didn’t really want her looking at schools in Florida and while there were some good choices, auto-admit Texas was “if all else fails” because of the new laws these states were and are enacting, and she agreed. But that was a personal choice.
Definitely look at U of Arizona- overall prestige may not be as high as some other schools but the Aero program is very good and he could get pretty high tuition merit scholarships. Honors program and dorm would be a nice factor too.
UT is a reach for anybody OOS and honestly is a reach for most in state and even for autoadmits in state is probably a reach for engineering. High cost for OOS, difficult to get merit. A&M is probably a match (maybe a hard match because OOS) but as others have pointed out, have to be admitted into program after sophomore year. Better chance for aid or merit. Definitely a good Aero program for both of these schools and obviously good location if the thought is to go the space route.
Rutgers- I wanted to say they have had Aero for years and I just checked their web and it indicates Aero was added in 1965. But I think maybe they offered a certificate in Aerospace Engineering (with Mech E BS). Might be part of the reason I decided not to go there way back when.
(Of course the other NJ school with Aero is Princeton… which back in the old days before laptops everywhere and smartphones and Google and web browsers and we had to actually search books for information, I don’t even think I ever realized Princeton had Aerospace Engineering until after I was already in college. What does that say about guidance counselors in NJ?)
I’ll have to come back to colleges, there are definitely a bunch more schools that haven’t been mentioned. I think NCSU has been mentioned in passing, but they definitely have an excellent program. Rensselaer has not, “the” Ohio, I think U Kansas was only mentioned in passing, I don’t think U Washington has been mentioned, not sure if Colorado School of Mines was mentioned - all have very good programs. North Dakota for both Aero and flight.
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What about CU Boulder? Not the OP but we visited and were blown away by the tour of their aerospace facilities.
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I think the OP wants to stay east. I mentioned Cal Poly, which is in the middle ground with 20k students, a stand alone AE department, both astro and aero, small classes and the birthplace of cubesat. She didn’t want him traveling that far though. I suspect AZ and ASU are equally out.
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The other thing is. The CC is about people providing their opinion, their guidance. We don’t all agree with one another all the time, nor do we need to.
It’s unfair to insult peoples opinions. If one disagrees, they can state so and why without insulting the person making the opinion.
Ultimately it’s up to any OP to read and pull what is important to them.
But to insult another’s perspective is unfair to all that make this website such a fantastic resource.
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I just need to say that this has not been our D’s experience AT ALL at Purdue, which is definitely a big school. Maybe it’s because 1/2 the student body are enrolled in the CoE, but the hyper focus is on academics.
Yes, about honors college making a big school feel small, but also living learning communities in general. Purdue has a dozen living learning communities for engineering alone. Not being accepted to honors doesn’t mean there will be a “tiny cog” experience!
I will be honest that both my H and I went to a private university, less than half the size of Purdue. We were very worried about her choosing a big school because of everything you mentioned. Our daughter’s largest class was 300 students, with mandatory recitations of 25 students. My largest class as an undergrad at Cornell was 1,000. No recitation. Plenty of my intro courses had 300+ students. That isn’t a big school phenomena.
One month into freshman year, D was having weekly coffee meetings with a professor. By the end of the 1st year, she was on a first name bases with the assoc. dean of honors engineering. All her professors knew her by name. They actually talked about her because the first day of o chem, her prof told he knew she was a co-op student and chatted with her at length. The dean of chem e teaches one of the fundamentals classes so he can get to know every single student that comes through his department…and he does an hour long one on one with each of them.
Our D has been a course grader, was asked to TA, is doing research on campus, etc… She’s had a much stronger connection to professors than we ever had as undergrads.
The facilities are absolutely amazing. Labs, maker spaces, smart rooms, etc…
And when she wants to go to a basketball game she’s got the big school rah rah sports, along with amazing arts, 1000+ clubs, etc…
What’s the saying? You can make a big school feel smaller, but you can’t make a small school feel bigger.
To each their own in terms of preference but I wanted to shed some light on the stereotypes.
I do realize that my D’s major is MUCH smaller than aero (only 180 chem es in her year) but she has plenty of friends who studied AE and they are all employed or went on to grad school, and loved their time at Purdue.
YMMV but that’s been our family’s experience.
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It’s a public forum, so I’m used to anything. I just put my rhino suit on and assume I didn’t articulate my advice adequately.
People with all levels of experience post here. I try to confine my posts to the few areas where I have deep knowledge.
Keep up the good work. 
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Definitely, that is why when I was writing I modified my original statement to make sure I wasn’t being absolute. It definitely depends on the school, some balance it well and others do not. Purdue definitely has a very strong engineering rep and the funny thing is I always forget that it is a huge school half the time. You also bring up a good point about living learning communities as another option for sort of pulling in the size of the school. Another valid point is the size of the actual program, the school could be huge but if your program is small, that reduces your community. So if Purdue for example is maybe 36,000 undergrads, but only 10,000 are engineering and only 1000 of those are aero (which is still pretty huge) but that means about 250 in your year, so it makes it smaller. But some of their other engineering programs are much smaller as you mentioned Chem E.
There are a lot of Purdue graduates around the space program.
Wow - 1000 people in an undergrad class! That is insane! I was kind of horrified when I saw my D is going to have 250 kids in her chem class, when I think the freshman class is about 1700- haven’t seen final numbers yet. (What are they spending all that money on?) 
. Two other classes will have 18 people in them, not sure about rest of schedule yet.
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Purely in numbers, most college students attend larger colleges, and most college students commute to predominantly commuter colleges.
“A small idyllic college campus with 4k-8k students, preferably in New England” seems to describe most of the colleges in a well known (around these forums) NCAA Division I athletic conference (named after a type of plant), although fraternities and sororities at those colleges range from heavily discouraged to having a majority of eligible students participating. But very few students compared to the overall number of college students in the US attend those colleges.
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You made me chuckle. True, does describe that type of school (although I did not apply to any of those) - but there are a lot of other schools that have similar types of campuses in New England, people just tend to focus on the plant based ones. In the end the others didn’t have other things I wanted (primarily major) and I didn’t think the plants would accept me, although only a couple would have been considered. But really I meant that was my view of traditional when I was applying to colleges, my view has changed some since then. But still some of that I hold to. To me there are size limits (campus shouldn’t be bigger than Rhode Island, student body shouldn’t be bigger than Wyoming population), sports should not be the driving focus and identity of the school. I’ve also expanded region beyond New England. 
I shall channel my wife here, who maintains that once you get to a certain level in the rankings the education you receive will be largely the same, and students should focus on schools that feed into industries, geographic areas and organizations where they want to land. If a student wants to enter the auto industry they should go to UofM, MSU or Kettering, and if they want to land at a tech start-up in Silicon Valley they should apply to Stanford, CalTech and UC Berkeley. I would recommend doing a deep dive into the schools on your son’s list to see what companies hire their grads, and in what cities or states recent grads land.
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Univ of Colorado is also on our list as a match … didn’t visited it though
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Boulder is actually a safety imho but COA is $57.6k and likely a $6k scholarship. Few get more. Does that work for you at over $50k? Even with the best scholarship it’s $40k.
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Maybe more a match than a safety? Like most good engineering programs, the engineering admissions can be much lower than the school’s overall admission rate. And can be unpredictable if applications are viewed holistically.
This is ending up being a fairly long thread, and I’m still unclear about the budget and what the OP is willing to pay. Some on the list and some suggestions being made may be more viable than others , depending on finances.
Fair point - I think he’s in but you are right in that engineering is typically more difficult than the school iteself - Purdue is a great example of this. So I might be too “optimistic” in my view.
As for budget, I don’t think we’ve seen it but we saw this in message 29. And then the typical, don’t do it - not in engineering - came after from several of us.
" I’m sure he will end up getting some loans and I have no problem with this. We will help as much as we can, but he should be responsible for his education."
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