<p>My son has recently been accepted to Northeastern and is trying to convince me that the school is worth the money. We live in NY and he can go to SUNY Buffalo for a fraction of the price.</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong..I am very proud of him and his accomplishments but can not see spending more then twice the money for a similar education.</p>
<p>He keeps bringing up the whole Northeastern co-op thing. Sure you get some experience and perhaps NE graduates have a slightly higher placement rate upon graduation BUT you spend 5 years (and an extra $50K) to graduate. I am sure that if you checked the percentage of students who have landed jobs from ANY school after a year you will find that MOST do. And they do not have to spend the extra money!!!</p>
<p>I can’t comment on how the co-op program works when it functions as it’s supposed to, but I wanted to share that a friend of mine has a son who is a student at Northeastern currently and had a nightmare of a time securing a coop placement. The placement office really dropped the ball and seemed to have no idea how to function in the current job market. Basically left the kid out on a limb. He did manage to get something, a semester late, but things were all messed up for him during the semester he was supposed to be on his coop placement but wasn’t, and it was touch-and-go whether his graduation would be delayed because of this snafu.</p>
<p>This is second-hand and I may have the details wrong, but you may want to ask more broadly what they are doing to ensure placements, what happens when a placement can’t be arranged, etc.</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard and read about the coop, if you’re studying Business, Health Sciences or Engineering, then NEU is great at hooking students up with great coops. The Arts and Sciences coops do not always end up being so great. So if you’re not studying the above, it might make more sense to stick with the SUNY</p>
<p>Five years is not required for most majors, and the extra year is not an extra 50 grand. During the five years you pay only for eight academic semesters. The only extra fees from doing the extra year are from housing wherever you are cooping. There is also the four year coop option.</p>
<p>From the title you chose for your thread, I take it you want to save money and force your student into SUNY. It could be that he wants to get away from home and the attitude that you have. If you force him to go some place that he is not happy, he may not succeed. Northeastern has extensive financial aid both merit and need based to reduce the cost. </p>
<p>Coop is not a scam. It is over a century old at Northeastern and 200,000 alumni, including myself, have benefitted from the program. Also, second hand criticism that deskpotato offered should be taken for what it is: hearsay.</p>
<p>If this reply seems harsh, it is intended as such. You may want to think about your son’s needs and desires, subject to your finances, instead of your own. Using the term SCAM on your part shows a very nasty predisposition.</p>
<p>You don’t pay for tuition while you are on coop. you only pay for room and board, if you decide to live on campus. your son could find a coop near your house and just live at home during that year, plus he will be paid. Furthermore, there are options where he would coop for two semesters and still be done in four years total.</p>
<p>I did a LOT of research on the coop program because at one point I was heavily considering Northeastern, before deciding the school wasn’t for me. However, the coop program was NEVER a negative on my list.</p>
<p>To think of it as a scam is rather insulting I think. Like others have said, there is no extra tuition for a year and fields like engineering or business are probably better for co-op because firms usually hire students right out of college anyways…</p>
<p>To repeat what others have said, you do not pay an extra 50k. You pay for four years of college (8 semesters) and this cost is spread out over 5 years. </p>
<p>That’s not to say NU isn’t expensive, because it absolutely is, and I’m not convinced that my private education is better than a public education would have been. But I do know that co-op has made a huge impact on my decisions on what to major in, what field to go into, and my job prospects.</p>
<p>I’m a junior (4th year), so all my friends from high school are about to graduate from 4 year programs. Very few of them have job prospects, which isn’t because they aren’t qualified (they’ve all done internships, have good grades, etc) but it’s because they don’t have a real idea of what kind of work they do, and they don’t have much experience with the system of writing a resume, interviewing, etc.</p>
<p>Very few of my graduating friends at NU have this issue. We have solid resumes, we’ve interviewed multiple times, we have connections. A lot of people utilize co-op connections for post-graduation jobs, either taking a longer-term position, or just working for their former co-op employer while they look for other jobs, apply to grad school, whatever.</p>
<p>So no, co-op is definitely not a “scam”. Ask any junior, senior, alumni how they feel about it, and they’re going to say the same thing I did. Obviously people at other schools land jobs after graduation. Maybe at the same rate. My experience is anecdotal, but based on my friends at NU vs. other schools, we have an easier time doing it, and have a better idea of what kinds of jobs we’re looking for.</p>
<p>I’m a mother of a high school senior wanting to major in Engineering, and I agree with above posters that co-op is a great thing and NOT a scam. I’ve researched this a lot. </p>
<p>I am an engineer myself and can certainly state that co-op is useful for interest refinement as well as job experience in that field. I assume same is true of other majors, but I hear co-op payscale may not be as high as for engineering </p>
<p>You don’t pay tuition during co-op periods, and you earn a salary. The salaries vary and the student may just break even on living expenses. But it is still a great opportunity to try out different jobs… a valuable lesson whether you love it or hate it. Another perk - I think they can stay on parent medical plan as a “student”.</p>
<p>Is it worth the extra money? That will depend on the student, the family circumstances, and the cost delta. (This is for future readers who have not received financial packages…cost delta will vary by student. At SUNY, students will likely pay full ticket…still a good deal. At NEU, many students will get need based aid and/or merit scholarships.)</p>
<p>Most? In this economy? Please.
I know a lot of people that graduated college, and the only ones that landed a job are the ones who inherited their parents’ companies.
The rest are moving to China to look for a job that pays high for speaking English.</p>
<p>Co-op will be worth the money in the long run.</p>
<p>Well, I’m gonna be a international business major, which means the global co-op program will be INCREDIBLY beneficial to me. I guess it depends on his major.</p>
<p>And I think your son hasn’t researched tuition fees all that thoroughly.
While in Co-op, you don’t pay for the tuition. Why? Because you’re not being taught!
So Freshman year is around 50k, yeah.
Later years, cut off roughly half, and add the money that your son would make in co-op.</p>
<p>Besides, a 4 year program is available, if you don’t want to pay for a 5th year.</p>
<p>Now that I have gotten over the OP’s initial insult, I would like to add this. The biggest uproar on campus at Northeastern this year was caused by an announcement from the administration that initially appeared to say the NU would be deemphasizing the coop program. Students and alumni were quite vocal in opposition to this. The administration explained/backtracked saying that coop will be stronger than ever, only a 4 year coop option will be available for those students who desire it. Also, coop is evolving to encompass undergraduate research on campus etc. for those students interested in future academic careers.</p>
<p>I would suggest that the OP sit down with their son and talk over his options. Why does he want to study at Mortheastern and in Boston. What are the family finances? As the son has gotten early acceptance, that often comes with a big merit aid award. Have they submitted the FAFSA to see if they qualify for need based grants etc. While certainly not a parent who catered to my kids whims, I can definitely identify with a kid you would want to study in Boston rather than in Buffalo!</p>
<p>This isn’t true. I recently spoke to a representative at the co-op office. I’m a student there now. They always offered 4 and 5 year programs. If you go for 4 years you do 2 co-ops and if you go for 5 years you do 3. They started educating people about the 4 years program because they didn’t want to see that NU is a 5 year school and get scared (like you did by misinterpreting the cost). </p>
<p>Some people prefer 3co-ops but some feel like they’re ready to graduate with two. It’s a matter of personal preference. This change in advertising does not affect the program.</p>
<p>PLEASE RESEARCH YOUR INFORMATION! Northeastern is an amazing school and you should be proud your son got into it- not spending your time trying to tear it down…</p>
<p>I am like the OP in that I tried to steer my son to SUNY Buffalo for ChemE because it’s highly ranked and frankly, it’s cheap, relative to NEU, but my son has wanted to go to NEU from the start of his college search and one of the reasons is the co-op program. I support his decision. It means graduating college with more loans than if he went to SUNY Buffalo, but he’s aware of that and still wants NEU. As one poster commented, can’t blame the kid for picking Boston over Buffalo.</p>
<p>Northeastern has always offered 4 AND 5 year programs (as said above), but this year they’ve decided to advertise the 4 year program more than they have in the past. It’s entirely just for advertisements, and doesn’t affect the normal student body in the slightest.</p>
<p>Obviously everything everyone else has said I agree with but I would also like to add this:</p>
<p>I’m on co-op right now, and I’ve only worked there for a few weeks. So far I’ve had THREE complete strangers (who guessed I was the co-op because I look pretty young) in the office tell me how great the co-op program is because it gives experience and references. They didn’t mean “oh looky, now you can say you’ve worked with Excel” kind of experience. They meant that when they are looking to hire someone and they’ve got a group of students straight out of college- they don’t have to take a gamble on someone with no experience. They told me horror stories about hiring new people who turned out to be a huge waste of training and money, which could have been avoided if the student had proven in the past that they were capable of working even just one co-op assignment. Internships are great, but they are usually short term things over the summer, and rarely paid. Co-ops (although not all are paid) prove you were worth the 10 to 25 dollars an hour to an employer for 6 long months. Top it off with being able to call up to three of those employers and ask for references-- it’s not even comparable to a student without co-op.</p>
<p>Oh, and also the “co-op placement dropped the ball” thing is completely wrong. There are co-op advisors and career counselors and lots and lots of people to help you be the best prospective job applicant you can be. They do not PLACE you into anything. It is a job. As such, it is YOUR responsibility to create your resume, edit it, prepare and go to interviews, and ask questions about the possible job you could be spending 6 months at. And yeah, sometimes people don’t get co-op jobs when they want to. Guess what? If it took you 6 months to get an HOURLY CO-OP JOB applying against other UNQUALIFIED students, how long do you think it would have taken him applying to a job that pays salary and benefits against more qualified postgrads if he hadn’t done any co-op and graduate college like a normal student?</p>
<p>I will be graduating with more loans than I care to think about, but without co-op and all the advisors, I’d still be a chemistry major with no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and I’d be graduating with Applebee’s as my most applicable experience.</p>
<p>Well put neuchimie! As mentioned on another post, there are reasons why some students don’t get coop jobs: required drug testing by many employers (welcome to the real world!). unrealistic expectations (you cannot expect to earn $1000/week and have a private office on your first job!), lazy attitude on the part of the student (you have to be proactive in dealing with coop advisers) etc. And sadly, in this current economy, you may do everything right and still not land a coop job (again, welcome to the real world).</p>
<p>I do believe that virtually all coop jobs are paid though.</p>
<p>Communications, music, theater, and journalism tend to have “internships” (aka unpaid), because they can. But nearly every other major is primarily paid.</p>
<p>Also, if it is unpaid, you aren’t required to do the full 40-ish hours a week that you are with a normal co-op, because they understand that you might need to have a part-time paid job elsewhere. My friend with an unpaid co-op does 20 hours there and 20 hours in a bookstore.</p>
<p>Last year, my son was trying to decide between NEU & American University. He was really into the idea of coop, that he would get a better idea of the type of job he liked. And he was counting on using the coop money to pay the higher tuition. He also quoted that a really high percentage of students get offered full time jobs at graduation from their coop placement.s</p>
<p>But I was concerned that the co-op jobs would be affected by the enconomy - if the person hiring the coops was laid off then the program would be gutted. From what I understand, there has been some impact on the coop placement- I don’t know how much. My son ended up at AU, which I am very happy about since Washington is now the center of the universe and it has a great internship placement also. Also, he got a better scholarship at AU, so it came down to money also.</p>
<p>The “economy” (although I, as an econ major, really hate when people just phrase it like that) has hurt the co-op program a little bit. But it has hurt the overall workforce a lot more. So yeah, it’s a little harder to get a co-op job while it school. But it is a lot harder to get a job right after school, for every graduate. </p>
<p>Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying AU isn’t a good of a choice as NEU. I just mean that you have to do SOME sort of co-op or internship during school, or you’re really screwed when you graduate…</p>