For those of you whose HS student is considering different types of colleges, I highly recommend Co-Op schools. I really didn’t know much about them until my daughter was in one, and while she is in a major which does not require a co-op, she has one this summer. I thought I’d share a couple of surprises for me:
There are amazing benefits, not least of which is that co-op earnings are not counted against financial aid awards on the FAFSA. Regular student earnings are, but not co-op earnings. Since the college she goes to is known as a co-op college, it has a reputation of supplying good workers. There are programs in place at the college which help in the co-op process. While they don’t get it for you, they point you in the right direction, and facilitate the necessary paperwork.
While it will take “required co-op” majors longer to get through college, at least at my daughter’s school no tuition/fees are paid while students are away. When students graduate they will have major work experience, most likely lower loans, and many times have an offer in hand from a prior co-op experience. I’ve heard from quite a few parents of their students working part-time for their co-op after their co-op, while attending school. Win-win.
The predominate field which offers co ops is engineering. Most schools which offer engineering will support students who co op, however, unless you’re in a school where the co op is mandatory you may find it more challenging to get all of the courses you need. I scanned the article and while I agree with what it said I felt it could have gone into more detail concerning which schools offer them and for what majors, how to apply for co ops etc. My D1 is a co op student and here are some of my observations:
The Good:
The money. She earned nearly $75k over a 5 term co op. As was mentioned by the OP these earnings did not count towards her EFC. This will allow her to graduate debt free next May. It has also helped finance two week long study abroad trips.
The work experience. Co ops unlike internships require that you are doing work directly related to your field of study. She will graduate with 22 months of work experience. Her experience also gives her much to discuss at interviews and strengthens her overall resume.
Life skills. She has had to find housing for nearly every semester both at her school and where she works. She creates her own budgets, sets up utilities, moves herself, plans menus, cooks, etc.
It provides her opportunities for leadership. She has been in charge of and organized the co op volunteer organization.
It gives her a larger friend group as she has friends both at school and at her co ops. As a rule she and her co op friends have more fun than she does at school as there is more free time.
Engineering is challenging. It gives her breaks between semesters. Co oping is less stressful than classes.
The BAD
She has been at work or at class every semester since she started school. Far less down time.
Related, she is only home about 4 weeks the entire year.
Moving. She is VERY tired of moving every semester.
Friends. While she has friends at school and at co op, the co op friends keep moving on and she has some of her school friends she is not as close to as she was in the beginning.
It takes 5 years. Still 8 semesters of academic time but 5 years total.
Financially it can be a wash as you may be employed a year earlier if you finished in four years.
Not all co ops are the same. Housing can eat up a large portion of your income IF your co op doesn’t subsidize some of it in some way.
Engineering is very sequential and not all classes are offered when you need them.
Our D wanted to co op when she was looking at her degree and at universities. The experience has been everything she hoped for and wanted. It is not for everyone. It does require degree of maturity. If your child sees the check as something to spend rather than save the advantage financially will pretty much be negated. I’m sure there are lots of different co op experiences. I’d like to hear about some others.
My daughter did very well at a co-op school. I will add some comments to the above.
Sometimes co-ops are good for helping you decide what you want to do with your life. Including hating a co-op, which tells you what you don’t want to do. I love the story I heard from an admissions person who said his 6 month co-op at a law firm decided him against going to law school (probably saving him much money and time).
The life/work skills part is very valuable - interview skills, writing a resume, getting to work on time, eating regular meals, calling in sick, dressing appropriately, how to behave at a social function at work, etc.
My daughter was never back home. One year she was not home from one Christmas to the next one - going from classes to co-op without a break.
You need to choose co-ops wisely (just like you need to choose a job wisely). Consider housing, commuting, pay, benefits (will you get vacation days during your 6 months?), etc.
I will also say that all of my daughter’s friends (even in majors which are not traditional co-op type majors) did very well after graduation - securing excellent jobs or great graduate school admissions.
I agree with a lot of the statements above. I was in a co-op program in the 80’s because I needed the money to pay for school. This was not at a mandatory co-op school, so most of my good friends graduated a year ahead of me. I did get work experience and made quite a bit to pay for tuition.
While co-op can be valuable, it is not always necessary. One D went to a school in DC known for (unpaid) internships which students could complete during the semester to gain some experience and contacts. She was able to work in the summer for pay. Another D in a CS major had great summer research and internship experiences which paid very well and led to job offers without being in a co-op program. And then my S who was in a co-op school chose to study abroad in the summer and completed all his classes in 3 years without doing his co-ops, so had to do a year of work before he could officially graduate. He found a company which would hire him permanently, and the first year counted as his co-op. Not exactly the intent of the co-op program, but it worked for him.
I did co-op in the early 90’s. It was a great experience. I don’t know if things have changed, but I didn’t start to co-op until my Junior year. I went to school fall-spring, co-op summer, school fall, co-op spring-summer, school fall-spring, graduate. So it took me 3 years to finish my Engineering degree (I transferred in as a Junior). I was only able to accomplish this because my work location allowed me to do a double semester in a row (to avoid a school year consisting only of summer) and my school allowed me to gain 12 credits at a University where I was working. There was coordination involved with getting the courses approved using the course descriptions, but it all worked out. I gained 15 months of work experience, made money, and had a job offer from the company by February of my last semester. It was just a cruise to graduation.
My daughter’s school has co-op as an option, and the students can graduate in the 4 years plus a summer. The schedule includes a spring-summer co-op, and then the next year a summer- fall co-op. While the students are at the co-op job, they also take 1-2 classes online (which is an extra expense).
I agree with what everyone everyone says above. There is just one addition; while engineering is a predominant field which offers co-ops, it is by no means the only field. This chart on co-op and post graduate salaries posted by RIT gives a quick overview of co-ops for their majors: https://www.rit.edu/emcs/oce/employer/salary
My daughter is a Graphic Design major, and is currently on a very well paying co-op as a graphic designer for the summer. One of the best paying co-ops/post graduate salaries at RIT is for the New Media Design major, which leads to a B.F.A. The top salaries for both co-op and top first year graduates for New Media Design outpaces almost every salary on that chart (for a bachelor’s degree.)
Yes,every major at Northeastern requires a co-op or equivalent.
From their website - for the class of 2016, 96% of graduates participated in at least one co-op, 78% participated in two or more co-ops, but it is not required for graduation. Undergraduates who choose not to pursue co-op are required to fulfill Northeastern’s experiential learning requirements by participating in at least one of the following, research, service learning, or study abroad programs.
The one thing about co-op schools is that the students graduate with a good idea of what they want to do. I am surprised by how many of my daughter’s HS friends who went to great schools and did very well are still directionless (no idea what kind of job they want or what further education they wish to pursue) and all of her NEU friends have figured out what they want to do (at least in the short run).
Other than Northeastern and Drexel, are there other co-op/internship schools which make co-ops and internships TRULY accessible? DS has struggled as an ME student at Virginia Tech and they do great marketing about how desirable their students are but in the end, students are still on their own to come up with internship leads and jobs (I dont expect a free ride-just more accessible opportunities for a C- student. He has processing issues and a lot of pride and the combination makes him challenged to succeed in gaining internships. They love him once they meet him but his stats dont jump).
Yes. Cincinnati is one for all majors, but many engineering schools offer them and do arrange the co-ops (but you still have to interview and get the job).
Beyond the three US schools with co-op for all majors listed above, some schools make co-op accessible for STEM majors too, more so than most schools with engineering co-op programs. RIT and RPI would fall under that category in my experience. At RIT in particular it’s a thing everyone does, many more than once, while at RPI it seems to be a more one time thing + internships. Still, both actually guide well in the process, though as said, at any co-op school, you have to interview and get the job. All co-ops are chosen, not “assigned”, no matter the school. It’s great training for the post-grad job search though, and that guiding hand makes a big difference for many students who wouldn’t take the full initiative on their own.
@grandscheme University of Waterloo in Canada has a very well run co-op program for ME’s. When I applied to co-ops through my school they provided my GPA and that seems to be the norm when we recruit through most co-op programs. He might be better off outside the school co-op program, don’t put that GPA on the resume, and hope they don’t ask. Transferring, getting a job and presumably even graduating will be very challenging with a C- average.
@lvvcsf – why is your daughter moving all the time?
My daughter went to Northeastern and all of her co-ops were in Boston – in fact, she coopped the entire time with the same company. Her only friends who had to move were ones who wanted to – one young woman, a business major, did her co-ops in Manhattan, Paris and Shanghai. Everyone else either cooped in/near Boston or went home and cooped there, to avoid paying rent for the semester.
@nordicdad Thanks. I’ll share the feedback with him. We have been trying to get him to consider other majors but he has been absolutely determined to stay on course.
@katliamom Our D’s co op was a bit over 4 hours from the school (and our home) so she couldn’t do long term leases. The firm she works for normally hires 10-20 co ops a term so there are owners who lease specifically to co ops just for the months they work. At her school she would seek out people looking to sublet and was always successful. The company would have co ops from a variety of schools so it was interesting to see where some of the other students were from.
While the vast majority of NEU students do pursue co-op, it’s neither mandatory for all majors(particularly Arts & Sciences) nor do all NEU students complete one.
Knew of a few NEU alums who never did co-op either because they wanted to graduate sooner and/or because they already knew a job was waiting for them with a family/family friend’s business domestically or back in their home countries.
This must have been implemented after the older cohort of NEU alums I knew/worked with while living in the Boston area graduated sometime in the late '80s-late '90s. One constant complaint I kept hearing from them was how their Co-op earnings WERE counted against them for FA on the FAFSA back when they attended.
@cobrat All Northeastern students, including transfers, must do at least 6 months of experiential learning. For most this involves coop. In many majors it could alternatively involve research, service learning and international study.
Yes, the coop earnings exclusion is a fairly recent change in the FA rules.