My kid likely would have attended Alabama regardless, because of the merit money he was being offered, but part of the appeal was definitely that they had a pretty well-developed co-op program in engineering. I didn’t pressure him to go that route, but I did encourage him to explore it as an option, especially since we knew he wouldn’t have any connections for summer internships, etc.
He decided to go for it, and it worked out really well him. Not to say it was easy logistically, because it wasn’t (had to buy him a car on VERY short notice!), but he was able to land a co-op position at the end of his freshman year because he had a high GPA and was willing to work in a pretty remote location in northwestern Alabama. We scrambled and were able to find an apartment for him that summer (thank you, extended Bama community!), but he commuted from campus during the fall and spring semesters he worked - he didn’t want to be away from his friends on weekends and was already paying for his apartment, so …
It did delay graduation by a year, but that’s fine with him. He earned enough money working those 12 months (spread over 15) that he was able to pay for his own board for the remaining four years, so it was kind of the equivalent of doing a paid gap year. And he doesn’t mind an extra football season either. (He’ll actually be working all the home games, so he’ll make a little money doing that too.)
(Kids with loads of AP or CLEP credits sometimes can do the whole thing in four or 4.5 years, BTW.)
He decided to come home for the summer and was unable to find an internship, but the co-op company would have hired him for the summer if he’d wanted to stay down there.
Another advantage is you get to actually see what engineers do in real life - that’s pretty good information to have!