<p>Interesting article in today's Boston Globe about schools creating "no-frills satellite campuses".</p>
<p>It is an interesting idea and it's more interesting given their pricing. The University of New Hampshire is in downtown Manchester, not that far from SNHU and offers excellent courses for a good price. The campus is interesting - old mill buildings reconfigured as classrooms and science labs and there's cheap housing and a downtown nearby so students can live and work nearby. The downside is that it mainly only offers associates degrees - those that want a four-year degree have to transfer to UNH in Durham. It's not a bad way to do college on a budget and if you want to commute. I only wish that there was something like this in other large NH cities like Nashua, Salem, Concord and Portsmouth. This would provide a lot of affordable and quality options to parents around the state.</p>
<p>There are a number of colleges in the Manchester-Nashua corridor but nothing that provides serious engineering programs. You have to go to UNH in Durham or go into Massachusetts for that.</p>
<p>My personal opinion is that the State should be doing this. It's a bit of a shame that a private university can provide services at a cost comparable with state universities. My personal guess is that UNH provides higher-quality courses - this based on a course my son took there and comments from other parents that have had their kids take courses at UNH-Manchester. I do not have any personal experience with SNHU other than looking at their marketing literature and course offerings but I didn't get the feeling that they offer a tough science-math-engineering sequence.</p>