DD’17 is choosing between Pitt, University of Kentucky and University of Alabama. Majoring in either civil or mechanical engineering. Kentucky and Alabama offers are full tuition plus engineering department scholarship. Pitt’s offer is generous merit aid, but not full tuition, leaving my DD will the prospect of a $5500 student loan and using some of her own money. Parents’ contribution will fully cover UK / Alabama room and board, etc., but is not enough to cover the balance at Pitt. She would most likely be taking out student loans each year, and watching her expenses, but it shouldn’t be anything too onerous. She could try to chip away at the cost for the following years with scholarships, working, or becoming an RA for a year, but there is no guarantee, obviously.
DD would love to attend Pitt, but she is practical. She’s visited Alabama and Kentucky and is fine with both. She’s been accepted in the Honors College at all of the schools. Doesn’t have strong feelings about weather, dorms, food. She is determined to do a co-op wherever she goes. Has no idea where she will live after college. No plans for grad school in the near future.
Anyone with knowledge of these engineering programs have info to help with a decision? Does one of these schools have a superior co-op program? Basically, is Pitt engineering better than these other 2 schools and thus easier to justify student loans?
$25k in student loans at graduation is not unreasonable for an engineer. As far as “which is better?” goes, it’s really more about what the student does than where they go. If she’s choosing Pitt because she thinks it’s “better,” I’d save the money. If there are particular things she likes about Pitt (maybe the town, the campus, the curriculum, etc.), then choosing Pitt is a sound choice.
My D chose Pitt because she wants to at least minor in a major not offered by Alabama. She will co-op for two semesters for sure to help offset costs. She loves the location and the way the engineering program is set up and for us, it fell within our set budget so it works.
Thanks @eyemgh and @carachel2 . She loves Pittsburgh and the campus. Does she love it enough to take out a student loan and use some of her own $??? I think if 1 school was the clear front runner re co-ops she would go there.
Co-ops are great experience, but they don’t really cut the cost of attendance that much, if at all. Sure students get paid, reasonably well for students, but not a full engineers wage. They delay graduation typically a year. That’s a year that is lost to a full engineers wage. If you consider that opportunity cost, a student is probably a bit better off simply entering the workforce a year earlier if cost is the only concern.
@eymgh I think for some students co-oping can make the difference between making school affordable and not affordable. I won’t disagree with your assessment about the total opportunity cost, however in many instances those co-op earning will make the difference between borrowing and not borrowing. One advantage of a co-op for lower income students is the advantage to their EFC. Co-op earnings do not count towards your EFC. There are some programs that can allow you to make a full engineers salary. There are schools which allow 5 term co-op programs. You graduate in 5 years with 22 months of work experience and 5 terms of co-op earnings. You do make a valid point. I just wanted to present another view.
“r in many instances those co-op earning will make the difference between borrowing and not borrowing.” - It depends.
If the student has a school housing arrangement with full-year rent obligations and a summer co-op in an expensive city, living expenses will gobble a lot of that nice salary. However it is HIGHLY useful to have job experience during college, even it it does not offset much of the colelge bill.
Various co-ops handle things in different ways. The company my D co-ops with offered a housing stipend. It wasn’t enough to cover all of her housing expenses but it did cover a lot of them. Since the company had a number of co-ops there were people in the area that rented specifically to co-ops. They weren’t the greatest places but they were rented just for the co-op term. She did get a real sense of coed living which was uncomfortable for Mom and Dad for the first term. It was not an issue. When at school she would look for housing opportunities where others were trying to sublet (usually because they were co-oping or studying abroad).
DD is a mechanical engineering major at Alabama. She has had a wonderful experience. She has not done a coop but has done paid internships. She landed a paid internship at a well known aerospace company for the upcoming summer. Her friend has done a coop and a couple of other internships. We didn’t apply to the other schools that you are looking at. You may want to look at how much AP credit your DD will be able to use as well as the GPA to keep the scholarship at each school.