Family Budget: What could go wrong during the college years?

[ucbalumnus]

@sensation723

Some majors have a 5th year build into them. Parents need to be mindful of that when creating a budget. For example accounting is a 5 year program. You don’t know how many parents were shocked to hear that at my daughter’s high school.

A bachelor’s degree in accounting is typically a 4-year program, but the CPA exam requires 5 years of college credit (including a bachelor’s degree).

A major where a bachelor’s degree is typically a 5-year program is architecture (for an NAAB-accredited BArch program).

There are, of course, co-op-based programs that take 5 years, but they have only 4 academic years of school (paying tuition) built into them. Living expenses for the co-op terms may be a concern if the co-op job pay is insufficient to cover them.