<p>Before any of our Ds and Ss accept offers, does anyone have information that they can share about the financial stability of some of the programs out there? With the economic issues in the US, some schools may not be able to continue with scholarships/grants in the years to come - something that the kids need to be aware of.</p>
<p>Wikipedia has a list of colleges and universities in the US by endowment. That might be one thing to look at.</p>
<p>Public colleges, while perhaps a bargain now, could experience problems in the future because of funding cuts. If there are one or more that interest you, you might want to read up on those schools online, and maybe visit the school’s general forum on CC and ask questions there.</p>
<p>If you have a low expected family contribution (high financial need), coupled with good grades and test scores, etc, it is not that hard to get sizable grants from higher-tuition private colleges that are presumably more financially secure.</p>
<p>Our family has some of the same “wonderings” as kiddo (a h.s. junior) begins her exploration. Her dad is really almost discouraging some of the public schools because of concerns that they will get into trouble with various states’ woes. Recently visited Point Park in Pittsburgh, and while waiting for a meeting, read the student paper. Apparently the major of Pittsburgh (according to their student reporter) was trying to float making college tuition and fees taxable! Yikes!</p>
<p>I wonder about the effect of the UC (University of California) 32% increase for current and future theater majors. That is a very large increase.</p>
<p>I can tell you that in Ohio, there was a 2 year freeze on tuition rates legislated that ended this year. Many colleges had to stick to the tyition listed for this year also, since student had already been admitted when the freeze was lifted. However, I am assuming that next year many Ohio publics will jump in tuition since it has been 3 years since they have raised them -just in time for MY kid.
UC-CCM ha also gone to performance-based budgeting (please don’t ask me what this really means but an a program coordinator I now have to count beans) which means for my college effects how we give state allocated scholarship money. The University concedes that some programs will never be financially able to support themselves so will be subsidized by other programs, but in my college at UC (not CCM) it does make a difference in how we look at numbers of students in programs/classes and where we can add more students.
So whether or not it is the econmic downturn or just a general trend- publics are looking at finances in ways that are new to them and maybe should make parents concerned.</p>
<p>I would not discount publics out of hand… both private and public schools will have to be watching money over the next few years… just like all of America colleges and universities are going to have to be more frugal. This does not necessarily mean that draconian measures will be implemented. </p>
<p>As far as scholarships go – publics are generally less expensive than privates without the scholarship money… particularly as an instate student, but even as OOS sometimes. We have had students from OOS who received money from private programs, and found that even without scholarship money from us (a public university) we were still less expensive than the privates would have been WITH the scholarship money. </p>
<p>Researching financial stability should be another part of the information gathered when putting together a list of programs. If a school looks like it is really struggling, you may not want to apply. If a private that you could only attend with a lot of scholarship money seems to be giving fewer and fewer scholarships, you will want to make sure that you also have schools on your list that are more affordable.</p>
<p>I agree with KAT above, along with looking deeply into a school’s ability to teach our kids, and figuring out if that school will be a good fit for them, we need to try to make certain that they do not get a surprise on what they will have to pay out of pocket. </p>
<p>Not all of the kids that read this blog are going to get into the BIG MT programs that will survive all economic trends. The problems will more than likely come up from some of the smaller, less known schools. </p>
<p>I started this thread when my S recieved an offer from a small school located in the southwest. My husband and I looked into it just in case it might be a good fit. We found out that the school barely kept it’s doors open last year, and this is a school that has been around for over a hundred years. </p>
<p>Being new to this forum, I do not know whether or not it would be appropriate to list some of the schools here. Either way, thanks for discussing this issue.</p>
<p>We must also be aware that many colleges and universities will eliminate classes but keep the program, making it harder for students to get the classes they want or need to graduate. My daughter was just informed that her stage makeup class was cancelled for next semester. I don’t know if it is due to the economy but it could be. She’s picking up another class but hopes that it is offered again because where else would you learn that?</p>
<p>Often when classes are canceled at this point in the registration process it is because not enough students are enrolled in the class or a staffing issue. This could be related to the economy or not. I do think that many universities may be stricter about minimum enrollment numbers and possibly see a reduction in money to hire adjunct. I would suspect that this will be the case at both state and private schools.</p>
<p>If programs would be honest with you - a great indicator of financial stabilty is the growth (or not) of full time tenure track faculty positions. Something to check.</p>