Well, the “fifth year of college” thing is throwing me off. What is that about?
Seems as though a lot of engineering majors take 5 years (Georgia Tech only has a 47% 4-year graduation rate, but an 86% 5-year graduation rate…ditto with lots of other places that are engineering heavy). A B. Architecture is a 5-year degree as well. So although I’m used to thinking of college as a 4-year program, there are certain majors where a 5th year seems quite likely.
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Exact scenario we did with S20 and S21. Our PA in-state flagships are expensive but good. Had to get merit to make privates work. No ambiguity or loopholes. It worked out well.
The GT graduation times are because of co-ops. S20 ended up at GT. He’s on-track to graduate in 3 years.
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That’s a VERY reasonable approach!
Know that it will be hard to beat your flagship benchmark financially though, especially at a private. UNC, right now, all in is $100K with no aid. Average tuition at any private is going to hover around $250K. Awards over $100K are pretty uncommon unless you also demonstrate significant financial need. Then, even some very big names can be debt free.
There are publics looking to attract top talent that are very generous. Our son could have gone to Utah for less than our flagship prices, even with merit. He could have gone somewhere like Alabama or Utah State for even less.
No matter the major, your child will be able to get a very good education with those constraints.
It depends on your student and the school. My son attended a school where the average engineer takes 5 years and walked out with a BS and thesis based MS in just under 5 years. One of the reasons they average a bit more time though is that the curriculum is 20h longer than most places.
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That puts a lot of what you’ve been posting into perspective. That fifth year is going to make virtually any flagship university a bigger financial burden, assuming you keep all options open.
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Remember though, a B. Arch is sort of like a BS/MD. The graduate component is wrapped in and the overall time is shortened. A B. Arch. is equivalent to a BS in Architecture and an M. Arch. B. Arch and M. Arch are viewed equally. No one does a M. Arch after a B. Arch. Both can practice autonomously. It takes a BS + M. Arch longer to get there.
This is different than engineers averaging 5 years. Any engineer at any school can get out in 4 years.
Note: there are rare exceptions to this where the curriculum is designed to be 5 years to incorporate required institutional core curricula. Dartmouth is an example. RARE though.
If you have a fair number of AP credits or dual enrollment credits, three years is doable. Especially at public schools. Their goal is to graduate people. They can be generous with transferring credits. Not saying that’s the best route but it’s doable.
Regarding Georgia Tech, it’s not the engineering major that takes 5 years. It’s doing an optional co-op, which involves alternating semesters of working for pay at a company and attending college. Nearly half of Georgia Tech engineering students choose to do one. Many students from other majors do co-ops as well. In co-op semesters, the student does not pay tuition and instead earns salary from a company, so doing a co-op does not increase costs of college. I’d personally consider a college making it easy to do optional 5-year co-ops a positive, not a negative.
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If we lived in North Carolina and we had its public schools as in-state options, I wouldn’t be particularly concerned with our situation.
According to College Navigator, there are 55 4-year universities (excluding for-profits) within 250 miles of our zip code. That includes branch campuses of directional universities at high schools and places that I’ve never heard of (most of which are not even listed in USNWR for the state-by-state listings). The only flagship within 250 miles of us is our own state flagship. Though there are lots of issues with USNWR, its rankings can help to provide the context of our options. There’s one T50, two that are about T200 (including our state flagship), a CTCL that’s a T150 liberal arts college, a T20 regional university, and everything else is pretty much ranked b/w 300-400 nationally or 80 or below on a regional classification.
Here are the number of non-profit 4-year universities within 250 miles for towns across the country as a point of reference:
- Our zip code: 55 options
- Greensboro, NC: 224 options
- Harrisburg, PA: 500+ (doesn’t specify a number after 500)
- Cincinnati, OH: 326 options
- Jackson, WY: 24 options
- Sacramento, CA: 92 options
(ETA within 250 miles to the heading of the list)
My spouse and I felt fine about the flagship option, but as mentioned somewhere upthread, we have started having some concerns whether the flagship would be the best environment for our child. Thus, the look at private colleges or other options that we might be able to get down somewhat near the cost of our flagship (which, like UNC, is about $100k for 4-years at this time). And not too long after our child graduates from college, we plan on relocating to somewhere between Atlanta and Roanoke, or thereabouts. Thus, the concentration on colleges in that area as, if our child leaves the current area, it would be beneficial to build connections to the area where we are likely to live. (Our child may not choose to live near us, but based on personality, we suspect our child would want to remain close.)
Of course, the field(s) our child is interested in may end up necessitating a bigger school. If I had to guess what our child might end up studying, I would venture to say something along the lines of architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, construction management, industrial design, environmental sustainability, or maybe something in engineering. It’s still early though and there’s lots of time for that to change. A broad education with a focus on thinking and writing well however is something that will always be useful (in life and in a career), and an intimate environment with small classes is likely to be an excellent fit for our child.
I appreciate everyone’s thoughtful input on this thread; it has been very helpful.
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How do the co ops work? My s always did summer internships (co ops not an option at his school). Pros cons vs internships?
When I started college I think I may have had junior status, or definitely well into-sophomore status due to the credits I had going in. Instead of graduating early I got time to explore fields I’d always been curious about and dabble in many areas outside of my major that had no “practical” value to a future career. Add in a year studying abroad and just having fun and enjoying the whole college experience. Although graduating in 3 years instead of 4 is less expensive, as is doing 2 years of community college and then transferring for the final two years, the experience of taking full advantage of a good 4-year university is definitely worth it to me. Quite possibly worth its weight in gold. 
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Coops are generally summer and a term, either summer and fall or spring and summer. The advantages are that students have more time to do more meaningful work. The disadvantage is a year delay in entering the job market. Some schools emphasize coop more than others. A few, like Northeastern and Cincinnati require them.
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Know that it will be hard to beat your flagship benchmark financially though, especially at a private. UNC, right now, all in is $100K with no aid. Average tuition at any private is going to hover around $250K. Awards over $100K are pretty uncommon unless you also demonstrate significant financial need. Then, even some very big names can be debt free.
I don’t expect that we can expect to get a private college to the price of our in-state flagship. But right now my spouse and I are trying to figure out how much more it would cost to attend a good (or good-enough) school. If we are able to save enough to increase the budget to In-state flagship + $5k/year or in-state flagship + $10k/year, are the schools that appear to fall in that range going to provide what we’re hoping for in terms of outcomes for our child? I guess this is really at the heart of my questioning on this thread.
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Where did you come up with these? I find it hard to believe Harrisburg has 500+ when the whole country has less than 4000. My zip code has one. My whole county has one.
I’m sorry if I was unclear. That is the number of 4-year colleges within 250 miles of the zip code, as determined by College Navigator.
ETA: Will edit my prior thread to make that clear.
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You’re in relatively good shape at 55. The whole state of Oregon has 45 including 2 year community colleges. 
An older (2017) article regarding Silicon Valley hiring:
It doesn’t have to be co-op vs internships. Some Georgia Tech students do both – co-ops at one company and internships at another. At Georgia Tech, the co-op degree requires 3 semesters of working 40 hours per week, that are generally alternated with semesters as a full time student – work one semesters, take classes in the next semester, then work again in the following semester. The students gain valuable work experience and can apply concepts learned in classes in a work environment, and vice versa. Employers and students submit reports about each other, and there can be special efforts to integrate content between school and work, beyond what happens naturally.
Earlier in a thread, I linked to a survey from hundreds of employers in which internships were marked as the most influential criteria for evaluating resumes for hiring new grads, followed by relevant work experience. College reputation was marked as least important. Other surveys I’ve seen follow a similar type of pattern, internships are always marked as extremely influential in hiring decisions for new grads, particularly employment at the company doing the internship. A large percentage of internships lead to job offers, and salary offers can be substantially larger for students with successful internships at the company than others without comparable experience. Regardless of your opinion about the importance of name recognition, I think relevant work experience is usually far more influential, which includes both co-ops and internships.
Co-ops use the same idea as internships, but they are typically longer and involve more work experience, so I’d expect some employers consider them to be more valuable than internships. As noted a downside is the extra non-summer semesters spent working often leads to 5-year graduation. There likely also differences in availability and selectivity. For example, many members of this forum seem to especially value internships at specific companies or organizations. Many of those desirable companies probably do not offer co-ops – only internships. Instead I get the impression that Georgia Tech co-ops involve a smaller number of companies with more direct relationships with the college. The website makes it seem like these co-ops are easily available to nearly all interested students (2.0 GPA is required), and do not involve as much student initiation as internships since the college is more involved in the process.
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Co-ops are generally prearranged by the schools and limited to certain companies. There’s a greater variety of internships. They’re more flexible and can be much more financially rewarding.
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Interesting. I wonder what type of companies go co op route vs internship? Are they known before had for a given university?