<p>Your daughter always could take a gap year and work or volunteer fulltime (If she is able to get an Americorps volunteer position, she’d also get in addition to a stipend $4,700 to use for college). She could apply to schools – including match and safety schools that she loves and knows she is likely to be able to afford.</p>
<p>sorghum, re your post #26, I was referring to the cost differential between the two choices. The mom is willing to pay for SUNY; the daughter wants Providence. The mom is worried that she won’t be able to finance years 2-4 of Providence, once her other child is no longer in college. I am saying that IF the daughter opts for Providence, it will be her problem – not her mom’s – to figure out how to bridge those costs.</p>
<p>Why should her mom be responsible for keeping her daughter in a school, when the mom said from the outset that she couldn’t afford it? I don’t think she should.</p>
<p>At the same time, since year #1 is affordable, I think it is a mistake for the mom to fight with her d. over the choice. If the d. prefers Providence, maybe in her case 1 year at Providence followed by 3 at a SUNY would be a better path than all 4 years at the SUNY – at least the d. has the experience of a freshman year at her preferred college. A transfer is not the end of the world. Or – maybe the d. will figure out ways to reduce costs in subsequent years.</p>
<p>*I have never heard of a kid taking five years to graduate from a public school because they were locked out of required courses. *</p>
<p>I agree that I think some of this has been exaggerated. I think most of the time kids take 5 years (or more ) to graduate, it’s because the kid changed his major and/or withdrew from some classes. A student who is diligent to his plan can likely graduate in 4 years. If needed, a kid can take a summer school class at a local school if needed.</p>
<p>It just doesn’t pass the believability test that many students have to stay on a full extra year (8 - 10 courses) unless they bring the problem on themselves thru lack of diligence, changing majors, or dropping class…and that can happen at private schools, too…</p>
<p>"I have never heard of a kid taking five years to graduate from a public school because they were locked out of required courses. "</p>
<p>I’ve seen this happen at the public university where I used to teach and where my husband still teaches.</p>
<p>One examination of why students in public colleges take longer to graduate seemed to hone in on five key causes (from memory, but I think they’re right):
- Work/finance responsibilities that limited both the number of units a student could take and/or the days on which the student could take classes;
- Any need for remedial classes;
- Changing majors;
- Strong student preference to not take classes meeting on Fridays, or early in the morning; and
- Failure on the part of schools to schedule adequate seats for students in core freshman/sophomore classes while simultaneously offering too many under-enrolled sections of upper division elective courses.</p>
<p>The speaker made a note that too many schools have lower division requirements that require expensive duplication of offerings – statistics was the example used – rather than having a lower division statistics offering for the social sciences, econ has one, and stats has one, and poli sci has one – and then when a student changes majors between any of these, the department insists on the student completing the new course, because it focuses on examples drawn from that discipline. He argued that designing a lower division core that better reflected the reality that there is a significant number of changes of major would much better serve students, their families, and taxpayers.</p>
<p>He suggested that parents had a role to play in insisting that students seriously consider 8 or 9 am classes as well as Friday classes, particularly Freshman year, and that colleges needed to start adapting to teach more classes when students wanted to take them rather than when faculty wanted to teach.</p>
<p>He hammered on high schools for graduating students who needed remedial coursework.</p>
<p>I think he managed to make almost everyone mad with one or another of the statements, but I don’t think he was really wrong about any of them.</p>
<p>My D got into one of her favorite OOS publics, along with the only private she applied to. We also had two in-state safeties (academic and financial) and several other choices. Binghamton was going to be pivotal – for me, not for her. There was no way she wanted to go there, largely because of location and the campus (and because it’s in-state). If she got in, it was going to be a very challenging conversation because of the amazing academic reputation of the school and how easy it would have been financially.</p>
<p>Before we even heard from Binghamton, I went over very specific numbers with her – and showed her loan calculators on line to make it as real for her as possible. Showed her why the private was really going to set her way back after graduation, although the OOS public wouldn’t be so bad.</p>
<p>She was waitlisted at Binghamton, so it was a non-issue and she will be going to the OOS public that she loves. </p>
<p>Someone here suggested to the OP to look into URI. That was one of D’s safeties… and she got $10K/yr and honors program (only place where she got merit aid and honors). If OP’s daughter got in to Binghamton and Providence, I would surmise that URI isn’t the best academic fit for her.</p>
<p>I would show D the real numbers and make her realize what she is actually choosing if she opts for Providence. I told my D that if she goes to a SUNY she can do extra study abroad, a Wash semester, etc. Definitely not an option if she goes to the private school. (The fact that the private is in an expensive city and she could become friends with full-pay students with whom she couldn’t “keep up with” for spring break, etc, was another issue for me.) </p>
<p>Only you and your D can make the decision about what’s right for you. I’m sure everyone here is giving you various things to consider. Good luck, whatever you decide!</p>
<p>OP’s daughter is interested in sciences (premed). URI has a fabulous school of pharmacy. I think that URI’s pharmacy school would be very challenging, if she decided to go that route. I think, but not sure, that they are known for their marine sciences too. URI, is not necessarily a bargain at perhaps 38,000? or so for COA for OOS students (without merit aid).</p>
<p>*One examination of why students in public colleges take longer to graduate seemed to hone in on five key causes (from memory, but I think they’re right):
- Work/finance responsibilities that limited both the number of units a student could take and/or the days on which the student could take classes;
- Any need for remedial classes;
- Changing majors;
- Strong student preference to not take classes meeting on Fridays, or early in the morning; and
- Failure on the part of schools to schedule adequate seats for students in core freshman/sophomore classes while simultaneously offering too many under-enrolled sections of upper division elective courses.*</p>
<p>i would also add…</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Withdrawing from classes, and therefore ending up with about 12 credits for the semester.</p></li>
<li><p>Taking an “easy” class to satisfy a Gen Ed/Core Req’t and then changing one’s major and find out a more difficult class is needed.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The above reasons all contribute…and can happen at nearly all schools - public or private.</p>
<p>As for remedial…if a student needs remedial classes, he can get those out of the way during the summer before school starts.</p>
<p>As for a school perhaps not offering enough seats in lower division/freshmen classes. Taking some summer classes at the local CC in “normal” gen ed type classes (US History, Art History, Freshman Comp, etc) will very likely transfer easily and help with that problem. A student can take these classes the summer before freshman year or between frosh/soph year (or later). </p>
<p>There are solutions to avoiding that 5th year. And, yes, parents should offer some oversight (without being too hovering) to help the student make decisions that will enable graduating in 4 years.</p>