If not too far, Mt. St. Mary in Newburg, NY. They offer education majors from grades 1-12 as well as 5 yr BA/MS in Bio, Chem, English, History and Math. There is also a ladies intercollegiate softball team. There are merit scholarships from $4,000 to $16,000 per year as well as a $1,000 per year scholarship for those entering education.
Alverno College is well known in education circles as having one of the best programs to prepare teachers.
Since you’re considering schools in the Carolinas, you might want to look at UNC Asheville. It’s a public LAC, with an OOS “sticker price” of about $33K/year. Average ACT is 26 and average GPA is 3.4, so your daughter is right in the middle of the pack. Total enrollment is around 3600, with small classes and a lovely setting in a small city in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Education program that gets students through a major of their choice plus a teaching credential in four years. (Many programs require an additional year or more for the credential) https://education.unca.edu/ Still a significant amount of money, but half the cost of a private LAC.
An even more affordable high-quality public LAC with an education program, at $23K/year for OOS students, is U of Minnesota Morris. https://academics.morris.umn.edu/secondary-education 1800 students - average ACT 25; average GPA 3.62. Unlike Asheville they have D3 women’s softball. I don’t see other MN schools on your list, but Morris is such a phenomenal financial deal for a a small LAC that it seemed worth a mention.
Simmons is a great place for Education and can be generous with merit aid.
I would suggest that you focus on those schools that have either 3+1, or 4+1 BA/MAT programs, particularly
those that are in your specific state, or the state she hopes to teach in.
As you probably already know, many states will have their own rules and regulations re: degrees and student teaching hours and what it takes to qualify.
Not Mid-West but Chestnut Hill in PA has a BA/M.Ed program, Drew in NJ has a BA/MAT, Marist in NY has a BA/MAT, all three with Special Ed options. Goucher in Baltimore has an accelerated teaching degree.
Years ago I had to laugh at a line in an opinion piece by Anna Quindlen. It went something like this “when I was young, you could pay your way through college working in the summers. Nowadays to do that your summer job would have to be robbing banks”.
Does she have an idea where she wants to live eventually? Given that teaching requirements vary by state, often potential teachers will stay in-state if those are their plans after college. There are big differences in some states as far as what is required to become a teacher, best to think about that ahead of time. For example, Massachusetts has higher ed requirements to teach beyond a certain number of years, but not only does North Carolina not have post-bachelors requirements (for those with teaching degrees), they’ve also done away with any pay bump for an advanced degree.
BTW, I’m a Knox grad, so if the OP has any questions?
Is the Clark on the list located in Dubuque? If so, it allows students to take classes at Loras and the University of Dubuque without additional tuition (consortia). Beautiful town on a scenic route across the MS rjver from NO IL. St Anselms is located in the Quad Cities. Iowa is pretty plush in LACs. Carlton in MN s a super school.
Looks like you are considering Catholic schools. There are Jesuit schools in KT and Kansas City. Maybe St. Rose in Albany or the Uniiversity of Detroit Mercy. There are many LACs in the Midwest. Fun to look, but really like Dubuque.
@Topwop - The federal maximum for student loans for an undergraduate degree comes to $27,000 total.
$5,500 freshman year
$6,500 sophomore year
$7,500 junior year
$7,500 senior year
Depending on the family situation, part of the loan might have its interest subsidized while the student is in college.
With the $25,000 you have saved, and the federal maximum loans, your daughter has $52,000 available before any other aid or money from her own school year and summer jobs. That will not pay for even one year at many colleges and universities now. If she spreads it out over four years, she would have about $13,000 available each year which could cover room and board and part of her books, travel, and other expenses. This means that she really would need a full-tuition scholarship in order to make a lot of places work without a huge amount of debt for you.
Yes, your daughter would like an LAC, but she should also be looking at smaller home-state publics that used to be “teacher’s colleges”. Those usually have very strong job-placement networks, and with the smaller size can have LAC-like environments.
I know you don’t want to limit her choices just yet, but be prepared to do that. Run some numbers through the calculators at http://www.finaid.org/ to see just how long it could take both of you to pay off loans.
@topwop To second @happymomof1, I would put schools like the University of Northern Iowa on your daughter’s radar. Originally a state teacher’s college, UNI is smaller public university with an excellent education program and OOS for 2018-2019 is around $28k. With an increased ACT score, she would get a small merit award to bring it down to around $25k.
^^U Wisconsin-Stevens Point, same deal (but cheaper). Used to be the Normal School and continues to emphasize education.
Rockhurst in KC, MO
Didn’t Stevens Point cut all sorts of programs?
UMN Morris, Truman state, UNC Asheville would be good picks.
Look into Luther, St Michael’s, Guilford, Elon, Earlham, Drake, Hobart WilliamSmith, Lewis and Clark?
Ursinus has a $30K scholarship (off of their $65K direct cost) for those with a 27 ACT or 1220 SAT. Might be achievable.
Also, if her writing includes creative writing, they give a $33K scholarship each year to one student who submits some creative writing work. That student also gets to live freshman year in the dorm room J.D. Salinger lived in for his only semester of college. Could look nice on a resume for that high school English teaching job!
UWSP eliminate some majors where there had only been 5-10 degrees awarded in the past few years. Those subjects (German I remember was one) are still available as minors and some have been merged into a new major. Nothing from the education or natural resources departments were cut, as those are the most popular and highest rated departments, nor from the theater department which is very competitive as they only take 8 new students per year.
It used to have 10k students and now has closer to 8k. It also has added computer science programs over the last 2 decades. Sometimes something has to go to make room for the new. At UWSP, education is never going to be the degree that goes.
Ok, good to know.
(Although at most LACs 5-10 majors graduating can be a norm in most majors -500 students per class, 35 to 45 majors, some have 20 some have 10 some have 5 students - but UWSP is bigger than a Lac so the proportion would be different.)
Some strong LACs with great merit aid (based more on GPA and holistic assessment rather than test scores): Augustana (IL), Lawrence (WI), Luther (IA), Cornell (IA), Juniata (PA), Earlham (IN).
All would offer an excellent preparation for a future teacher.
Adding to #34: Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana.
https://www.saintmarys.edu/academics/departments/education
Great softball, too:
“The Belles finish the season 36-7 and set new program records for wins in season and conference wins in a season while capturing the program’s first MIAA regular season title.”
https://www.saintmarys.edu/softball/archives/2017-18/ncaa-regional-day-two
ZZdecision2016 We are taking your advice. Official Augustana visit next month. Stopping at Earlham, and Lawrence along the way. Maybe DePauw and Knox as well. Thank You!
Please let us know how the visits turn out!
Their financial aid/scholarship policies may have commonalities but… This list includes quite a variation in terms of what the school environment and student bodies are like. And a summer visit may not tell you much about that, either.
Please go and take a good look over their websites. Don’t look for majors and aid policies. (All schools have an education program, and you have already determined the aid is similar. )
Go and look at what they say about themselves. What ideas and priorities resonate with you at each school? And why?
Then take a close look at the pictures of the students. What do you notice about them? What do you notice about the school environment? How are they learning in the pictures? What activities are the doing? Even… How do they dress? Would you be comfortable at each school?
Look at their activities, events, and clubs. It tells you something about the student body’s interests. Can you see yourself participating?
Then look at graduation requirements and the course catalogs. Do the classes sound interesting? Which ones excite you?
Each of these schools is a particular kind of school with a very specific personality. It is important to choose the place that you will be happy at.
Best of luck!
**I personally would consider Earlham as a standout among the options that you are naming here. And Earlham has many similarities to Wooster.
Earlham students have exceptional community opportunities and hands-on internship-style programs for ecuducation students (including a guaranteed funded internship available to every Earlham student through their EPIC program) Earlham also offers a dual degree program in education, so there is an option to get a masters. (At least she will start out making more that way!).
In addition to merit aid, Earlham also offers opportunities for kids to knock off some of their fees also, such as becoming an RA (an Ed student might like to do that anyway and also it is a good resume opportunity) and in exchange, board is free.
BUT… Like each of the others on your list, Earlham is a specific kind of school, and you have to be happy in that environment, or you shouldn’t choose it.**
BTW … Programs like the Peace Corps and Teach for America, and Fulbright are always looking for teachers, and students with loans can get significant loan forgiveness by participating.
There is also a “Teacher Loan Forgiveness” Program and a “Public Service Loan Forgiveness” Program through the DOE. Those last two may be temporary programs. I am not sure.