<p>yes, those are the correct #s. and that is what my parents are saying they’re okay with paying. but it’s complicated because I can’t pay high $s for the first two years, my dad is just starting a new job and we wouldn’t be able to afford it, and I really can’t take out loans big enough to cover the costs of the first two years.</p>
<p>I’d suggest you apply to Alabama as a back up option. Right now your dad feels confident that the transfer plan will be affordable, but he may feel differently 12 months from now.</p>
<p>I am a parent and I am having a similar struggle. Thing is, studies have shown that even successful students at community colleges are less likely to actually make it to 4 yr schools than the same students (similar compared) going straight to the 4 yr school. My son likely won’t make it in to Texas A&M and my husband wants him at that school so bad that he says our son should go to community college first with hopes of getting guaranteed admission to TAMU. Have you read the fine print? It can be hard to get that 3.0 (what they require here) when your school has an average GPA of 2.4. Plus, the lack of competitiveness causes a lot of the better students to become less competitive and less driven and their grades and drive start to drop.</p>
<p>Another angle, Jake, would be to show your parents the overall cost of 4 years at Alabama versus the overall cost of the CC+UIUC route.</p>
<p>Folks on this website who are far more knowledgeable than I about engineering careers have commented on a number of occasions that as long as you graduate from an engineering program that is ABET-accredited, the nameplate on the degree really doesn’t matter much for either first-job or long-range employment prospects (many would make an exception for MIT). So if your hangup is the fact that UIUC or Purdue is a “higher rated” engineering school, the bottom line is that it probably doesn’t matter much.</p>
<p>lmkh, can you cite or point us to any of those studies? There are numerous studies that show a lot of CC students never make it through their associates degree, but I’ve never seen any that show that those that make it to the AA or AS - especially with a decent GPA - have trouble in admissions to well-regarded 4-year schools.</p>
<p>Also, I wouldn’t let a low GPA at a CC deter you. Students who aren’t ready or aren’t motivated are going to do poorly and drag that average down. There will be good students who are there primarily for financial reasons. If your son is really motivated to become an Aggie and knows what needs to be done to make that happen, then staying focused on his studies should not be a problem. If he’s not - well, maybe he’s just not destined for Aggiedom.</p>
<p>lmkh70 -</p>
<p>I’d like to see the specific links too. There are many reasons for choosing community colleges, and many of them would also make it more challenging for a student to keep performing at the level he/she had in high school once the support systems typically in effect in a high school are gone. Students who need to be working full-time in order to support themselves, who are first generation college students from families with weak education traditions, and/or who have significant responsibilities around the home obviously will have greater difficulties in making it through college whether they are at two-year or four-year institution. If your child is not in that situation, there is no reason to believe that his grades and motivation will suddenly drop once he enters the doors of a CC. If nothing else, knowing that a certain GPA is necessary in order to qualify for transfer admission at X, or to receive a transfer scholarship at Y should help him stay focused.</p>
<p>Actually, the “nameplate” of your school does make some difference in recruiting for your first job at graduation, since non-local recruiters may not have the resources to do on-campus interviews at every school. But it is not like investment banking (or law with respect to your law school) where the “nameplate” of your school limits you forever.</p>
<p>However, a student at a less well known engineering school may be able to partially compensate by being more aggressive at applying to non-local employers (not just the big well known ones which are likely to have the resources to do campus visits and which everyone applies to anyway).</p>
<p>If you get the top engineering scholarship, Alabama would be about $12,000 per year. So four years of Alabama would be $48,000, while two years of Alabama plus two years of UIUC would be $92,000.</p>
<p>Note that the big Alabama scholarships require a 3.5 high school GPA; they say that weighted GPA on your transcript is accepted, though you may want to check to be sure.</p>
<p>The Alabama scholarship I would get would give me full tuition plus $2500 a year. I had all the #s in front of me yesterday on their website and I’d be paying about $4k a year. So even less.</p>
<p>Sent from my ADR6300 using CC</p>
<p>And also if in the future I wanted to get a masters degree from a good school, it would really help if I graduated from a top engineering school.</p>
<p>Sent from my ADR6300 using CC</p>
<p>Huh? According to [Estimated</a> Semester Budget](<a href=“http://cost.ua.edu/undergraduate-budget.html]Estimated”>http://cost.ua.edu/undergraduate-budget.html) , non-tuition costs at Alabama are about $6,875 per semester, or $13,750 per year. Subtracting an additional $2,500 gives $11,250 per year.</p>
<p>Oh wow… I think I might’ve been looking at per semester</p>
<p>Sent from my ADR6300 using CC</p>
<p>and now it is more expensive than CoD… NOT going to win over my parents.</p>
<p>Four year price of UA with the top engineering scholarship is cheaper than CC -> UIUC. But going to UA and then transferring to UIUC is more expensive.</p>
<p>You don’t need to go to a “top rated” undergrad to get into a top grad school program. What you do need is a high gpa, research experience, and letters of rec. You can get all of the above at Bama, and could go on to any grad school in the country from
it. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that COA at Bama includes personal expenses, which can be cut down by outside scholarships and by living frugally.</p>
<p>Grad admission doesn’t depend much on the name of the undergrad school either. Grades, GRE scores, letters of rec, work/internship/research/publication, and your own statement of purpose count for much more.</p>
<p>It doesn’t really matter, this is how my parents are handling the whole process. They desperately want me to go to a top engineering school. Even if I could do four years for free somewhere at a decent engineering school, they’d be opposed to it. I’d like to take on a new strategy with this college search; I’m going to decide where I want to go for my first two years and then take it from there.</p>
<p>Sent from my ADR6300 using CC</p>
<p>What does that figure at CoD include?</p>
<p>The non tuition costs at Bama include: all your books, all your food, and a parking pass, which you won’t even need as you won’t need a car. You’ll need books and food and likely a parking pass/car payment/insurance/gas at CoD. </p>
<p>In addition, does Bama have a coop option? You could earn some of the money you need that way.</p>
<p>You need to find out which institutions your parents consider to be “top” enough, and why.</p>
<p>Do they know something we don’t know about regional or national hiring practices?
Do they know something we don’t know about classroom and lab instruction at some of these institutions?
Are they immigrants whose home-country family and friends only recognize the names of certain institutions here and who really do believe that only by graduating from one of those can you have a good life after college?</p>
<p>Since your dad is in the process of changing jobs, there is the very real possibility that the money issues won’t sort themselves out the way he hopes. Sit down with him and read through [FinAid</a>! Financial Aid, College Scholarships and Student Loans](<a href=“http://www.finaid.org%5DFinAid”>http://www.finaid.org) and run some of the calculators, encourage him to look at some of the threads here in the Financial Aid and Parents forums. He doesn’t have to go through this on his own.</p>
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<p>Given your parents’ constraints, your options are:</p>
<p>a. Minimum full tuition at what they consider a “top” engineering school.
b. Full ride or close to it some place where you need not depend on your parents’ contribution.
c. CC -> UIUC as they want you to do (which is generally fine, unless you are extremely advanced and want to take upper division courses early, or the CC is missing a lot of the lower division courses for your major).</p>
<p>The possibilities in category a are likely out of reach for you with your GPA (Robertson @ Duke, Drake @ Berkeley mechanical engineering, President’s @ Georgia Tech, generous need-based aid @ Stanford, etc.).</p>
<p>Category b would mainly be schools of much lower prestige (since the full rides at “top” schools are likely out of reach). But it would be an act of defiance against your prestige-obsessed parents, so it would mainly be a last resort for the case where your relationship with your parents is already failing.</p>
<p>Otherwise, your only real option is CC -> UIUC.</p>
<p>Just got my 2nd ACT score back… got a 32! there wasnt a writing portion, but that can still help.</p>