@ucbalumnus Thanks for the clarification. I am mostly going from stats. Our local CSULB has a horrific 4 year graduation rate but the very small sample set of recent engineering graduates I’ve talked to (all 3) graduated in 4 years.
LOL yes! I had no doubt my kids would be accepted where they applied, but affording it is a whole different ball of wax
We told both of our kids that they should not set their hearts on only one school. That there were many different places that would give them the education that they would need. Our son did have a strong preference, and was accepted. They gave him almost no aid. He was accepted at every college he applied to, and had a terrific package at his runner up choice. We went over the numbers with him, and had been honest about what we could afford. He went to an “accepted students’ day” at the school which gave him a great package, and fell in love with it. He could also have gone to two other of the colleges, but he he had a wonderful experience. Our daughter pretty much the same - she definitely had her heart set on another school, even though she stayed even headed about it, but she had a choice (take on the debt beyond what we could afford, go to the school which had a highly rated program and gave much better aid, or go to the not-so great school nearby/which would cost us all the least); she chose the second school, and has received a great education. She is glad that she made the choice that she did, and so are we.
I would expect that if a new frosh at CSULB had a high school academic record that made a “top private” a realistic possibility for admissions, and does not have any affordability issues attending CSULB full time (15+ credits per semester), s/he would be much more likely to graduate in 8 semesters than a typical CSULB student (recent four year graduation rate only 28%). And such a student should be fully eligible to use the four year pledge program described at https://www.csulb.edu/beach-pledge to further reduce any risk that is school-based (e.g. class full).