<p>Thank you all so far for your input, some of which makes me remember other “restrictions” we have, that I’ll mention later. I apologize in advance for how long-winded I’m going to be, but my wife and I tend to overanalyze things, and this decision really has our heads spinning. This is such a great site, w/ so much helpful activity from so many who are in or have been in the same boat. Much appreciated.</p>
<p>PIERRE, What makes URI “one of the worst flagship public universities in the country”? I must admit that my daughter, wife and I have a very hard time seeing the value of spending 200k on a private degree vs. 80k at a public. We both work w/ lots of people who have expensive private degrees, but are doing the same jobs (or less) than us. How do we know that private college degrees open more doors? Or if one were to continue staying involved in ECs, maybe even be in the state U’s honors program, achieve good grades, and maybe even get involved in some research, wouldn’t prospective employers still value them at least as much as someone with a private college degree? I do realize though, that if all of the above were equal when comparing two potential job candidates, the private-educated student would probably get the nod. But is that worth 120k extra (not even counting loan interest)?</p>
<p>KMARTCORD: We did consider Emerson, however, that brings up another restriction: she wants the full, private campus life, complete w/ common quad area, as opposed to a school that is spread out over a city. That ruled out Emerson and BU. Though she’s always enjoyed the hectic cities we’ve visited (Boston, NYC), she wants that “cocoon” of a private campus and knowing that all of the people she passes by throughout the day are in her same boat (students, not just the whole city). But you’re right about BU’s offerings - she’d certainly have a lot of options and a great city. Does anyone know how “private/cozy/campusy” (new word ;)) BU feels? </p>
<p>Oh, while I’m thinking of it, another restriction: Though she might opt for a semester abroad (Italy?), wherever she goes, her [current] plan is to return to RI to work. This might rule out some majors, which might require (or at least offer many more opportunities) living in Boston or NYC to find employment (i.e. advertising, communications). I know that might sound awfully limiting to some, but she likes it here and wants to be close to her family longterm. We know a lot of kids who have gone farther away and eventually ended up living near where they went to school. Some might consider that a simple case of “changing your mind”, which is a good thing. Call it selfish, but we’d like her to return here eventually too. Take our nephew, for example, who went to Seton Hall. He ultimately found work in NYC and only returns for holidays. He’s an only child and his parents obviously miss him and would’ve preferred him to live nearby. My cousin went to Keene, met his wife, who was from CA, and moved there to be near her family. My aunt only sees him and her grandchildren a couple times per year. I know this probably sounds silly to some people and many probably feel that our goal as parents is to help our kids grow wings and fly wherever life takes them. I have to admit that we don’t fall into that category. Just being honest.</p>
<p>Regarding specializing in writing or desktop publishing or graphic design… these are just things she’s always enjoyed doing as part of her course work. She doesn’t necessarily have to major in them to continue to do them. Obviously, lots of other jobs would still involve these skills (i.e. marketing, advertising). We did also consider the graphic design approach and here in RI we have RISD. Roger Williams U also offers Graphic Communications. That said, she’s really not much into art, as much as she enjoys researching, writing, laying out brochures, PowerPoints, etc. - again, things that she can probably still do in lots of careers. She also considered Journalism, but doesn’t know if she’s really into the whole interviewing process and working for a newspaper. There’s only one big paper in RI (Prov. Journal), then lots of city papers, w/ small staffs - again, not necessarily a good major choice for someone who wants to stay in itty bitty RI. ;)</p>
<p>Regarding foreign languages, she has no plans to take a new language; she’ll continue w/ Italian to fulfill any language requirements. (Likely influence by Mom teaching Italian/Spanish at the Jr. High our kids attended. ;))</p>
<p>Regarding potential majors and quantity/breadth available at smaller schools: We definitely want to have the option of business courses/majors available. That eliminates some private schools, which are often quite lean in this area. For example, PC has Mgmt, Acctg and Mktg, but not much else. (Then again, how much else is there? :)) Stonehill only offers 31 majors, though Marketing is one of them. Quinnipiac had a number of majors/minors that interested her, where, as kmartcord suggested, she could overlap some communication/business/advertising/writing courses to increase her marketability. She also really liked the campus at Q. But again, most of those same offerings are available at URI. She’d also like to keep the option of majoring in education open. She doesn’t feel strongly enough about any subjects to necessarily teach them in secondary schools, though English or maybe Italian would be the frontrunners. However, there aren’t many Italian-only jobs around, and she’s not really interested in minoring in Spanish, like Mom did. But she hasn’t ruled out Elementary Ed.</p>
<p>kmartcord: “A third possibility is to take some coursework in desktop publishing, etc. at a community college”: I thought of the same thing and CCRI is about 2 miles from our house. I recently found a course there in desktop publishing, as well as one in web design that are 5-week online courses. The web design one doesn’t start until after she’s out of school in June (the DP one starts later this month). Being in computers myself, I hesitate to try to talk her into my field, yet I don’t want her to ignore it either. I’ve told her that many of the same things she likes to do for print layout are available in web design - though the job outlook of web design seems better. Unfortunately, she balked at the idea of taking a summer course. 
She plans to work this summer (and I thought she could still easily handle such a small course). But she wants to enjoy her summer too and feels like “Why can’t I just wait and take a course like that in college as an elective?”. I’m still not sure if my wife and I might have to exercise some parental judgment and push a little harder on this? But it’s interesting that you mentioned this, kmartcord. A father of one of our son’s friends got his undergrad degree from Harvard in History. Then his first job was at Raytheon doing defense work! He said he asked them why they hired him and they said “because of your critical thinking, articulation, etc… we can teach you the rest”. He suggested pretty much the same thing you are regarding the sidework in desktop publishing: “Take a course to get that skill, but you don’t want to major in something so narrowly-focused.” OTOH, if she were to eventually decide she wanted to be a web designer, then she’d probably be better off in a Computer Science major. So we feel like that has to be an option too. Ugh.</p>
<p>Alexandre - Regarding Brown, BC and Tufts: As I mentioned above, Brown doesn’t offer the private campus life she wants. You’re also right that these schools would be reaches for her, tho we’ll have to see what her SAT scores are next week. But unless they offered some merit aid, they’re also a financial reach. I spoke w/ an Admissions Officer at BC last month and he suggested that, in our financial situation, the only aid we’d likely see would be loans and work-study… “maybe”. Our EFC is ~$35k, so at most of the private schools, which cost 40-50 including tuition/room/board, we’d be shelling out the first 35k, and if the aid offered is just loans/work, we (or our daughter) would essentially be paying the whole amount. And if these schools are a “reach” for her, I wouldn’t expect she’d qualify for merit aid there? URI, OTOH, would be ~20k altogether. Now, I do realize that this is similar to the Mercedes vs. “other” cars argument (and I do drive an Infiniti G35x myself ;)), in which some people just place more value on prestige. But we keep coming back to “Wouldn’t it be nice to come out of college w/ a degree and no debt, ready to use your first earned dollars on purchasing a car or home, etc. than to spend your first earned 70-80k (+ interest) paying back loans?” My wife and I are only 3 years removed from owning our home outright because we’ve paid extra principle since refinancing several years ago. We also save 10% of our income in retirement accounts. We’ll also both receive pensions (a rarity nowadays). So our goal is to retire in our mid-50s. We really don’t feel the need to forego this just so that our kids can have a more prestigious name on their degrees. I don’t mean to come across selfish-sounding, but we’ve managed to live a pretty comfortable life without needing private school education (yes, my wife did go to PC, but only because RIC didn’t offer Italian Educ). And we are willing to cover the first 80k or so (URI) of our children’s education so that they can leave school debt-free and we’d still have some funds left to help them later in life (i.e. weddings, homes, etc.). But unless there’s some merit aid involved at a private school, we don’t plan to shell out 200k for each of our two kids.</p>
<p>Alexandre, regarding some of the other schools you suggested (thank you, btw): Assumption doesn’t offer an education major (it’s a concentration), but they do seem to have many other options that might work for our daughter: Bus. Studies, Comm., Comp. Sci., Graphic Design, Marketing and Writing. So some combination of those might make her marketable in some of the areas in which she’s interested. Emmanuel hasn’t shown up in any of our searches because we were excluding the really small schools (2400 students at Emmanuel). But with all of our other restrictions, maybe this is one we should be willing to relax? What are the pros/cons of such a small school? Emmanuel doesn’t have a lot of majors that might interest her either, and their Educ. major requires a double major; plus they’re very limited in Bus., w/ just a Mgmt. major. So there wouldn’t be a lot of other Advertising or Journalism courses to fill out her electives. They do, however, have an intriguing English major w/ a concentration in Communication, Media and Cultural Studies. They also offer a major and minor in Graphic Design & Technology. The size of the campus is a little scary though, at only 17 acres. And their collaboration w/ other local colleges for activities and classes is a bit alarming too. Are they so small that they have to do this just to give students the same experience as other larger campuses? Stonehill looks very nice and offers a few areas our daughter might be interested in… Majors: English is heavy lit., Marketing, Educ (Elem & Sec); Minors: Bus., CIS, English, Journ. Clark offers a broad selection of Comm. courses, w/ some nice overlap into Graphic Arts and English. They also have a nice feature of “Requirements may also be fulfilled, through an arrangement with the Worcester Consortium of Higher Education, at Assumption College and the College of the Holy Cross.” Also have Elem & Sec Educ majors and Bus. minor (w/ a few Mktg courses offered). But they seem to be quite limited in other Bus. course offerings (i.e. no Advertising). I just get a general sense that you don’t go to Clark to major in Bus… We hadn’t really considered UNH. Is their reputation much better than URI (or UConn)? If you want to overlap into Bus., it appears that you need to take those courses at the Whittmore School of Bus. & Econ. Is this just another “school” on the main campus in Durham or does it require commuting between the two?</p>
<p>gadad, I hear what you’re saying about “A liberal arts degree is a degree in critical thinking, which never goes out of style. Writing never goes out of style.”. And that sentiment appears to be the common consensus among most people with whom we discuss college searches.</p>
<p>Again, thank you to all for providing your input. Any other suggestions are, of course, still welcomed.</p>
<p>Regards,
Sandman</p>