<p>My experience (or really my kid’s). My wife and I are both employed such that our kids get ZERO need based aid:</p>
<p>Son is at Cal Poly SLO and lived on campus his freshman year. Rest of the time he has lived off campus and he cooks for himself (he likes to cook). He has had issues getting the classes he needs and is in his FIFTH year, on track to graduate next June. Tuition keeps going up at a good clip but it is still a small part of the cost. The 5th year of the living expenses is something I didn’t originally plan on but found out it was typical the weekend we dropped him off his freshman year. His three roommates are taking 5, 5 and 4 2/3 years to graduate.</p>
<p>Daughter was admitted to several of the UC’s. It seemed like everytime I looked the cost was going up. The UCs are huge schools and off campus housing is expensive (Cal Poly is not cheap but less than I saw was typical at the UCs that I looked at). She was also admitted to a private school. She received a 4 year merit scholarship bringing the cost per year to about 10% more than the cost of the UCs when she had to make her decision where to go. The UCs are having as bad a “5 year problem” as Cal Poly. With the UCs continuing to go up (even a mid-year “adjustment”), I believe that the private school will cost much less by the time my daughter graduates.</p>
<p>D went to Smith for a slightly greater cost of attendance than the UC’s would have been, within 10 percent. As a side note, TheMom has worked at UCLA for 30+ years and the biases of both of us were in favor of large research U’s. </p>
<p>Visiting LAC’s, talking to the students & alumni, and talking with professors changed our opinions. </p>
<p>Three years after D graduated, all three of us are so happy she took the LAC option. She’s now finishing up an NSF grant application and then will be proceeding to complete her applications for a PhD program after having compiled a stellar undergrad record.</p>
<p>Btw, in context of the original post, UC’s are some of the few research U’s to have research opportunities set aside for promising undergrads…something that the LAC’s, with no graduate students for competition, do very well.</p>
<p>My son received a merit offer from Willamette University in Salem, which made going there slightly less expensive than attending a UC campus. He was admitted to UCSD and UCSB, but is now a freshman at Willamette. He got into all the classes he wanted, and his class sizes range from a seminar with 14 students to a math class with 22.</p>
<p>re class size, I think D’s largest survey course was 80 students, next largest 50. Discussion sessions were led by professors, not TA’s; for the 80-student class, D’s discussion section was taught by the department chair. Most typical classes had 15-20 students…if your idea of education is to sit anonymously in a lecture hall, this isn’t for you.</p>
<p>Other highlights of D’s time include a junior year split between Washington, D.C., and Budapest. There were multiple layers of advising and it was first rate.</p>
That hasn’t been the experience of my 2 kids nor any of their roommates nor anyone else they know at the UCs they attended nor many of the other posters here who actually have or had kids at a UC. Why do you say they have the ‘5 year problem’? Do you have any evidence of that? I think the only people I’ve seen make this statement don’t actually have kids at a UC.</p>
<p>My D got a Regent’s Scholarship to UCSD and is very happy there. They gave her grants and scholarship money to cover the full cost of tuition. Regents Scholars get the first pick of classes. She is part of the Regents Scholars Research Program doing lab research in ecology. She attends special seminars with professors just for the Scholars. With that kind of personal attention and with those perqs, who cares if the lectures are large? The discussion groups are much, much smaller. Do private schools offer more than that? </p>
<p>With her APs she is also considered a sophomore.</p>
<p>I think the take away message is that California students have a lot of good options. In some cases private schools or out-of-state publics may be cheaper.</p>
<p>But do any other schools offer dorms with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge? :)</p>
<p>Exactly. My son transferred his high school AP credits, got sophomore standing, and easily earned his UCLA Engineering degree in 4 years. One of his friends earned both a BS and MS in Engineering within the same 4 years.</p>
<p>Cal Poly’s engineering “5 year problem” can not be entirely attributed to students not being able to get classes. </p>
<p>Another major cause is simply the sheer number of units required to graduate from their engineering program. Almost all of Cal Poly’s engineering classes all have lab classes attached (unlike UCs), a direct byproduct of the “learn by doing” philosophy. </p>
<p>Given the enormity and the challenge of the engineering class load, students often have to scale back the number of engineering classes they can take concurrently, thus leading to the 5 year graduation problem.</p>
<p>Alas, given the difficult economic climate, this additional cost of education to the parents come at a terrible time. But the silver lining is that Cal Poly graduates do make it up in earnings and is second only to Cal and UVA.</p>
<p>Our kids didn’t even apply to UCs, as the out-of-state costs for UC are as high or higher than the privates they wanted to attend. S got a significant merit award for the private U he has recently graduated from–EE in 4 years. D looks like she’ll take 3.5 years there (she just declared her major after being there 3.5 semesters and applying several times to get accepted). She transferred with 3 semesters of credits. We’re all happy that she’ll be graduating with her buddies, who entered college in fall 2008. Hopefully she’ll use the extra time to explore the options her private U offers her, especially internships & hands on experiences.</p>
<p>I would agree. If we lived outside of California, we wouldn’t seriously consider applying to a UC campus, unless we felt that they were far superior in some field/s in which my daughter was interested. Even then, we’d look hard at other, cheaper states first.</p>
<p>The reverse situation is also interesting. There are some schools in western states where the cost of attendance as an out-of-state student is comparable to, or in some cases less than the COA for an in-state student at UC. The UC response, I’m sure, would be that they are vastly better than those other schools, but that’s another debate.</p>
<p>My daughter is a freshman at Cal Poly SLO in Kinesiology and if she’s able to get all of her classes, she feels she’ll be on track to graduate in 4 years. She’s even considering a minor if things are moving along at a nice pace. We shall see! </p>
<p>I know of students in Engineering and Architecture at CPSLO who knew from the onset that it would take 5 years to graduate. But, consider that most of these students are “career-ready” after that. Unless they go into academia, they often don’t need to attend grad school. And with Cal Poly’s “Learn by doing”–hands-on teaching, employers are very interested in hiring these new graduates. Even though my daughter expects to graduate in 4 years, she also will need to attend grad. school to acquire a master’s in the field she plans to go into (Occupational Therapy.) So, she’ll end up spending more time and money than the kids on the 5-year-program (who don’t choose grad. school.)</p>
<p>**HPPuck35 wrote:</p>
<p>Son is at Cal Poly SLO and lived on campus his freshman year. Rest of the time he has lived off campus and he cooks for himself (he likes to cook). He has had issues getting the classes he needs and is in his FIFTH year, on track to graduate next June. Tuition keeps going up at a good clip but it is still a small part of the cost. The 5th year of the living expenses is something I didn’t originally plan on but found out it was typical the weekend we dropped him off his freshman year. His three roommates are taking 5, 5 and 4 2/3 years to graduate.**</p>
<p>Exactly. Had my daughter been accepted to Stanford and chose to attend, we would not be paying tuition. Her room and board would have been about $12,000 a year. It would have been the least expensive school for her to attend of the 10 she applied to. Even though she was admitted to USC, even with a $20,000 grant freshman year, we would still be paying more than a public state school and she would have had to take out loans. We all felt that it probably wouldn’t be worth it for undergrad, especially since she plans on attending grad. school as well. And, the cost of living in L.A. and transportation home would be higher than the school she ultimately chose. The only reason she applied to USC in the first place was for the 5 year Bachelors to Masters Occupational Therapy program. But, we did the math and it still came out to be more costly than 4 years at Cal Poly SLO and 2 more years of a MSOT program. Of course, it depends on where she gets accepted for that. Tuition varies at different schools. I don’t even want to *think *about right now. :-/</p>
<p>Quote:</p>
<p>**Even without merit aid, the well-endowed, highly selective privates offers generous need-based aid, which is so good that it is cheaper to go OOS than UC (at instate rates) for the vast majority of folks. Heck, HYP even gives aid/tuition discount to those making up to $180k/year. **</p>
<p>I think the whole “not graduating on time” issue is more of a reflection of the student, not the university.</p>
<p>Some kids change their majors, refuse to take classes at “inconvenient times,” don’t pay close attention to their graduation req’s, and/or are late signing up for their classes. Any of these can cause kids to not graduate on time. </p>
<p>Also, many of incoming freshmen don’t enter college ready to take college-level math and/or freshman english comp. That can also cause a delay in graduation.</p>
<p>However, the point that merit scholarships for students from privates or OOS publics can make their costs competitive or lower than going to a UC. However, typically the student has to have strong stats. In the case of the Fordham student, she probably was a NMF.</p>
<p>I’m willing to bet big-time cyber dollars that if you told your son you were only paying for four years, you would have only paid for four. (All of a sudden that 8:00 am Friday class doesn’t sound so bad. Or, S could pick up a transferable, online course at a juco.)</p>
<p>OTOH, SLO is a wonderful town, and definitely worth another year on someone else’s dime. :)</p>
<p>I have nearly 50 nieces and nephews and many of them have gone to (or are going to) UCs and Cal Polys…all have graduated or will graduate on time.</p>
<p>I think the kicker is the big “if”, “if my kid had been accepted at Stanford, HPY, etc., she’d be going there for almost free.” The only kid I know who got into Stanford (not for sports) is a double legacy from a wealthy family. Who knows how many are actually getting those great tuition deals? For my daughter, a great-by-any-normal-standard-but-not-tip-top student, the UC schools ended up being the best deal by far.</p>