@MiamiDAP, your post 36 is most confusing. On one hand you say you spent $25,000 on room and board in undergrad (which is poppycock). OTOH, you say that only half of that was for room and board, and the other for discretionary spending. Then on the third hand, you claim that this $25,000 a year number for room and board was an average for undergrad and grad (which for your daughter was medical school).
Your posts regarding your costs are most misleading, and confusing.
This student is trying to figure out how to fund their college costs. Your figures don’t add up…at all.
To the OP, you have a good choice in your public university. You can get a part time job to fund some of your costs even there. It’s not a bad thing to have a work history when you graduate.
Personally, I think NEU is marginally better, and Boston is a terrific place. My relative had a lousy experience in engineering at Rutgers - he needed academic help and couldn’t really get it so it took him 6 years to graduate. But he did finally get a good job, and he seems happy. He was probably not as accomplished as your D, and it’s not clear the fault was with Rutgers.
Nonetheless, it doesn’t sounds like you have the means to make NEU work no matter what, so the question of whether it is worth it seems moot. Why are we even having this discussion? Tell her it’s Rutgers.
CRD: if op “forces” his/her daughter into Rutgers, it takes away the student’s choice, it’s like “ordering” her to attend a school “she doesn’t want”. Better to give her a choice (such as work+gap year OR Rutgers) so that she owns the decision.
@MYOS1634 - If that’s really a reasonable choice, I agree completely, and it could certainly be couched that way.
However, I don’t think taking a gap year because of a poor application strategy in a family with financial need is really a reasonable choice because it delays the D’s first post-graduate paycheck by a year, and that’s roughly at least $50K of cash that won’t be coming in. To do what? Barrister at Starbucks? Maybe make $10K cash back, most of which will go toward the 2019-2020 tuition increase over 2015-2016.
it doesn’t, but it’s immaterial - “being one year behind” is more likely to sway a teen than a potential 50K 4 or 5 years from now.
gap year vs. rutgers is the only choice left - and it’s better than NEU or Rutgers.
It seems to me that with the stats this kid has she should be able to do a lot better on the FA front than a $15K merit award or whatever. Either the OP’s income is more than “decent,” or the NCP is the big problem. They could apply for an NCP waiver, of course, but are the circumstances in their favor?
If she’s going to take a gap year and reapply to a broader range of schools, she should be realistic about what those schools would be. I’m thinking that she could be looking higher up the food chain than NEU for FA from deep pockets schools (some Ivies), and elsewhere for big automatic awards (U AL) and potential large awards for OOS students (Pitt, perhaps U Rochester). Running the NPCs at those places before making the decision would be key.
I can understand her desire to be in Boston, I love Boston and it is a great college town, but unless the NCP situation is resolved in their favor her only affordable choice there might be Harvard. If that.
I think she should go to Rutgers, and take advantage of the Honors College, rather than wasting a year doing nothing interesting. But she could be offered the choice. AFTER analyzing the realistic possibilities of reapplying.
So this is really how about how to subtly manipulate a tremendously intelligent teen into doing the only intelligent thing there is to do. That’s a losing proposition.
Frankly, this is an adult decision. I would treat her like the adult she is, take an honest and contrite approach complete with the math, and show her that there really is only one intelligent choice and let her “decide”. It’s a prime example of why one should have two safeties not one. I’m sorry for OP and her D. This must be painful.
Oh MY GOD! Somebody cannot attend Northeastern and has to “settle” for Rutgers Engineering with full-tuition scholarship. What is so special about Northeastern except that it is in Boston? Last time I checked Northeastern is not exactly Harvard. You can hop on a train in Rutgers and be in Manhattan in one hour.
Among other things Rutgers is generous with AP/IB credits. OP’s kid may be in a position to do an extended internship for pay and credits without delaying graduation and make a financial killing. This will allow her to maintain a car and rent a room in a nice condo off-campus. When they interview for these internships her SAT score and Presidential scholarship will be a differentiator. These co-ops/big internships usually result in a job offer. If she does not want to take it she can leverage this offer to get more job offers and negotiate better pay. Obviously she will be graduating without loans.
I am describing a real-life scenario here although Rutgers buses do suck.
As far as I’m concerned, no, it’s not manipulation. I really believe the daughter needs to make a choice and own it. If she’s “forced” to go to Rutgers it won’t be the same at all.
The choice she sees right now is NEU vs. Rutgers and she’s said she didn’t want Rutgers. If the proposition is: NEU is impossible but there’s another choice… it’s much easier for her, and much easier on her mother/parent.
In the grad scheme of things, if Rutgers is going to be a problem, a gap year is a better deal. And if it’s not, then the daughter owns the decision.
Actually Rutgers gives full rides for stats like SAT 2330 but she only got full-tuition. NU also did not give her the biggest awards. So other parts of her application package may not be on par and in this case the gap year may not produce much better results.
Will pile on and say she should go to Rutgers. I also agree with the stated sentiment that Northeastern isn’t such a good school that it should be considered over Rutgers for so much more money. You know what most Northeastern grads have to say after they answer someone who asks where they went to college?, “No, not Northwestern…Northeastern. It’s in Boston.”
Once at our lunch time, a coworker mentioned Aoun’s gaming in US News ranking, most of us are in awe.
Below are sample responses:
which school?
where is that school located?
I heard about Northwestern, is Northeaster also in Illinois?
That is a 3rd or 4th tier school, is not it?
…
I asked him what caused the ranking to go up, he mentioned CO-OP, and I am like, what? why does a college kid
need a co-op? …, I agree that I might be an outdated person, but I will never send my kid to a college just for a co-op
regardless of the ranking.
US News ranking is one thing, after both president tried all kinds of tricks to move up the ranking for nearly 2 decades,
160+ to 42, money magazine has this -> 2014 “Best Colleges for Your Money,” Northeastern landed at the bottom of the third quartile, at number 433.
It appears that NEU is able to waive SAT requirement for international students and recruit many more who is paying full tuition to feed a few top kids with full ride.
Kids are so much into the US News rankings and SAT scores, and they can easily forget that they themselves are what really matters, NEU is getting better, you can join the party only if you have the money to squander.
Many schools do offer optional formalized co-op programs (and, at many of those that do not, withdrawal and readmission policies may allow the students to easily make their own informal co-op). Northeastern, Drexel, and Cincinnati are unusual in making it a major focus of their academic programs.