@sushiritto Except most kids that are tippy top school competitive graduate from high school with lots of AP or DE credits that will be accepted by lower ranked schools. My engineer ds graduated in 3 yrs. My current college student could have graduated in 2 yrs but he is attending on full scholarship so he had no incentive. He wanted to take grad level courses and participate in UG research for when applying to grad school. (and that has worked out well b/c he has particpated in research non-stop and will have had 2 excellent REUs)
Just so we all know what we’re talking about, here are the base COA’s (tuition, required fees, room and board) for the schools we’re discussing:
UMass Amherst $27,599 in-state, [$45,746 out of state]
U Maine Orono. $20,792, [$39,662]
SUNY Buffalo. $22,062, [$38,562]
U of Alabama $24,320, [$40,800]
U Michigan. $25,274, [$56,282]
Penn State. $29,130, [$43,612]
For all schools I’ve listed state flagships. Satellite campuses for many are less expensive. None include costs for travel, books or personal items.
I wanted to list the cost for McGill, but since their website lists the costs for an international student as “$19,603 - $44,594” it was clear it was going to be hard to compare apples to apples.
However, those more selective schools have higher graduation rates because they have stronger students to begin with. Many of them also have better financial aid, or a higher percentage of students with wealthy parents, so they get fewer dropouts due to students running out of money, and fewer slower graduations due to students having to work more and cut back on credits taken per semester in school.
It is not necessarily the case that, for the same student, choosing to attend the more selective school necessarily improves that student’s chance of graduating and graduating on time (particularly if the school has a more expensive net price for the student that is right on the edge of affordability).
@Mom2aphysicsgeek But I’m thinking more in terms of UC’s and CSU’s, since I’m in CA. We have many impacted majors and 4 years might (probably?) be doable anymore. So, paying a selective private university for 4 years versus say a UC for 5 or more years, plus all the other costs, makes the selective private college look better financially speaking.
@doschicos My S would have to go school for 10 years to our public to cost the same as a private. We are allowing S to go college for 5 years at a public. Not because he a weaker student and can’t finish in 4, but because he is under no pressure to finish in 4 and wanted to add a double major of Japanese?!?! to his engineering degree and spend a year in Japan.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek Privates like Cal Lutheran are catching on to the fact that it is getting harder to graduate from the UC system in 4 years. They offer a Public Promise Scholarship that matches the UC COA… for those accepted into UCB, UCLA, UCSB, UCI,UCD, UCSD. They are hoping to woo those who want a small private school experience with a lower student: teacher ratio etc.
You may some good points @ucbalumnus, but the high grad rates at some of the LACS, is also a result of lower faculty/student ratio, which leads to better and more frequent advising, which leads to students better able to keep on track to graduate. You have your advisor making sure you have the requirements for your major and core to graduate on time. Less opportunity to fall through the cracks. Also it can be easier to actually enroll in the classes you need, whereas at some of the very big flagships, kids get closed out of necessary courses more frequently, which is a big driver of taking longer to graduate.
@Sue22: McGill’s International tuition varies by degree (not by major), so a BA or BA&S in CS would cost a lot less than a BS in CS. Anyway, that’s how they do it. A few American publics also have different tuition for different majors/degrees but they don’t vary nearly so much.
@gearmom I understand that and in your situation it is perhaps not a sound financial choice to go private given your more reasonable instate option and smart of you to recognize the value in that! Just pointing out that folks here are bashing the high price tag schools as not being worthwhile but there are some perks that come along with it. Yes, some might be due to students they choose, wealth, etc. but the schools also provide personal services, guidance, academic support, flexibility, ease of scheduling, etc. which does contribute.
And don’t forget there are private schools that do give merit, as I and others have pointed out before. So, public isn’t always the cheapest way to go for all students.
I’d also argue that you could just fund a year abroad in Japan outside the college system for fluency or a year of him spending time in Japan teaching english and he could obtain fluency at an even cheaper cost - or while even making $$. His fluency in Japanese will be an asset to him whether it is listed on his resume as a double major or just listed as fluency. There are different ways to skin a cat. 
@wisteria100: " You have your advisor making sure you have the requirements for your major and core to graduate on time."
On the one hand, yes that’s true. On the other hand, major and graduation requirements really aren’t that difficult to figure out. I’d expect someone smart and disciplined enough to be competitive for top expensive no-merit-money privates to be able to handle that exercise without much difficulty.
These perks are often available to tippy-top students that are top-school competitive through special honors programs at the cheaper, lower ranked options. My kids have been part of these types of programs and the specialized attention they receive is pretty phenomenal.
@doschicos Also high priced privates tend to have better networking and job placement. We don’t need that for S in his major. It’s complex. One reason he DIDN’T go the high merit OOS public school was because we were concerned about the possibility of a fifth year and no aid. You have to know your kid and how they survive pressure. Our good friend’s S just had a really, really bad first semester at an expensive private. The pressure of losing ground when so much money is on the line is certainly different than when you have a comfortably affordable one.
Re: Japan. If a GF wasn’t involved that would be a great idea. Pretty sure that Japanese is formally being added to our international engineering program so there will be networking with companies. GF is part Japanese and has fam in northern Japan so this added major may not be as frivolous as it originally sounded to us.
@purpletitan - but it can still be tricky to figure out, and it only takes 1 course that you miss to set you off course to graduate on time. A kid may have an AP credit, but not realize that he still needs a class in that area to fulfill the core. A kid waits until senior year to take that required philosophy class and then gets closed out of the only section that works with his internship schedule, so the advisor works some magic and gets him into the class… A kid who is studying abroad may also have some scheduling difficulties. Reading the requirements sounds easy, but in reality it sometimes is not so straightforward the first time reading through the guide.
Somehow, the myth that it is getting more difficult to graduate from a UC in 4 years seems to be popular even though it is probably not true. http://accountability.universityofcalifornia.edu/2015/chapters/chapter-3.html#3.1.1 shows historical 4 and 6 year graduation rates at the UC campuses. Note that they have generally been rising, although probably in close correlation to admission selectivity.
Some CSUs have long had 4 year pledge programs (offering priority registration and guarantee of class availability for one’s major), but it appears that many students do not meet the eligibility requirements (e.g. take full course loads following their majors’ course plans, not need remedial courses) or choose not to use them, since those CSUs’ 4 year graduation rates are still quite low. These 4 year pledge programs are being expanded to more CSU campuses, rebranded as “California Promise”: http://www.calstate.edu/sas/california-promise.shtml .
“These perks are often available to tippy-top students that are top-school competitive through special honors programs at the cheaper, lower ranked options. My kids have been part of these types of programs and the specialized attention they receive is pretty phenomenal.”
You are correct, @Mom2aphysicsgeek! Another good reason why OP and others shouldn’t knock the more affordable public university options they seem to lament!
@gearmom I hope that means a trip to Japan is in your future - if you haven’t been already. It’s on my top list of places I’d like to visit.
Also, for majors that have large volumes of requirements and/or lots of sequenced prerequisites (e.g. engineering majors), it is common for colleges to give suggested 4 year schedule plans that students can follow when making their schedules.
But then assembling a 4 year schedule for a given major from the degree requirements and prerequisite relationships in the catalog should not be that difficult. Delayed graduation may be more likely to be from late changes of major, undirected frosh/soph exploration without ensuring staying on track for any possible major of interest, taking light course loads for whatever reason, etc…
@ucbalumnus And those are other factors in college selection. The possibility that your sprog might want to change majors and you may not be able to afford a delayed grad date and the Freedom to explore. S would not have wiggle room to explore a language with his engineering program in 4 years.
@wisteria100: Except for some pretty specialized professional majors (and those typically have study plans with suggested classes for each slot in each semester), I can’t think of a single major where missing one class would delay graduation (unless you chose a major pretty late; like spring semester of junior year).
^^What I meant is if you are a class short/credit short, you won’t have enough credits to graduate. Or you may have enough credits, but missing 1 credit you need for your major or core requirement. It happens. I have 2 nephews, who had that scenario at 2 different state schools.
@PurpleTitan, it depends on the school. Up until next year’s catalog, for example, due to college requirements (alongside general university and major requirements) at my university, that was the case for pretty much every humanities/social science/natural science/mathematics major (with some limited wiggle room for related majors, like a student switching from physics to geology early enough).