<p>As an out of state student, the cost of Tech is looking hefty. My parents are willing to take on the cost of tuition at Tech (25000ish) but I will be responsible for footing the rest of the cost (15000ish). I'm not exactly ecstatic about having student loans haunting me after graduation, so I was wondering if co-oping one semester each year would bring in the extra $15k I would need each year. </p>
<p>And also, can you set up your coop so that you are only working during the summer semester?</p>
<p>There’s co-oping and interning. You cannot coop in only summers - you would co-op every other semester. If you intern, you can intern only in the summer. The different between the two is that with co-oping, you interview once (as a freshman) then stay at that company all through college. With interning, you interview every year and work for a new company every year (though many companies will let you come back, in which case you don’t have to reinterview).</p>
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<p>You can’t co-op just once per year. Since it’s every other semester it’s two semesters some years and one semester some years.</p>
<p>Let’s say you interned every summer. Intern pay typically runs $15 - $30 per hour. After taxes, that’s about $5000 to $10,000 per semester, which isn’t enough to cover the entire $15,000. Also, keep in mind that while you’re interning, you’ll need to pay for an apartment, utilities, food, etc.</p>
<p>With co-op, you won’t be completely debt free once you graduate college, but you’ll definitely put a significant dent in your loans! Also, don’t rule out internships. On average, internships pay about $18 an hour, and you can work anywhere from 20-35+ hours a week with an internship. With co-op you can’t ONLY work summers, you have to alternate when you work and go to school. But with internships, you could definitely ONLY work summers if you wanted. You could also intern over the summer and over into the fall semester (or spring semester into the summer). There’s many more options when you inter. The main difference between co-opping and interning is that you co-op with one company, but you can intern with many.</p>
<p>Interning actually sounds great for what I want to do because I was hoping to take part in the international plan, which requires you to be abroad for like 3 semesters. I would imagine you can’t co-op while abroad but can you intern at an international company? In between two semesters abroad? Which will also help with costs since I only have to pay in-state tuition when studying abroad.</p>