Cal Poly Pomona seems like the best compromise with respect to quality of education, loan burden, and commuting time and energy.
Is the weighted 3.74 calculated by his HS or is that his UC GPA? What is his unweighted? I ask because at Cal he potentially runs the risk of getting in over his head both academically and financially.
Does he have a strong preference among the three?
Truly don’t mean to be Debbie Downer but what happens to his athletic scholarship if he’s injured? Is it guaranteed in any way? Know more than a few college athletes that either were injured and couldn’t continue in their sport or just burned out in college. It’s fine if you can afford to stay at the school without athletic $ support but if not…
I agree with above poster ^^^. A good friend of my son’s was recruited for cross country at UCB. She was a state champion, excellent student but could not handle both academics and practice time/traveling involved for her sport. Also she found the coaching lacking in many areas and eventually dropped out of the team. She wanted to continue her education at UCB so her parents had to scramble andctake out extra loans to cover the difference. Just making sure you look at all possible scenarios.
If the student was offered a four year scholarship NCAA rules prohibit the school from yanking the scholarship due to injury. The injured athlete may well lose his/her place on the team, but the school must continue to pay for their education.
Now if the student choses to quit the team, that is another matter. The school may well yank the scholarship if the student quits.
@juillet -
Take a look at the companies that hire out of Haas. They include firms like Accenture, Bain, BlackRock, Blackstone, DT, DB, GS, Google, Lazard, McKinsey, PwC, S&P and William Blair. If the OP’s kid has any ambition, what may be a $70K to $90K starting salary will be a minimum of $150K in less than 10 years at any of these firms. $70,000 in student loans is a small price to pay to start your career at one of the elite companies in the US, and they these firms love hiring athletes from elite schools.
@autinmshauri -
Most of the people who can pay $60k a year out of pocket for school got that way by taking risks and making them pay. Like everything else in life, picking a school is a risk. However, if there is any safe bet, it is attending business school at a major university like UC Berkeley. The payoff will be well worth the costs.
It depends on what his economic future outlook looks like. UC has an excellent business program, it could very well be worth it.
Has he considered doing ROTC, that seems like a very good option.
A critical piece in the decision is the likelihood that OP’s son will be accepted into Hass business school after he has completed 60 units at Berkeley. The class profile for Hass might be useful to look at. For Fall 2016, 713 Berkeley undergrads applied and 263 were accepted. The average GPA for acceptance was 3.65.
https://haas.berkeley.edu/Undergrad/class_profile.html#ineligible
Commuting is not possible in these circumstances (80 miles in SoCal for a D1 athlete) so the real choices are CPP, CSUF, Cal, and the un-named schools (please do give their names and net cost, too, so that we can evaluate them against CPP and CSUF.)
Have you checked into Blue&Gold scholarships and other UC scholarships?
What’s your parental contribution?
Does your son currently have a job, can he work fulltime in the summer?
What major is your son considering? I’d consider CPP better than CSUF, but it may depend on major.
As an athlete, it’s clear running for Cal is going to mean a lot more to him and his life than running for a CSU.
The academics will be more demanding at Cal, for sure - does he feel that he could handle it (what’s his curriculum rigor, has he taken mostly honors/AP classes?)
Yes he is all for going to Cal. is high school weighted GPA is 3.72 and unweighted 3.34 as well as being a athlete and a Yearbook photo editor.
Yes he likes ROTC a lot and is planning on being part of the program. If he gets the ROTC scholarship that would bring the cost to the same as CSF. Im just not counting that egg before it’s hatched 
He has taken a mix of honors and AP classes threw high school. avg. about 2 per year.
He was going to look at internships in the summer if he is not doing ROTC.
I’m waiting for a email back from the aid person at UCB to see what all they have to offer. Our FASFA is 25410.
If she does ROTC I think that Cal is a no brainer then as it will cover all but room and board. SO we are waiting to see about that.
If it comes down to CSU F vs. CPP, I’d pick CPP, but no commuting.
DD was in Air Force ROTC sophomore year in college - with the plan to get accepted into their program with the summer - and they would pay her costs and she would get a monthly stipend during junior and senior years of college; she had the misfortune of being in the year that the budget cutting was going on, so she did not go into field training. The fall also had slim opportunities for Navy - they only accepted 43 into that program nationally. However she now is working for VA Hospitals as a RN/BSN. Seems rather odd with the nursing shortage and projections that this would not have been ‘spared’ of the budget cutting.
ROTC and military branches love high achieving athletes. However you still can never count on a ‘blip’ disrupting the apple cart. That happened to FSIL - he had to take out loans rather than complete cadet program in college because someone didn’t give him a favorable rating for getting into field training. He still went into the Army, but with the student loans, and not forgiven either.
So plan A, B, C…good luck and let us know what works out!
I’m not convinced it would be worth the loans. But I’m more concerned about Haas. It’s very competitive to get in there - we know quite a few kids who are very good students who didn’t get in. Since you son needs the athletic bump to just get into UCB in the first place, I think this is a really big concern. I wouldn’t go ahead with sending him to UCB unless you’re ok with him not getting into the business school. After two years at UCB, the kids I know who didn’t get into Haas had the choice of settling for a different major or transferring (and it’s pretty late in the game to do that, so most just stay and get a different degree). I also think that $60K in loans would be a large burden for a young adult.
I am confused by the lack of discussion of track - is he not really interested and just using it to get in? Which is ok,but in that case he is unlikely to carry that scholarship forward. The reality is that athletic scholarships are only for one year, and they’re renewable at the school’s discretion. They can be increased, decreased or removed altogether. The recent ruling by NCAA for four year scholarships is not across the board. Track has 12.9 scholarships to divide between a lot of runners. If a committed athlete, Cal certainly takes care of them with all kinds of perks that would be totally worth it if he is a strong athlete. But if not, there are plenty of others willing to take his place and his scholarship.
He is a very good Athlete and loves the sport of Track and Field. He is looking forward to being a part of the team. He has been offered track scholarships at other college. At Cal he would not be on scholarship. He is a 1 event athlete and it’s hard for a Pac 12 College to invest scholarship money into a 1 event athlete and that is fine.
At this point this is what it looks like.
CSF having to pay room and board with Track scholarship for 4 years 35k in Loans
CAL loans for 4 years total of about 60k.
I think it depends on the kid. If the kid is a very strong in academics and has a good work ethics that can help him get into UCB Haas then he might consider to borrow. If he is not strong enough then it’s possible that he will have to transfer out of UCB. 60k loan is high. I would not let my kids to borrow that much. I would try to help them as much as I can.
“At this point this is what it looks like.
CSF having to pay room and board with Track scholarship for 4 years 35k in Loans
CAL loans for 4 years total of about 60k”
Why not Cal Poly Pomona with commuting? CPP and Upland are not that far apart, and you would save room and board fees. .
Can you help him pay his student loans for a few years after? If you total contribution is only 800 a month, perhaps you can continue that for a few years after graduation to lessen the burden, or lower the principal debt. Colleges give you EFC as what they think you can afford through current income, assets, savings and future earnings of the parents. Not just current earnings. I’d recommend that and UCB.
Commuting to school and going to Cal are complete ends of the college spectrum. One is more like a job than college (commuting). I am going against grain and think the idea of the college experience at Cal is worth the difference which is 25K between that and CSF.
I will say however, if the coach is a good mentor/person at CSF that could be a good influence on your son. Last question, at Cal, would he be on the track team in his one sport, just without a scholarship? Meaning, would he get athlete perks?