<p>My D is approaching her last semester of her undergraduate and will be working full time at an internship for the entire semester. The internship is required for her major and she will not be taking any classes during the semester. I know it is common place but how does a college justify charging full tuition for a semester when the student never enters a classroom, uses a lab or hears a lecture? </p>
<p>Just needed to vent. Oh well, at least it’s our last payment :)</p>
<p>What is full tuition? 15 credit hours? 12?</p>
<p>Man, that sucks. Sounds like something a university would do…:rolleyes:</p>
<p>My university does the same. They charge you for taking a co-OP.</p>
<p>My oldest D had to do it. S will be student teaching next semester and honestly isn’t that kind of comparable?? Working a close to 40 hour week with no pay AND paying tuition???</p>
<p>Vent away!!! There are elements of the current university system which do truly baffle</p>
<p>Yea, it’s odd. For-profit companies are required to pay … UNLESS the student is getting credit. The presumption is that company/college collaboration arranges a learning opportunity at the job. Not sure you will agree, but just telling you what I’ve heard.</p>
<p>Think of it as your tuition dollars paying for credits toward her degree, just like every other semester. Whether those credits are earned in the classroom or at an internship is immaterial. Tuition=credits. Hopefully, thinking of it this way will make it easier to swallow. Congrats on seeing the light at the end of the tunnel!</p>
<p>Yeah, I see all sides of it but…the college didn’t really arrange the internship. She had to take a class this semester to prepare for applying, resume writing, interview skills etc. She does get the credits she needs for it but, unlike a student teaching experience, there is no supervisor, college affiliated mentor in place. I student taught and i had contact with my supervisor at my college, who checked my lesson plans, observed me, evaluated me, etc.</p>
<p>Her internship is at a non-profit so no pay.</p>
<p>I guess my issue is that paying for credits usually means that you are paying a teacher’s salary, use of facilities, etc. The college is making out on the deal if I’m paying the same amount for credits earned while she is at an office all day, under the supervision of that organization’s staff.</p>
<p>I suppose the university can justify it that they need a certain amount of tuition whether she’s there or not. Their expenses don’t go down. The big scam is taking tuition money for summer internships for credit, when they wouldn’t probably have done so in the summer.</p>
<p>Weird… my daughter went to Northeastern University which starts kids on full-time internships (called co-ops) starting in the second half of their sophomore year. Many students do at least two co-ops, some squeeze in three. BUT during that time students don’t pay tuition, only room & board if they’re living on campus.</p>
<p>EPTR, I complained about the same thing a few years ago…</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/857984-does-seem-right-you.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/857984-does-seem-right-you.html</a></p>
<p>But at Northeastern, they usually still pay for four years of tuition, right? Wouldn’t be much of a selling point if they had to pay for five. Co-ops don’t give credit, do they?</p>
<p>I would consider finding an internship without going through the school, then asking for a one-semester leave of absence. They are essentially charging you a semester’s tuition in return for helping find the internship.</p>
<p>At Northeastern we pay for the semesters of taking classes, usually a total of 8 semesters over 5 years (including some summer time, which is scheduled like a normal semester, complete with the same financial aid). They make a real point of saying that you don’t pay when you are on co-op, which seemed to me like kind of a silly thing to say, since at the time I didn’t know that universities charged you full price to not attend classes. I am not paying anything to the university this semester, but I am still considered a full time student. This means I have access to all of the student services. I am doing an international co-op, and I am actually getting paid $6,000 by the university for this, in addition to my earnings here!</p>
<p>I think the reason Northeastern has this approach goes back to its very early commuter school days, when the main purpose of co-op was so that students could pay for school - so it would be ridiculous to charge students for that. Although you do not get regular “course credit” for co-op, you do get experiential education credit, which is required in some form for all majors. This credit can also be obtained other ways, depending on the major, but some require co-op. Although my major doesn’t require co-ops, I will have 3 by the time I graduate. If I had to pay for them? No way.</p>
<p>EPTR , my S2 had the same situation. His major required an 11 week/40 hours per week unpaid internship (last sem. of senior yr.) It counted as a 9 credit hour class .He also had to do a 3 hr. credit internet class at the same time. So we had to pay tuition while S2 was doing an internship 40 miles away from the university. The university gave no help in finding/securing said internship. It was entirely up to S2 to make contacts and arrange interviews with various agencies which turned out to be pretty difficult. DH did a lot of grumbling about paying so much money to do an unpaid internship with no help/support from the university.</p>
<p>This doesn’t seem weird to me at all. You are paying for the credits toward graduation, which it sounds like she’s getting. Without the work semester, she wouldn’t be able to graduate, and without the school’s requirements, she wouldn’t have the internship which provides experience, r</p>
<p>To me, this would be like your school charging you tuition for the credit you got at a different school during the summer. Or charging you tuition for the AP credits you bring from high school.</p>
<p>It was many years ago, but my S. was in Co-op program. In this program, they had only first summer off. Afte that, they were in school for one quarter and at work (paid positions) another quarter. Not only we did not pay tuition for hsi “working” quarters, but we also did not support him financially at all during this periods. he was on his own for “working” 3 months.
I have no idea why they would chanrge tuition is the kids is not at school. Does not make sense.
Co-op programs are great, although they require 5 years instead of 4. They allow for break in tuition payments and they all have jobs after graduation at one of the places.</p>
<p>Most schools count internships as a for-credit class. That means it is usually assigned to a faculty member as part of their workload. How much work this actually involves for the faculty member can vary greatly.</p>
<p>The internships I am familiar with have faculty involved as the coordinator. They make periodic phone calls to the intern and supervisor. They grade reports that are required. They often make one or more visits to the intern on site. They can help the intern if the company isn’t holding up their end of the agreement. Likewise, they can help iron out any potential problems that the company may be having with the intern. They can also drum up support at the company for hiring future interns. </p>
<p>While you may not like the above, that is the reasoning behind charging tuition. The tuition covers the cost of paying the faculty member as well as their expenses (mileage, airline tickets, hotels, meals, etc.).</p>
<p>I guess I could understand paying for 3 credits or so, but not full semester tuition. I would be really upset about that. I co-oped many years ago and did not pay anything, and my co-op jobs were set up through the school. My kids have never had supervisors visit them at internships.</p>
<p>Sundaypunch…what Mamabear said…</p>
<p>I’m not saying that we should be paying nothing at all if there is some faculty involvement in this venture. I’m saying that it should not be full tuition.</p>
<p>We are either being seriously undercharged for other semesters when my D is sitting in 5 classes with 5 salaried professors, using labs, TAs, library facilities, etc or we are being seriously overcharged for an internship semester. I’m going with the latter.</p>