@BlueAFMom, I’m glad you enjoyed your trip to CO! My oldest D is at CU-Boulder with a dual degree in integrative physiology and dance. She really likes both programs there. I’ve heard great things about neuroscience too.
Excellent news @BlueAFMom !
Hey! A tiny bit more on NEU:
Summer sessions are exactly half a semester - you take half the credits, you pay half the price (everything from tuition to housing), and financial aid and merit applies as if it were a half semester. You get both of those by semester, not years, so even if you change the time you decide to be at NEU, the price and class time will be the same. The tuition price on NEU is exactly as much as any other school if you stayed for 4 years in the end.
There are 2 summer sessions: Summer 1 (May-June) and Summer 2 (July-August) If you do your co-op Jan-June, then you would take Summer 2 if needed. For July-December, you would take Summer 1 if needed.
If you do 3 co-op’s, you’re likely to be here for 5 years. A lot of students come in thinking they will push to be out in 4 and end up staying for five, usually by adding another co-op. But especially with AP credit, almost every degree can be done in 4 years / 2 co-ops.
Hope that helps! NEU has a lot of unique setups compared to other colleges due to co-op, but in general, it’s really just moving things around - price and class time are constants when all the dust settles.
@BlueAFMom Sorry about the temperature! It was not the usual weather.
Since kids grew up around Boulder, it is really hard to find a campus as beautiful as CU-Boulder in architecture or surrounding nature.
We haven’t found any college that beat CU-B in that respect yet.
Certainly it is a great place to spend 4 years.
What we lack… is beach 
(although mountains and almost year-round skiing is nice) and another metropolis in driving distance. Outside of Denver, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs, you have to fly to get to a city. 
Interesting tidbit in our Naviance today
*Dear members of the Class of 2017,
Log-in changes may be coming to Naviance for College Applications. Please continue to log-in with your existing ID, and watch for late summer email about new process to access your Naviance account.
REMINDER: We are a Naviance school. If you start your Common Application in August, do NOT enter a teacher’s name in your Common App recommenders list. It will block up your account. *
UGH
Taxes
so if I understand correctly…(H and his ex handle the expenses for the older 2 so I’ve not done it directly)
Scholarships and grants ideally go to tuition, books and fees first.
529’s and other college savings should go to room and board first
529’s and other colleges savings are not taxable for room and board but scholarship and grant money used towards those expenses are, and are reported as parent income and taxed at the parents rate.
Does the college report that “income” to the IRS or is it all self reporting?
@BlueAFMom that is wonderful that Boulder was a hit. My S felt the same, he expected it to be too big and too rah rah and liked it a lot more than expected. If it were affordable it may have stayed on the list.
For the most part, yes, it is reported.
I know that some people I knew in grad school gave broad, vague hints that they didn’t have to report their fellowship* income (they were supposed to, though!) because the school didn’t report it to the IRS, but I **think/b that that reporting gap has been plugged.
- As opposed to assistantship, which was reported as wages.
Thanks @PengsPhils – appreciate that additional info re NEU & co-ops, summer mini sessions too. They also have a program called something like XCollege where they bring in practitioners and professionals to teach some courses – more unusual electives.
@eandesmom Students receive a 1098 for scholarships. Whether that goes to the IRS, I have no idea.
@greeny8 I am glad things ended up turning out so well for your D16 but wow, that is incredibly rough all around. Eerily close to the exact theoretical example I gave my S17 (that he did not believe could happen) but it’s far more heartbreaking to see it as a real example versus the theoretical one.
Congrats to everyone whose DC finished HS this week & for the great grades that many earned!
Thanks for the various ** college visit reports**…these are very helpful!
DS & DH recently came back from CA trip. I can’t share the level of details that others have since I didn’t go, but can say that DS loved the UCSC campus (no big surprise, given the beautiful redwoods forest setting) and was impressed by the amount of undergrad research (they said about 60% are involved in research, which was more than he expected). He also liked Berkeley more than expected (was told by some class of 16 friends who visited there that it was “too urban,” but he didn’t feel that way…and he generally does not like campuses that feel urban). Since I wasn’t there I can’t elaborate on why he reacted this way.
The highlight of the trip by far was **Harvey Mudd/b. The campus is reportedly not that exciting (H described it as functional, which is what I had heard), but proximity to other Claremont campuses provides a variety of campus atmospheres. Math and CS curricula at Mudd usually include a lot of crossover courses with Pomona. This and general access to classes at other campuses is a plus in DH and DS’s opinion. The school is extremely small (just over 200 students per year), and S likes the small classes and access to faculty that this affords. All undergrads have access to research and engineering resources (machine shops that you can enter with student ID). Also, S likes the STEM focus combined with emphasis on broad liberal arts education. Only STEM majors available, but broad liberal arts core also required. (I worry a little about being limited to STEM majors in case he changes his mind, and Ivworry about the cost, but otherwise sounds like a great fit for DS if he is lucky enough to be admitted).
I’m a fan of the ** racecation ** but haven’t done very many. Will likely be sticking to local races for the next several years to save $ to pay for 2 in college!
@PengsPhils Thank you for more info about NEU.
So while your DC is doing the Co-op, you pay for room and board and other fees but don’t have to pay for tuition?
We are tight financially, so I’m worried that if your DC stays over 4 years, the school will not give you FA after 4 years…
@HiToWaMom I can’t answer the question in terms of NEU, but here is what happens in general. Typically students pay a 1 course hr credit called co-op and that is it for that semester. That is actually vital, though, bc for kids with student loans it actually classifies them as full time students so that their loans don’t register them not a full time student.
Housing, pay, benefits…all of those are connected to the corporation, not the university. For example, where my Ds cooped, the corporation had furnished apts for co-op students. The students paid a set amt for rent and had roommates (similar to college life. ) My ds’s roommate attended NCSU though my Ds went to a different university.
Some corporations just have their HR dept help with finding housing. Some don’t help at all.
I will say that I would not hesitate to take advantage of cooping. It means that they graduate with relevant job experience. Coops are not coffee-serving internships. Students are assigned projects that are relevant to the company that they are expected to complete. (When my Ds graduated in the middle of the recession, he had multiple job offers. Kids who didn’t co-op struggled to find jobs.)
We have never taken out student loans, but my understanding is that loans are more connected to earned credit hrs than # of yrs.
D is back from camp. She had a wonderful time and was sad to leave. UT is now back on the list and she is sure accounting and finance is what she wants to do and is now trying to figure out how to get in international business as well to go with the languages.
I’m actually a student, but here’s how co-op works for NEU:
Correct. You’re still a part of the school and have access to all the resources that come with that, but there’s no tuition or credit given other than satisfying the experiential learning graduation requirement. You will still be considered a full-time student for loans purposes, though I’m not sure 100% on the details there of how that works.
As far as housing goes, it varies, but you can stay on campus or off campus if you’re on co-op in Boston, and if you go elsewhere, NEU will help you find housing if your company doesn’t offer it. In big cities (NYC is the one I know), they even offer specific NEU housing for co-ops.
Northeastern doesn’t give FA (or merit) by years, but by semesters of classes. You get 8 academic semesters, with summer sessions counting as .5. Your FA will be the same all the way through, whether it be 4 years or 5, as long as you don’t need more than 4 years worth of classes. While on co-op, you don’t use a semester of either FA/merit. Your co-op salary will cover housing for almost all co-ops, and many will cover more than that. To be safe, assume that co-op pay and room/board wash out and there’s no net cost for a co-op semester.
If your kid is working in Business/CS, you can easily net $10K or more on co-op after living expenses.
Also, NEU has a really good program with financial aid guarantees - not only will it never decrease from year to year, but it will be increased by the same rate as any COA increase. While what is considered “demonstrated need” varies, whatever they offer is there to stay!
http://www.northeastern.edu/financialaid/aid/thenortheasternpromise/
Co-op is very worth it - as mom2physicsgeek said, the experience is invaluable and is much more in-depth than an internship.
Hope all that helps 
@itsgettingreal17 …ok, your D falling back on the list is both a good thing and a bad thing, right? She is in the running for NMF so in that aspect = not good! Do you think she would be competitive for the 40 Acres Scholars?
@carachel2 Only mythical kids win the Forty Acres scholarship. lol 7/15,000 awarded. I’m ok with UT going back on the list as a super safety but I think she’ll have much better financial options.
@PengsPhils – great to get your “real world” student experience & report!! I wonder what your major is? Co-op program does seem very well established and very helpful. And NEU seems to offer a bit of a prep course - get ready for co-op - that could be pretty useful too I would think.
@HiToWaMom - DS13 is in the co-op program at Georgia tech. The way it works is that he doesn’t pay tuition or any fees. However he does register for 12 Audit hours. That way he stays a full time student. I assume that other college may handle it the same way.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek , @PengsPhils , @MichiganGeorgia
Thank you so much for the FA clarification. It sounds bit complicated but I’m getting it now. Really interesting system. I think it fits my D’s personality.
Yeah, the co-op prep class really is just stuff that most people have to learn through experience - how to write a good resume, effective cover letters, and mock interviews. By the time you’re applying at companies, you’re very well prepared, and by graduation, you’ve got both the work experience and the hiring process experience.
I’m a CS major - co-op treats us very well lol.
I’m a very big fan philosophically of co-op for many reasons (I’ll spare them for the sake of post length), and if you want co-op, Northeastern is the place to go. To be able to have confidence in what you want to do for the rest of your life, both academically and professionally, really just made sense to me. I was always frustrated with the impracticality of high school - I loved learning but felt really constrained. Of course, co-op isn’t well suited for everyone, but I couldn’t recommend Northeastern higher, so long as it’s affordable of course.
No problem! The main point really is that the cost isn’t really any different in the end from any other school. If your D does end up at NEU, you pick up all the intricacies very quickly - they make sure to keep you on track from the start. Everyone has both an academic advisor and a co-op advisor to help with all the ins and outs.
Good luck to your D in the college process, wherever she ends up