What are your Minimum Requirements for Campus Resources?

Parents Forum
1

I am asking this because one of my daughter’s top choices (if she receives the aid that we need to swing it) has minimal resources outside of the classroom.

On the Plus side: Excellent education and internships; dorm room for freshman year; mental health resources; shuttle between different parts of the campus, committed teachers, small class sizes.

Negatives: no meal plan; no rooms after freshman year (you need to find an apartment, and it is very expensive); she will most likely then need a car; and my biggest sticking point that I cannot get my mind around, No Health Services. None. She would be on the other coast with no medical services on campus. Our son has had his fair share of campus clinic and ER visits while in college. He has back issues, had a concussion, chronic pain issues. I’m a bit worried about a lack of campus health services for my daughter.

Any thoughts on this? What are your minimum requirements for campus resources? I am referring to Laguna College of Art and Design, an amazing school to learn in. But what about the campus resources? Should I just stop worrying?

Thanks for all of your wonderful thoughts!

2

Where is the nearest Minit Clinic/walk in health care facility? How many minutes to an ER or trauma unit?

My kids were all at colleges with staffed health care facilities, but they used them for stuff for which they needed an appointment- sore throat, etc. They were always able to get appointments that day, but anything really critical, they’d have called 911 (urban areas, so minutes away from big, well staffed hospitals).

re: transportation-why would she need a car if there is a shuttle already operating?

3

I grew up 10 minutes from LCAD and in high school worked with a then current LCAD student. I wouldn’t go there if you’re not a local. Just not worth it IMO. Not only are most of the students from nearby, but the area around Laguna Beach isn’t the best for a college student. A car is almost completely necessary, and the surrounding area is primarily made up of young families and retirees.

There are plenty of nearby medical facilities around the area, so she should be fine for all but the most serious ailments (and even then, LCAD is right off of the 141 freeway which leads to some of the best hospitals in Southern CA).

4

She lives in your home and doesn’t have a health care clinic on site, right? People live without instant care all the time. There are CVS/Rite Aids on every corner and many have the clinics in them.

Going to a school with fewer services requires some maturity for the student. Other students do it, get apartments, learn to cook. It is a very expensive area so see what kinds of arrangement other students have made before committing.

5

Honestly, this is something that varies from person to person and place to place. For me, I would have to know a lot about the area to feel comfortable. If the school is in an isolated area where the nearest hospital or clinic is a 30 minute drive away, that would make me uncomfortable (especially if the student doesn’t have a car). If it’s not anything that severe, then that’s not as big of a problem for me.

In terms of housing – again, if housing is plentiful and affordable outside of campus then I would be OK. If it’s one of those schools were most of the students live at home with their families and commute to it, and getting off-campus housing is extremely hard, then that would be a barrier for me.

The meal thing is personal; some people are OK with cooking all of their meals and some people aren’t. That’s really more something that your daughter has to think about. Additionally, if she needs a car and doesn’t have one, that might be another problem too; it may be that she can always hitch a ride with someone else to get to campus where the shuttles are, but I personally wouldn’t be happy in that kind of environment if I ended up living beyond walking distance from the school and didn’t have a way to get to campus reliably.

6

How mature is your daughter? Some students are born “old” and can handle adult interactions, don’t mind having to figure things out on their own, and are okay if they have to grocery shop and cook for themselves. Other students might starve to death, or exist on poptarts and Diet Coke for a semester.

Just don’t kid yourself about what kind of child you are about to send off to college. If your gut is sending up Red Flags, and you know your child doesn’t have the personality, determination, and confidence to pull off this unique college situation, be brave and pull the plug on this school now.

7

The limited services (and the comment at #2, taken together) might suggest that the school is heavily made up of commuters or suitcase students – a student body that is not largely far from home, who continue to rely upon their home community to meet various needs. I think it’s important to figure this out, before signing up, especially for someone like OP’s daughter who would be a long way from home and unable to take a home-community-based approach to meeting her needs while there. It’s a sign that maybe there’s not a vibrant, committed, “I left home and this is where I live now” attitude among the undergraduate student body

I think when a school is heavily commuter and suitcase, yes, maybe you can replace the health center by paying an internist down the street from the campus. But the level of engagement among the peers is not so easily replaced. You can’t buy a vibrant 24/7 committed learning and social community. The further you are going from home, and the more you are severing practical ties, like OP’s daughter, the more important it is to have a critical mass of new classmates who are doing the same thing.

I think a school’s “commuter” statistics can be misleading. A traditional-age undergrad who has left their parents in the childhood home several hours away, who chooses to live off-campus in a rented apartment when school is in session, is usually socially very different from somebody who is maybe not of traditional age, and who is commuting to college from their permanent home and community, which happen to be near to the school. Both types of students may show up in the statistics as “commuters”, as they live in non-affiliated housing. But the former will typically immerse themselves in undergrad life, just as they would if living in a dorm, while the latter is often not socially available to do that. The latter may treat college more as a job, and continue to be principally occupied in their off hours with their pre-existing family and community ties.

8

@fieldsports, you bring up a crucial point for OP to consider. Student will be looking for her people, her “tribe”, to feel connected. And with so little percentage of students living on campus, it will be harder to find. I always search for that statistic when looking at colleges, to see what percentage of students live on campus. It is not the only thing to consider, but if you are sending your child across the country, it is important to have confidence she will be able to connect with like-minded students.

9

One thing that frankly appealed to me about LCAD was no meal plan! They are such a ripoff, especially for girls who do not eat much. I don’t think it’s that unusual for an arts-focused school to only guarantee housing to freshmen either. Berklee College of Music is the same deal. That’s one thing that enables LCAD to keep its tuition well below some of the other prestige art schools – it doesn’t have to buy, build, staff, and maintain a lot of dorms or a dining hall. It can focus on instruction in art. That’s a good thing! We visited Sheridan in Toronto, and it allows even freshmen to live off campus, with no meal plan but a very nice food court where you can get anything you want a la carte. OCAD in Toronto has no college-owned housing at all, but there are apartments in the neighborhood that cater to students. I have no idea what the rental market is like in Laguna Beach, but I would guess it is rather expensive, so you should definitely count that in your overall cost comparisons with other schools.

My S moved out of the dorm at his college his second year and into a university-owned apartment. While there was an “RA” of sorts in the complex, he was pretty much on his own, got all his own meals, and he is young for his class. He did just fine, and moved from there to a student-ghetto house that is not in a fabulous neighborhood but is affordable for him with a part-time job. The one time he had a medical problem, he was injured at a concert and ended up in the ER. He has never used campus health resources at all. But we are paying for them, and for the big new dining hall he will never use, etc. etc.

10

It is interesting that some of the complaints about the high cost of college center around colleges providing accessory services beyond core educational services, at increased cost. Yet no-frills colleges (which often have a primarily commuter student population) are typically considered less desirable…

In any case, being a resident student at a primarily commuter school means likely not getting the “residential college experience”. Whether this matters for the student is something that the student has to decide.

11

But this is a tiny school. It is not going to feel like a big college anyway with dorms and weekend events (other than art events) and football games. It’s smaller than most high schools. It’s not going to have a big health center (although there is a big and beautiful Mission Hospital with room views overlooking the ocean just down in Laguna), it’s not going to have a gym with a climbing wall, rock concerts, sororities. It’s not going to have engineers or French majors or 20 librarians either. Laguna Beach is a fun town, lots of artsy nooks and galleries, coffee shops, art events in the summer. Really fun. Not college-y at all.

12

My major concern regarding this particular school would be housing. Laguna Beach while gorgeous doesn’t really have much affordable housing. She’d likely need to commute from some distance.

13

The nearest cities to LCAD are Laguna Beach and Aliso Viejo. Aliso Viejo was very explicitly designed to have mostly family style homes and condos. In fact, I can only think of around 3 apartment complexes in the area, and even then they’re not only rather far from LCAD but very overpriced (a room in an Aliso Viejo house goes for around $750-800/ month). Laguna Beach’s real estate is even more insane.

The other nearby city, Irvine, is much more of a mixed use community in that it was designed to both accommodate the needs of a major research university, a growing tech center, and families looking for high quality education. Real estate prices are still high, but the area around UCI would provide a much younger crowd of students. She would need to commute around 9 miles every day, but that’s far less than what most professionals have to do.

It’s also worth noting that the public transit system in South Orange County is anemic. A year ago, my friends and I tried to take the bus from downtown Laguna Beach to my very close city and found the only way to do it would be to go on one stop at 2pm and then wait until 6pm to finish the route. We opted for a cab instead. So if you’re concerned about price, you should also factor in the cost of a car, unless you expect that she’ll develop thunder thighs by biking 8 hilly miles to and from school every day.

@ucbalumnus‌ I don’t complain about a small school not offering an on site health center, especially if it’s in a heavily populated area like South OC. However, IMO there are certain things a school should offer to make it “worth” going across the country for, and one of these is housing, especially if the nearest houses are at least a mile away and worth over $2 million (well out of the range of most college students).

14

Thank you all so much for your replies. I have a lot to think about.

Regarding my daughter’s maturity: compared to her high school peers, she is fairly independent. We live in a suburban town, and she is great at taking public transportation into our local city by herself. She is not a big fan of cooking, but does cook, and has created some fabulous meals as a “surprise” - I know that she could cook for herself.

Work ethic: she has high focus and perseveres - I don’t have a concern.

Main Concerns: I think she will be fine without a “traditional” college experience. She doesn’t really have patience for those who don’t take it “seriously” just based on her comments about students she has seen in programs who would rather party than work. She wants to learn, and would be fine in a small school that focuses on teaching her art and design. Actually, I think she would be in her bliss. Small is ok as well.

She would need a car after her first year - the shuttle would be fine from dorm to classes, and the dorm is close to downtown Laguna Beach, so she could shop there. I’m not sure if we could afford that car, however.

Also, my concerns about the lack of a health center are based on my son’s experiences, as well as mine. When I was in college, I contracted a nasty virus that gave me a high fever and landed me in my college health center for a week. My son has used his for a variety of reasons (concussion, back issues, etc.) but my daughter does tend to be less accident prone. I am sure that she would make friends, get help driving in the first year to where she would need to go, and I guess I need to look into the local health support/clinics. I wish that LCAD had that information on its site.

Oh, and as an fyi, the undergraduate size of the population is a little more than 500. Divide by 4, and each class is about 125. The freshman dorm is reserved for students living beyond 100 miles of the campus. It can accommodate 56. So, a little less than half of the freshman population lives beyond 100 miles of the campus. While replies above show concerns about having a campus identity, my feeling based on comments I have read online is that the student body is rather close - students are very happy about their experiences there. I’m just being a worried mom. There are just so many “unknowns” - how much will housing be, how much will a car cost, etc.

Thank you all for your information about the surrounding communities, as well as about the anemic public transportation.! I would love her to go to LCAD for the amazing education. I know that she would fit in well. If we receive an aid packet which will allow us to think about a basic used car for her in the future, I know that it will be an excellent fit. Thanks!

15

I would encourage you to call LCAD and talk to someone in admissions and/or student services (although if it’s like the small school where I work, that person is one and the same). Small schools WANT you to call and talk to them!

16

@MazeArtMom, you might want to do a search at the Visual Arts and Film forum here. There was a parent there several months back that has a student at LCAD, who transferred there from LMU and is very happy. It was on one of the animation threads which is where I first found out about LCAD.

@ucbalumnus We are talking about small, specialty art schools here. There are a fair number of them with very strong reputations, but they are very focused on the art education and not trying to be full service universities. They are not really “commuter schools,” most accept students from all over the world. They are comparable to music conservatories like Julliard and Berklee. (Although Berklee finally broke down and built a new dorm, I think they were losing some great students due to lack of housing and the astronomical rents in Boston.)

17

The difference between the visual arts schools and the conservatories like Julliard and Berklee- the performance colleges need to be in high rent districts… that’s where the opportunities are for professional development and exposure. The arts programs are in both expensive areas and less expensive ones- so there’s an actual choice to be made vis-a-vis the finances.