It also depends very much on how mean their parents are. My kids had 8 semesters paid for, because that’s what their scholarships were for. One daughter did take a summer school class, and she paid for it, to finish within the 8 semesters.
In keeping with this topic of what to spell out for the kids, this was a point my kids heard from the very beginning. My daughter who went to a private school had several types of merit aid, athletic aid, state grants and scholarships and they all only lasted for 4 years/8semesters (and it was spelled out consecutive semesters). She would have needed almost $30k to go an extra semester with NO scholarship/grant/fa money. It could not happen. I think she dropped 2 classes her entire time in school and she had to make them up in another semester. She needed 131 credits to graduate so she didn’t have a lot of room to play around. It can be done.
She had 2 teammates who did have to go an extra semester but their parents weren’t mean enough and allowed them to play around and paid OOP for the extra semesters. I just didn’t have that kind of money. Neither was in engineering so they probably only needed 120 credits.
If their parents were unable or unwilling to pay for their extra semesters, they would have fallen into the “did not graduate” (ran out of money) part of the graduation rate statistics, rather than the “graduated in 5 years” part of the graduate rate statistics.
Be careful when picking a major if this will be a big issue. It is impossible to graduate in 8 semesters with S23s major at his school. They are a bit cagey about this, but you will definitely need 1 class that is only offered over the summer
If it is a research project over the summer there are usually ways to include that in the FA package (Florida even changed how Bright Futures could be used because summer classes are required by state law for public universities). But normally? It can be done. My daughter needed 131 credits to graduate in civil engineering. She entered with no AP or DE credits. She had to start Calc and chem and all other classes at level one (calc 1, chem 1), and she did it by taking 15 -17 credits in the fall semesters, less in the spring because she played her sport. Because she had a good athletic scholarship, she didn’t work during the school year except for her senior year when she really liked it and wished she’d done it sooner.
She was very very organized.
Another option is to take 12 credits in the summer (including the class that is only offered in the summer) and then take 18 the next fall to make up those extra 3, so you get two semesters in during the summer plus fall (30 credits).
I’m just saying if it has to be done, it can be done. College is designed to be completed in 8 semesters or 12 quarters. That’s what I ‘told my kids about college costs’ as the thread asks.
There is a required Wildlife Biology class that is only offered over the summer. It is a field class that is held at a remote (mountain) campus. Not only do they charge you for the credits, but they also charge you room and board. (Many kids are also paying rent on their apartments for that month).
With the changes in FAFSA with siblings in college at the same time and the uncertainty over how colleges will treat that change with need based aid, our conversations might be different now than they were 5 to 6 years ago as our kids started to look at options.
We tried to be transparent with planning for something reasonable for us financially by running the net price calculators. Those all came in very close to the final offers. We are pretty straight forward with two salaries and no other income to account for, so the NPCs were helpful.
I do not think all kids can tune into merit hunting on the same level. One had getting a full offer as a goal, the other was not really aware that was a thing that really could happen and trying to force that would have been painful for all.
We were honest about trying for merit and not being able to pay full price at some options if merit and need based did not come close the the NPC predictions. We were honest about saving for retirement, so they do not need to take care of us down the road. We did the student loan payment calculators so we could all see what would need to be paid. We paid interest during college where applicable and shared that with them. We lucked out that one did not have interest accumulating during Covid with the timing.
I think colleges make the billing and financial decisions harder than they need to. Just send me the invoices and links to what steps are needed so I do not need to log into portals, etc…sometimes I would get info forwarded by the one child, but not always.
For me, the unknowns costs of off campus housing in later college years add a layer of stress that I could do without. I had the help the first child’s apartment mates make a spreadsheet to sort out what needed to be paid by each for changing monthly charges.
Oh man I’d be SO ticked off about this. Is it going to be a hardship for your son/family? We’re on a tight budget, our son is on a strict 8-semester scholarship, and we need his summer wages, so that would be a definite hardship for us.
I found out that Wisconsin does the same thing to ChemE’s, and a bunch of students even hate the class itself. 40 hours/week in class for 5 weeks, in-person, the summer immediately before or after their final year. First session ends June 21, or you can start 2nd session July 8, so kiss that last summer internship goodbye (a.k.a. the most important internship). Terrible!!
Wow, that’s bad. My summer jobs at an engineering company were so important! I started out as a receptionist when I was a freshman, then worked as a draftsman, and finally as a junior engineer. It gave me a great feel for the profession. (It ended up not helping me get a job because oil prices collapsed the month I finished my MS and there were literally no jobs in Texas.)
Luckily it isn’t a hardship for us, but I thought they needed to be a little more forthright about it as it is a large chunk of money and is a hardship for many.
I agree! Luckily my ChemE kid didn’t apply there, but that would have been a dealbreaker for him for sure. He’s already doing an internship after his first year, and plans to do them each summer. I wonder how clear they are with applicants about the requirement. In poking around the webpage for the major, it’s sure not obvious, and would be very easy to overlook (it’s just listed in the summer on the “sample” 4-year plan). I can imagine that some students who find out about the requirement after they matriculate are SO mad, and rightfully so.
Wisconsin also has progression requirements for engineering majors that involve college GPA that may be significantly higher than 2.0, depending on the major. Basically, students who thought that they would avoid a secondary admission process by going there will find something largely equivalent.
We told our kids what we could and could not afford. We didn’t apply to any schools that we couldn’t afford or that scholarships or merit couldn’t make affordable. We also encouraged our kids to stay away from student loans. And we weren’t going to have our kids go into debt to go to a school with fancy dorms or a big sports team if they could get the same for cheaper.
We also really tried to keep our kids away from the whole “dream school” philosophy. There are lots of great schools out there and no college or university is going to be perfect. I know plenty of kids who went to their “dream school” and ended up transfering because their dream school ended up not being what they thought it was. I also know some kids who didn’t get into their “dream school” and ended up going elsewhere and had a great time and totally forgot about their previous “dream school.”