If a school has a lot of financial diversity, that will include students who may have to work co-ops, or have to take a semester off to build up funds again, or want to take off to do an internship or play music or try acting. My daughter’s doing an internship and having a ball (no college credit) this semester. That will put her at least a semester behind and if she gets the job she’s trying out for on Thursday, maybe another semester. How does her taking 5 or 6 years to graduate make a difference to students she started with who will finish in 4? She’s not interfering with their graduating in 4 year, with their getting into classes. The school has the same number of students on campus most semesters so offers the same classes whether it is to a 20 year old sophomore or a 22 year old junior. So what if it takes her 5 years? She got permission to extend her 4 year scholarship by the extra semester so at least that time will be covered.
People on CC have also praised those who take a gap year. How is it different to take a year off in the middle of college? the student will still be 22 or 23 when he graduates in 5-6 years.
"For example, the University of Alabama is commonly recommended on these forums for its automatic full tuition scholarships. "
In the 12 years I have been on CC, I have seen only ONE CC poster continually recommend UA for its automatic full tuition scholarships. It is a good deal financially IF a student can graduate in 4 years. But how many actually can?
There. I have said it.
“She got permission to extend her 4 year scholarship by the extra semester so at
least that time will be covered.”
terrific!
"How is it different to take a year off in the middle of college? "
parents dont have to pay tuition during a GAP year.
That’s the difference, especially if tuition amounts to $60,000/ year.
That’s QUITE different from taking 5-6 years @ $60,000/year to graduate, when the expectation was probably 4 years and done- doncha think?
The student who earns the full tuition scholarship is a much stronger student than most students at UA. So such a student is much more likely to graduate on time than most students at UA.
Even if the student takes longer, four years on full tuition scholarship plus one year at out-of-state list price at UA (total about $100,000) still costs less than four years at list price at some places like USC (the private one, total about $268,000).
The mistaken assumption is that a given student will have a chance of graduating like the typical student at the school. The mistake can be seen be considering two possible UA students. One had 3.9 HS GPA and 1500 SAT CR+M, while the other had 2.6 HS GPA and 1000 SAT CR+M. Do you think that both have equal 39% chances of graduating in four years and 66% chances of graduating in six years?
@clarinetdad16 There are a lot of reasons students don’t graduate in 4 yrs, co-oping included. Students change majors, etc.
FWIW, the suggestion that UA’s Presidential scholarship recipients are going to have to pay for semesters beyond the 8 semesters is factually true, but it is equally unlikely. UA is extremely generous with AP credits. Most Presdential scholarship recipients enter with credit. They are also typically strong students who have no issues carrying a full load. It is doubtful they are impacting the graduation rate negatively (except for co-op students which is a good, not a negative.)
@jpm50 , I won’t “veto” if the child is paying for his choices himself. Ultimately my child will make her own decision, but she is open to hearing different points of view from “wiser” elders and we both recognize she is free to ignore pave/pay her own way. There are so few deal-breakers, that excepting those, there are still many, many schools to choose from.
In regard the religion being a deal-breaker up thread: Some of the extreme religious schools have or had policies that undermine what I teach my kids about diversity (e.g. interracial dating is one). The demographics at some of those schools do not reflect America at large or my mix-race family. And my mix-race child would not be comfortable being the “different” one, especially at a school with a small population dominated by a few social circles. She may feel marginalized or thwarted in social interactions because of it. It’s only an anecdote so recognize your mileage may vary – I know a Bob Jones graduate who is now a minister, and it is his one regret about his experience at that school (being a different race). Again, it doesn’t mean everyone will share this negative experience. For my family, it makes no sense to pay or the privilege of going to a school where she’ll be marginalized.
I imagine the consideration would be the similar for families of LGBT kids.
When you say religion is a dealbreaker, do you mean schools that are overtly (aggressively?) religious like, say, Liberty or some of the Catholic schools that are very religious, or do you mean any religion? Even, say, schools with historical ties that aren’t at all overtly religious anymore and are now very liberal. We’re Protestant and several of my son’s choices are historically Protestant (Lutheran, Church of the Brethren, etc.) but which are liberal enough to have LGBT housing, other diversity, and no religious requirements. Not being argumentative, just curious where you would draw the line.
No to Oral Roberts, Bob Jones, John Brown, David Lipscomb (so weird many are named after founders’ both first-last names and typically run by a fourth/fifth generation like a family business). Ditto for Liberty. Basically any school that makes their faculty or their students sign a statement of faith that aligns with their founders’ sectarian beliefs.
Yes to Vanderbilt and Notre Dame. They have religious roots, but they are large and diverse in every way so I don’t have an issue with schools like those.
^ Filter, yes. I also like to see a relatively even distribution of M/F faculty and a majority tenured or tenure track. Faculty that are well trained and well treated are likely to be better professors.
@labegg: That composition is commonly very similar among colleges that would otherwise be grouped together (and often approaches 100% at the highest level) so meaningful distinctions can prove difficult. An alternative metric could be the number of classes actually taught by faculty, a figure which varies much more widely.
Labegg- among Tier 1 Research Universities, we found that the only non-PhD faculty were in the performing arts (where an MFA is often considered the terminal degree) or the Business School (where there were a fair number of MBA’s and Master’s in Finance instructors). I can’t recall a single U we looked at which employed a non-PhD.
For adjunct faculty there were a couple of outliers- but again- it made sense. One of my kids took a class on the Constitution taught by a legal scholar who just had a JD (but who is world-renowned- and is a consultant to several countries who are crafting their own constitutions or developing a legal system which parallels the US). One of my kids took a writing class taught by the Managing Editor of a prominent publication.
But otherwise- all PhD, regular faculty. TA’s graded exams and led review sessions and taught lab techniques. Faculty taught classes and lectures. Adjuncts were in “special situations” like the above and were “Famous People in their Fields”, i.e. NOT the “temps” you often read about who are abused and underpaid.
“For all those who are flexing their “veto power” on their child’s college choices, how does this have a good
ending?”
The two things I mentioned (low grad rate & lots of students needing more then 4 years) were just red flags to me. I wouldn’t outright veto the school if it was where my kid really wanted to go - but I would have had to pay much closer attention then I needed to (or wanted to) then at the school he did choose. I only had one request and that was he not even apply to my alma mater (U of C@Boulder) which even when I went in the mid 70’s no one finished in 4 years. I had a great time but I should never have gone there. I should have gone to the small LAC were I was accepted.
Fortunately, my S wasn’t interested in CU or any schools with the my two red flags. I knew his choice had very high 4 yr. grad rate and very high rate of retention - plus great advising ( very very important, IMO) that I never felt the need to pay attention to what he was taking, when he was taking it nor did I need to know any of his grades.
I looked at percentage of classes taught by adjuncts. Even though I AM an adjunct (or perhaps BECAUSE I am) I wanted to see schools with enough commitment to their mission to spend the money to have a decent percentage of full-time faculty.