Private vs state college.

My daughter has been accepted to U of Tampa, a private college.  She will be a transfer student from a community college. However, she is also entertaining going to U of South FL (St. Pete campus). 

Financially it's the same because with UT she is getting grants/scholarships for most of the tuition.  At USF, she will be covered 75% by Bright Futures.  We will have to take out loans for housing for either.

We are having extreme anxiety over this.  Both campuses are very nice, but her personality is more condusive to the St. Pete (state college) atmosphere.  It's on the bay and looks to be much more laid back than UT which is in the middle of downtown Tampa.  

There are so many factors and if I enumerated them here, well, ya'll would get very bored.  But her major concern is learning and her second concern is being happy in her environment.  We are not big city folk, but I have no doubt wherever she goes, she will succeed.  I just want her to have the best experience possible.  In my heart I think USF is best, but she thinks resume-wise, a private college would look better.  Also, she is having a problem with turning down the grants/scholarships ($15,000) from UT and opting  for a state school. 

Let me also briefly say that her program of study is very strong at both schools and she has links with a professor at one of the schools who is advising her, but nonbiased (so he's helpful, but not enough to say GO HERE! lol)

I'm just wondering if private is all it's cracked up to be?  I don't know... She's going to have to make this decision on her own, but if any of ya'll have any input regarding either school or the area or college experience with state vs private, I would really appreciate a word or two!

One more thing... she's a huge baseball fan... Rays fan... St. Pete campus is 2 miles from the stadium...  Not that that's a big consideration, but a comfort zone is a good thing?

And... I would move there with her IN A HEARTBEAT (either place), but my son is about to enter an AS program (radiology) at the community college here and that track cannot be interrupted... just wanted to give all pertinent info for best input by ya'll.

• Private vs state college. - FL resident
  • Been there...... - nm
  • Thank you all for your input. Most helpful! :-) NM - FL resident
  • Just some pros and cons of private college - Chele
  • Something to consider... - mtroadie
  • My daughter is currently attending a private - see message

The messages you are viewing are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select the boards given in left menu

Pros

Academic excellence. At the private university learning is the emphasis more than the curriculum itself. The curriculum is rigorous and the course-work is unending, but learning is the central focus at such schools. If you plan on working during school, it is very difficult to balance a full-time schedule at a private university with a work schedule. The time commitment required to succeed in a given class is high, and this will ultimately interfere with your ability to work.

Close-knit community. The student community is an integral part of most private colleges. This can be difficult for more independent students who prefer a less hands on approach. The students communicate closely with professors both in and out of class and the students themselves attempt to involve everyone in campus activities. Involvement in the student community is one of the keys to enjoying your college experience at a private college.

Involved students. The classroom dynamic is much different at a private university than at a public school. Most students are entirely committed to their academic success. They participate actively in classroom discussions, complete coursework, and are fully engaged in the classroom culture.

Top-notch professors. Like the professors at state universities, the instructors at private universities have track records that attest to their personal academic achievements. While most are reputable, professors at private colleges tend to be more loyal to the college they work for and more interested in the achievements of their students.

Merit scholarships. The listed tuition is the highest at private colleges; however, what students actually pay for tuition is usually lower. When a student is interested in a private university and the school is interested in the student, both parties begin negotiating tuition by way of grants, merit scholarships, and other financial incentives. Thus, students with a good G.P.A. and knock out test scores should consider applying to any private institutions that they are interested in.

Class size. Even at larger private colleges the class size is contained. There are still lecture halls, but typically, fewer teaching assistants and more professors. At small private colleges classes can be as small as 10 or 12 students.

Cons

Homogeneous population. If you are looking for a more diverse student body that recruits kids from all walks of life, you aren’t likely to find it at a private college. If you are interested in a particular university, check it out first. It’s definitely a good idea to get a feel for what type of students they attract and their current student body is a good indicator.

Demanding schedule. The heavy workload makes it difficult to balance extracurricular activities, a job, and a social life at a private college. It’s a good idea to identify your priorities before setting out to attend a school that cost $30 thousand a year. Your parents will appreciate your consideration and you will avoid unnecessary conflicts.

Cost of tuition. Tuition is high, even for a good education. If money is no object—go private. If finances are a primary concern, consider all of your alternatives before committing yourself to a decade of debt.

Transferring credits. Private universities each have different crediting methods. If the university that you choose doesn’t work for you it may be difficult to transfer and retain all the credits you have earned.

If so, how did they get the scholarship/scholarships to go out of state?  My junior wants to go out of state and I've told her that she has to find the money to go, especially since our state has a lottery paid college education program that pays tuition and some of the books/fees as long as a student keeps their grades at a B-average or higher.  She is thinking about studying broadcasting.  She has no special talents and doesn't do volunteer work or participate in anything but drama club...nothing to make her especially shine.  She is an A/B student.   We don't have the money for out of state tuition and even covering just the expenses that in-state lottery funded fees will be difficult but do-able if we can get her excited about one of the many state schools available.

Anyone have their child figure out how to do this? 

No, it's not fair that you should have to pay for a private school, but that might just be what is best for your daughter.  We decided 16 years ago that our 3 children would not go to public schools.  We have spent a fortune over the years, but I do not regret it for an instant. 

I think most private schools don't have to follow those govt innoculations things - I'm not sure, of course, but I seem to have heard something about that from parents who sent their children to private schools.  I couldn't afford that back in the days.

As for the deep south....things have gotten better for the American blacks all throughout this country finally after 400+ years or thereabouts...........I look toward Atlanta, Georgia because it shows what I'm talking about.  There are a tremendous amount of successful black Americans in Atlanta (not just in Atlanta either - Florida for one) and living in GREAT neighborhoods, buying expensive property and kudos to them.....I'm tolerant of everyone and everything in life except the intolerant and the extremists/terrorists and people who take advantage of others.....

is there someone close to the both of you that could be present when you tell him.  Ordinarily, I would recommend meeting him in a public place, but in this case, since it is a financial affair, I wouldn't recommend that.  However, if there is someone you are both close to, perhaps you could have them present (even if only in the other room) while you tell him. 

Another possibility may be to discuss this with your in-laws first.  Again, I wouldn't ordinarily recommend this, but they appear to already be involved in your financial matters since you borrowed the money from them for the car.  Depending on their reaction, perhaps you could all sit down together and they could help you work this out. 

If all else fails, call your attorney and schedule a meeting where he will mediate.  I would not tell this man alone in person.  It doesn't sound like a safe thing to do.

March 14, 2007— Dozens packed the Belmont (California) city council chambers tonight for the first public airing of a new smoking ban proposal.

The law would give Belmont the toughest smoking ban in the nation — possibly in the world.

The crackdown aims to curb the harmful effects of second-hand smoke by preventing puffs not just in parks and around public buildings — but in private apartments and city streets as well. If the law passes, the only places left in Belmont to smoke would be single family homes and private cars.

Mayor Coralin Feierbach says the proposal was made to protect residents who suffer from health problems aggravated by smoke.The council didn't take action tonight. It's just the first of several meetings to discuss the proposal.

I don't get to post very often, but I am kind of at a loss as to what to do.  We are having a real problem here.

My son has always been a very good kid.  He has always made good grades. He has never gotten into much trouble.  Well, he got almost a full-paid scholarship to college.  We always told him that if he got a scholarship, we would get him a car.  Well, he got the scholarship and carefully researched what kind of car he wanted.  We went out and got him a car. 

Subsequently, he became involved with a girl.  I don't have a problem with his girlfriend.  She's very sweet and I do like her.  The problem is this.  I got the first phone bill after he left and he was texting her day and night.  So, we asked him to cut back.  We pay the phone bill.  We make the rules.  We have unlimited messages but 15,000 messages in one month just seems crazy when he is complaining about being exhausted.  We worked it out.  At 10 seconds a message it would be 40 hours worth of texting...

He comes home for the weekend and we take him to dinner.  Fifteen dollar dinner and he is falling asleep at the dinner table.  He proceeds to tell us how miserable he is at school.  We explain to him how sorry we are, but he is stuck there at the very least for this year as he is already enrolled etc.  We also made it clear that he needed to at least try to make it work. 

So, he continues to text day and night even though he promised he would cut down.   He was texting during classes, which just seems wrong to me.  It is disrespectful to the professors and unfair to the students sitting around him.  We threatened to take his phone away.  He finally stopped doing that but now I have my suspicions he is cutting class to talk on AIM to his girlfriend, and he had to drop the only difficult class he had or he was going to fail it and lose his scholarship.  He is lying to us about stuff.  He is being deceitful about stuff.  I am just at my wits end. 

This is a nice girl from a nice family.  We know her parents.  We like her.  We like her parents.  But I feel like she is trying to control his life from 2 hours away and it is working.  It is almost like he is chosing to be miserable to accommodate her.  I talked to her mother last week and one day she called home 15 times.  My husband feels like we shouldn't talk to her parents about this. 

We know that we can't make dating her an issue because that will just make him want to date her all the more.  I am at a loss as to what if anything to do about it.  My husband says that if he is chosing to be miserable then he can be miserable and that college is what you make of it.  I am 95% sure he wants to change schools and go where his girlfriend is going.  Well, that is the most expensive school in the state and he will be giving up a free ride to do that plus he now has an almost new car that we would have to deal with because he would not get to keep that and go to the expensive school.  No way, no how.  I have serious reservations about him going to a school with a party-school reputation when he has a free education at a very good school.  I also do not want to pay $18,000 a year so that he can be with his girlfriend no matter how much I like her. 

Any words of wisdom?

My first daughter was lucky with the scholarships and has just graduated from a private college in state with a degree in Nursing (BSN).   She went to this $34,000 a year  college for $13,000 a year but still has $60,000 of student loans to pay back but she makes $3,000 a month and has no other expenses.  My other daughter chose to go out of state and Massachusetts only  helps in state students.  She goes to Umass at Amherst and there is so many scholarships if you live in MA.  Anyway she is also on student loans.  I told my girls this is the only way you can go to high priced colleges if this is what you want.  They have 10 years to pay for them once they graduate.  Most of their friends are doing the same way.  We also applied the FASA 4 years in a row and it helped with the first child but even when I had both in college it did not help my second child.  She still has to pay the going rate for out of state.  I even called up Umass and said another college  in MA is giving her $10,000 scholarship off the tuition and they said well tell her to go there. I really think it depends on the college.  GOOD LUCK

As parents pack their youngsters off to college, they might ask themselves whether it's worth both the money they will spend and their children's time. Dr. Marty Nemko has researched that question in an article aptly titled "America's Most Over-rated Product: Higher Education (www.martynemko.com/articles/americas-most-overrated-product-higher-education_id1539)."

The U.S. Department of Education statistics show that 76 out of 100 students who graduate in the bottom 40 percent of their high school class do not graduate from college, even if they spend eight and a half years in college. That's even with colleges having dumbed down classes to accommodate such students. Only 23 percent of the 1.3 million students who took the ACT college entrance examinations in 2007 were prepared to do college-level study in math, English and science. Even though a majority of students are grossly under-prepared to do college-level work, each year colleges admit hundreds of thousands of such students.

While colleges have strong financial motives to admit unsuccessful students, for failing students the experience can be devastating. They often leave with their families, or themselves, having piled up thousands of dollars in debt. There is possibly trauma and poor self-esteem for having failed, and perhaps embarrassment for their families. Dr. Nemko says that worst of all is that few of these former college students, having spent thousands of dollars, wind up in a job that required a college education. It's not uncommon to find them driving a taxi, working at a restaurant or department store, performing some other job that they could have had as a high school graduate or dropout.

What about students who are prepared for college? First, only 40 percent of each year's 2 million freshmen graduate in four years; 45 percent never graduate at all. Often, having a college degree does not mean much. According to a 2006 Pew Charitable Trusts study, 50 percent of college seniors failed a test that required them to interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, and compare credit card offers. About 20 percent of college seniors did not have the quantitative skills to estimate if their car had enough gas to get to the gas station. According a recent National Assessment of Adult Literacy, the percentage of college graduates proficient in prose literacy has declined from 40 percent to 31 percent within the past decade. Employers report that many college graduates lack the basic skills of critical thinking, writing and problem-solving.

Colleges are in business. Students are a cost. Research is a profit center. When colleges boast about having this professor who has won a science award or that professor who has won the Nobel Prize, very often an undergraduate student will never be taught by that professor. It is a "bait and switch" tactic and very often your youngster will take classes not taught by a professor but taught in large classes by a graduate student. Faculty who bring in large grants are more highly valued than faculty who teach well. Teaching excellence is so often undervalued that the late Ernest Boyer, vice president for Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, quipped that, "Winning the campus teaching award is the kiss of death when it comes to tenure."

Parents and taxpayers cough up billions upon billions of dollars to the nation's colleges and universities. Colleges make money whether students learn or not, whether they graduate or not, and whether they get a good job after graduating or not. Colleges and universities engage in "bait and switch," confer fraudulent degrees and engage in other practices that would bring legal sanctions if done by any other business. There is little or no oversight of the nation's over 4,000 colleges and universities that enroll over 17 million students. There are some colleges, such as Grove City College and Hillsdale College, that do a fine job of undergraduate education. Useful information about what colleges are doing what can be found in the Delaware-based Intercollegiate Studies Institute's "Choosing the Right College" (http://isi.org/college_guide/choosing_right_college.html).

the tuition.  Parents have a responsibility to their children to see to it that they are educated in a manner that prepares them for a career, not flipping burgers.  I know that that wasn't always the norm and that college was a privilege, but now it is a necessity.  You can't make it in the world without some kind of degree and not helping your children with their education is selfish. 

That's not to say that the child shouldn't bear some responsibility in this.  He/she can certainly get a part-time job to help with books, living expenses, etc.  I see nothing wrong with the child taking out the standard student loan either, but dumping them out the door at 18 with nothing more than a high school education is not being a responsible parent.  Perhaps that's the problem today.  So many parents don't have time or are too selfish worrying about themselves to make sure their children are set.  It's not about money, it's about responsibility. 

Judging by your responses, I'd say your husband's divorce was quite bitter and perhaps the animosity you feel should be directed toward his ex-wife and not the children.  They obviously had no control over that money that was given to their mother.  While my children aren't ready for college yet, one thing I have learned already is that you never stop being a parent.