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Our son ran into a nasty surprise not too many people are likely to know about or anticipate.
He has somewhere around 20 AP credits for college from classes he took in high school.
He got a "full ride" scholarship to a University. The "Full ride" actually covered tuition, fees, books, and a tiny fraction of living expenses. He works and took out some loans to cover the balance, plus we help him out as much as we can.
This year he is a sophomore. However they started charging him upperclassman rates per credit hour because his AP credits up him into his jr year, sort of only not really. The upperclassman charges are substantially higher. Because he took the AP classes he will have to pay these higher rates for an extra year.
Sadly, his 20 or so AP credits do nothing to shorten the time he has to spend in college. This is because either the classes are not required classes for his major, or in a few instances, the classes are so important to his major that he does not dare bypass taking them as college courses. The AP class may give you credit, but it does not teach as much as taking the same class in college (Music theory is one, I am not sure about others). He also said that in order to take the math courses he qualifies for, he really needs to re-take the math class he took in high school as an AP class. He simply will not remember enough form that class to jump into the higher level math because it will have been three years since he took the AP math course.
So when he is only in his 3rd semester of the 9 that he will be required to attend college, he is being charged as if he were in his 5th
In short, he would have been better off not taking the AP classes, or at least not taking the test to get college credit for them. All it did was cost him more money without any real benefit.
Something to think about.
You should have advised him to goof around, fail his classes and get in trouble in high school. It would have been more fun and saved money....
All kidding aside, this to me shows the predatory nature of higher education these days. It's just another in a long list of examples.
It might be worth considering to transfer. Scope out your alternatives! It's not like the school you're going to now is the only one out there!
Transfer? I believe OP is referring to having to pay a little more for this semester. It's a bit extreme to transfer out of a very good school (if we are talking about U-M) because one has to pay the higher rate 1 semester early.
Yeah, I’m confused. The OP stated it covered tuition.
In my experience, a
A scholarship is a dollar amount. So lets say tuition was $12,000 a year at the time and living expenses estimated at $10,000. He got a $22,000 scholarship and they call it a full ride. For whatever reason he scholarship was more like $18,000 out of the $22,000 but they still called it a full ride. Maybe it is a commuter full ride. I am using random numbers by way of example because I do not know the actual amounts.
Every scholarship, I, my wife or any of our five kids got was based on a dollar amount, "full ride" or not. If there are any schools that offer full tuition and expenses no matter what those numbers turn out to be, I have not heard of such.
Transferring would be silly, because then he would have to pay all of his tuition and expenses instead of getting a large scholarship form the school. Virtually no schools give scholarships to transfer students, except maybe for sports.
I am not sure whether they factor in the cost of books and fees.
Now he has to pay both an overall higher per credit hour rate and the upperclassman rate, so he suddenly has to find another $1500 - $2000. Manageable if it was not a surprise.
(No not U-M they do not offer many scholarships except need based. You have to have a 4.0 (or 4.5 and inflater schools), and a 30 or better ACT to even get in there. If you discovered the cure for cancer during high school, they might offer you a scholarship. Maybe. (I do know one kid who got a scholarship to U-M He had a perfect score on ACT and SAT. I am not sure how much he got, but it was not a full ride. He still works in the summers, but companies line up to offer him cushy high paying summer jobs).
Last edited by Coldjensens; 01-20-2020 at 11:58 AM..
Every school I am familiar with in Michigan applies this system. We have five kids, they all went to different schools they all had this system.
And has for 35+ years
When I went to Michigan in the 90s, it was different per college and different per level - lower level LSA students pay a lot less than say Engineering lower level.
When my mom went to Michigan in the 80s (non-traditionally), it was different per college and different per level.
However, I don't remember it at Central when I was there from grad school in the 00s. But in the two years I was there, undergrad tuition doubled! My 2nd year, my MBA tuition was LOWER than undergrad tuition! Anyway, checking, they do now.
https://www.masu.org/Portals/0/docs/...s%20Report.pdf
Last year, Lake State, Saginaw Valley, and CMU were the only public school in Michigan that DIDN'T charge different tuitions by level. It's got to be an option under state law but I can't find it.
In my experience, a
A scholarship is a dollar amount. So lets say tuition was $12,000 a year at the time and living expenses estimated at $10,000. He got a $22,000 scholarship and they call it a full ride. For whatever reason he scholarship was more like $18,000 out of the $22,000 but they still called it a full ride. Maybe it is a commuter full ride. I am using random numbers by way of example because I do not know the actual amounts.
Every scholarship, I, my wife or any of our five kids got was based on a dollar amount, "full ride" or not. If there are any schools that offer full tuition and expenses no matter what those numbers turn out to be, I have not heard of such.
Transferring would be silly, because then he would have to pay all of his tuition and expenses instead of getting a large scholarship form the school. Virtually no schools give scholarships to transfer students, except maybe for sports.
I am not sure whether they factor in the cost of books and fees.
Now he has to pay both an overall higher per credit hour rate and the upperclassman rate, so he suddenly has to find another $1500 - $2000. Manageable if it was not a surprise.
(No not U-M they do not offer many scholarships except need based. You have to have a 4.0 (or 4.5 and inflater schools), and a 30 or better ACT to even get in there. If you discovered the cure for cancer during high school, they might offer you a scholarship. Maybe. (I do know one kid who got a scholarship to U-M He had a perfect score on ACT and SAT. I am not sure how much he got, but it was not a full ride. He still works in the summers, but companies line up to offer him cushy high paying summer jobs).
The positive side of this is that your son will be finished sooner, hopefully, saving you money in the long run.
Quote:
Originally Posted by scorpio516
And has for 35+ years
When I went to Michigan in the 90s, it was different per college and different per level - lower level LSA students pay a lot less than say Engineering lower level.
When my mom went to Michigan in the 80s (non-traditionally), it was different per college and different per level.
However, I don't remember it at Central when I was there from grad school in the 00s. But in the two years I was there, undergrad tuition doubled! My 2nd year, my MBA tuition was LOWER than undergrad tuition! Anyway, checking, they do now.
https://www.masu.org/Portals/0/docs/...s%20Report.pdf
Last year, Lake State, Saginaw Valley, and CMU were the only public school in Michigan that DIDN'T charge different tuitions by level. It's got to be an option under state law but I can't find it.
I'm willing to believe you without you citing Michigan law. I am surprised because that's not how it is in Colorado.
Well they are beneficial in that students are often applying to schools where 1/3 of the class will have AP credits, 1/3 will have IB credits, and 1/3 will have neither because they were in a school where it was not offered. If a student goes to a school where AP/IB are offered and doesn’t take either, they’ll probably have a lower weighted GPA and won’t be able to have access to the same schools and scholarship options.
You implied this, but I wanted to point out explicitly that colleges/universities do take into account whether or not AP/IB courses were offered at the student's high school. If they were offered but not taken, that is a demerit. If they were not offered, that is considered to be not the student's fault and does not or should not count as a weak point in their application.
One of my children went to a small high school that did not offer AP, and so we researched this.
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