Northfield Residents: What is Your Oppinion of Carleton and St. Olaf Students

[MN-Born-n-Raised]

Originally Posted by xandrex

And, to top that off, the University guarantees four-year graduation as well. It's a little bit lengthy in requirements, but if you enter as a freshman and have a major in mind, they guarantee four year graduation. If you can't get into a class, they can waive the requirement (probably mostly if it's a liberal education requirement or some pointless class in the major), give you a substitute class, or pay for you credits if you have to return for the summer or following year. That's not a bad deal.

Coincidentally, I was sitting with my daughter and one of her friends this weekend talking about how it's going (college break). She goes to St. Ben's as a premed student. I asked her about getting in the classes she needs. She said like every school, it gets difficult at times.

I asked her how many people pay below $20K a year. She said no one talks about that.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by golfgal

Or you can compare apples to apples and compare overall costs for both schools, the U of M has 21% of students living on campus, so only 21% of those students are paying for housing. Cost without housing/living at home is $15,482 vs a school like St. John's where 83% of the students live on campus. So, of that $14,990, many of those students are getting next to nothing for going to the U vs 90+% of the students at St. John's.

I suspect many of those students are renting off-campus, so they're still paying for housing.

[rock_chalk]

Originally Posted by golfgal

Or you can compare apples to apples and compare overall costs for both schools, the U of M has 21% of students living on campus, so only 21% of those students are paying for housing. Cost without housing/living at home is $15,482 vs a school like St. John's where 83% of the students live on campus. So, of that $14,990, many of those students are getting next to nothing for going to the U vs 90+% of the students at St. John's.

You can also look at other private schools:

Notre Dame-Net cost $23,445
Harvard--$16,459
Yale--$17,634

So, for the extra less then $2000/year, Harvard is going to look a lot better on your resume then the U of M.

The ~$5k difference between living on and off-campus doesn't make up the gap. Not that it matters, since a hypothetical apples-to-apples comparison isn't relevant here. We're talking about what students actually pay...

If you'd like to talk about specific institutions, you might want to make claims about Harvard or Yale, not "private schools" in general. I certainly didn't say anything about Harvard.

Of course, one might also wonder why you consider that relevant to a thread involving the cost of a few private schools in Minnesota. Unless you have some other agenda here?