Lebow College of Business at Drexel (co-op, student loans, transfer to)

[jln69]

Can anyone share any information. We live in Atlanta so I'm not really familiar with this one.

My daughter's high school had a college fair tonight and Drexel was there. She wants to major in Business with a concentration in Accounting. Her grades aren't up there enough for her to get into the top schools. Based on the requirements, this is one she can probably get accepted to.

Thanks.

[bicoastal10]

Don't spend $150k+ on a Drexel degree. In all honesty, she should just attend an in-state public university in GA (UofGA, Georgia State, GA Tech, etc), with low tuition, and do well there. Spending anything more than $75k on a non-elite school (think Ivy League, Duke, Stanford, MIT, etc) is unwise and usually doesn't lead to better career/job prospects, especially for an accounting major. Becoming successful in accounting is all about passing the CPA.

^^This assumes you don't have $150k+ to blow. If you do, then Drexel is a fine school with solid academics and is located in a pretty safe section of Philly.

[jln69]

Believe it or not but Drexel is a little easier to get into than UGA or GA Tech. GA now has a program called the HOPE scholarship that is guaranteed to anyone graduating a GA high school with a 3.0 or better going to a Ga school (which she has). All you have to do is pay room and board and a little extra for a public school. Everyone is taking advantage of this (who wouldn't) making the GA schools much harder to get into these days.

Unfortunately this leaves the just ok safety schools and there are lots of kids, including my daughter, that can do much better. I even told her that she can transfer to Tech from one of these to keep her scholarship but she won't hear of it. She'll probably agree after she has a ton of debt in student loans afterwards.

[gabbieg]

Drexel is great because it is one of the main co-op schools -- so if your daughter chooses to do the 5 year program there, she will graduate with 18 months of work experience (and she'll get paid for doing those co-ops). Which makes it much easier to get a job in this market!

[toobusytoday]

My son is also looking at Drexel and the question we keep coming back to is if the co-op program is really worth the high ticket price of the school. On the plus side is that I've heard that they are generous with merit aid, but if you start with a sticker price of $50,000 even $10 - $15,000 makes it pricey.

A college that was recommended to me on another forum and a lot closer to you is The University of Alabama at Huntsville UAHuntsville | The University of Alabama in Huntsville

[Sarah211]

I graduated from Drexel, so I may be biased. But, I did the 4 year program with one 6 month coop. I had a job lined up with my co-op employer months before I graduated (last June 2009). I also found that the majority of my classmates had jobs lined up with co-op employers or other employers while my friends from other colleges struggled to find jobs (some even still struggle to find jobs months later...). Drexel is definitely not a college for everyone. If you have more specific questions, I can answer. But, I am in a lot of debt - probably more than friends from other universities, but then again I have a higher paying job! I also concentrated in Accounting!