[quote=SK in CV]BG, I think you’re making things out to be much worse than they actually are. Average class size at the CSU campuses are mostly around 30 for lower division classes, and much lower than that for upper division classes. Students CAN graduate in less than 6 years, and at most campuses more than 1/2 of the students do graduate in 6 years or less. Kids can get lost and take longer, but motivated students don’t have to. The difficulty in getting classes really doesn’t sound significantly different than when I was at SDSU and had to crash almost every class my first 3 years. It took me 5 years to graduate, but that was with 4 changes to my major. Which I suspect, is exactly why the current crop is often taking longer than 4 years. My daughter recently graduated from UCSD in 4 years. A couple of summer school classes, and she could have done it in 3 1/2. But she picked out her major when she was 7.
I’m not sure how there’s a big advantage to that “smaller four-year colleges in which each student has an academic counselor chained to their ankle (and iphone, etc) and the typical class sizes are under 25 students”. More likely than not, it’s a private school with costs that far exceed the resident cost for either the CSU or UC system.[/quote]
SK, I don’t know when your daughter graduated but the biggest budget cuts to CSU’s programs went into effect in 2010. The truth is, some 300 and 400 level classes are now only offered every fall semester OR every spring semester at ONE (inconvenient) time slot on many campuses, including those that are “impacted.” This makes it very hard for employed students to get their needed classes and this ONE class, as you can imagine, fills up VERY fast.
It is the fact that needed classes to graduate are no longer offered at the correct semester or even at the same campus which make it hard to graduate in a timely manner. A junior or senior is now expected to obtain one or more of their needed 300-400 level classes either online (for an addt’l fee) or at a nearby CSU campus if they can’t get into the class they need (offered only once per year).
I don’t have any experience with the UC system.
Yes, overall (my kids are eligible for a fee waiver for CSU and UC), I DO think the CSU WAS a good bargain but not so much anymore if the student and/or his family has to pay their (now exorbitant) fees. It is the HOUSING around CA urban coastal campuses which is prohibitively expensive, even with a couple of roommates. And utilities including cable and internet have skyrocketed in recent years. It is so expensive that it no doubt represents the difference between taking a slot at UC Merced (as opposed to UCSB, if accepted to both campuses) for many families.
I think it is a VERY attractive investment now and going forward to buy a house/condo near a CA university campus for your student to live in while going to school (and for the parent to collect rent from their student’s roommates’ parents).
Depending, of course, on location, after a little clean-up/rehab after their student moves out after graduation to accept a position elsewhere, the parent could put it back on the market in ~6 years and be “assured” of getting their entire college-housing-investment back, perhaps even with a nice profit!
For this reason, if the parent can invest in student housing near a CA university with a perpetual “captive audience,” they could very well end up with enough “profit” in the end to pay for all or part of their students’ educational expenses.
In the “flyover-state” locales which have small colleges, small class sizes and low college housing expenses, it would be impractical for a parent to buy student housing due to the inability to break even upon sale years hence, much less make a profit, IMHO.
