OT: Quinnipiac U. Campus

[cohenzone]

I live in Hamden, and not far from the Quinnipiac U. main campus. For anyone not familiar with it, the setting is very nice, across the street from Sleeping Giant mountain and with a sizable pond across the street on the other side of campus. It's a fairly young campus, the buildings being modern and reasonably attractive. About five years ago, the school started a satellite campus about a mile away that denuded a pretty hilltop. They located their sports complex, some other facilities and some dorms up there. I hadn't been up to look around until a few days ago. The setting and views are totally spectacular. As much as I regret the lost of the pristine hillside, damn if going to college there isn't inviting. Between the two locations, QU has to have overall one of the more pleasing campuses going. I say that with one of my own kids having gone to the much larger Cornell which campus ain't too shabby in the atmosphere department and I've been around the Pepperdine campus in Malibu, a school in a setting so spectacular, I'm sure I never would have cracked a book there.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

Agree 100%, its a beautiful campus. I live near the UConn Avery Point campus. Nice setting also and links-type golf course nearby.

 

[kibblesnbits]

I live in Hamden, and not far from the Quinnipiac U. main campus. For anyone not familiar with it, the setting is very nice, across the street from Sleeping Giant mountain and with a sizable pond across the street on the other side of campus. It's a fairly young campus, the buildings being modern and reasonably attractive. About five years ago, the school started a satellite campus about a mile away that denuded a pretty hilltop. They located their sports complex, some other facilities and some dorms up there. I hadn't been up to look around until a few days ago. The setting and views are totally spectacular. As much as I regret the lost of the pristine hillside, damn if going to college there isn't inviting. Between the two locations, QU has to have overall one of the more pleasing campuses going. I say that with one of my own kids having gone to the much larger Cornell which campus ain't too shabby in the atmosphere department and I've been around the Pepperdine campus in Malibu, a school in a setting so spectacular, I'm sure I never would have cracked a book there.

I've been to the hilltop campus many times for hockey games. You can see the main campus less than a mile (but hundreds of feet in elevation) away. My recommendation is to connect the two campuses with a gondola instead of shuttle buses and they'd have one of the most spectacular settings in America.

 

[CL82]

It does look nice.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/prebuilt/vtour/vtour.html

I was recently up at Ramapo College in New Jersey for AAU basketball tournament for daughter. It was surprisingly nice as well.

http://www.ramapo.edu/multimedia/

 

[progrocks]

Yeah, the only downside is that you get a degree from QU

 

[huskypantz]

I brought my cousin there last fall as one of her college visits. The upper campus is nice - brand new dorms and pretty impressive new basketball and hockey arenas. Honestly, I'll be happy if UConn upgrades their on-campus rink to what QU has. The negative is that you have to shuttle to your classes (except for freshman, who have dorms in the lower campus), and as nice as the upper campus is, it does not have a college campus feel to it. I believe they have a third campus for their grad programs, health sciences and eventual medical school. They're definitely investing in their school. I don't think I could ever be convinced to go there (or send my daughter there) for $50k when compared to UConn's rep and value, but they seem to be carving out a nice niche for themselves.

 

[60'sfan]

Agree 100%, its a beautiful campus. I live near the UConn Avery Point campus. Nice setting also and links-type golf course nearby.

View attachment 910

Nice is a huge understatement for Avery Point.

 

[ucp990411]

The best campuses are the one that have multiple National Championship Banners hanging!

 

[husky99]

QU is close or more then 45 thousands a year. Some of my students are going and said it is more then harvard ...

 

[cohenzone]

QU is listed on USNews&World Report at just under $54000/yr all costs. My nephew who lives with us is entering Hofstra this fall. They list all costs at just over $54000. Harvard is listing all costs at just under $58000. College costs need to be front and center on the national agenda, I don't care what party holds what branch of government. Moreover, not even Harvard can guarantee that all grads will find a job very quickly. Pretty hard for them all to justify the costs or their out of whack rate of inflation. UConn now has approximately 1/3 of its student population from out of state, it was only 10% for many years. That means fewer state kids getting in and that the school is using outsiders to help defray the cost for those insiders who get in. Another son of mine went to UMich in the early 90s, a year after the Fab 5. and they do the same thing, something that didn't hit home until until he was a soph and I had 3 in college at the same time. UMich was brutal with aid to non-staters and wound up costing me more than the private universities my other 2 attended, not to mention what my kids had to borrow. I could have tried to force UConn on them, but in reality, only one of them had a field of interest that UConn offered a major in. If you want to choke, I went to UConn Law and my tuition and fees were $300/yr for in-staters. My next lowest school would have cost me about ten times as much, and since I wasn't looking at Harvard or Yale, it wasn't much of a decision to go UConn. But QU has a nice campus (actually so does Hofstra for an urban campus).

 

[sledog]

NU in Boston (JC's old haunt) boasts putting 98% of grads into either a job or grad school - #1 in US for past umpty years.

Need a job when you graduate? Go to NU!

 

[cohenzone]

NU in Boston (JC's old haunt) boasts putting 98% of grads into either a job or grad school - #1 in US for past umpty years.

Need a job when you graduate? Go to NU!

Who wants a job? No atmosphere at NU. Ocean and mountains, that's what counts.

 

[HuskyNan]

QU is close or more then 45 thousands a year. Some of my students are going and said it is more then harvard ...

It's not the most expensive in the state. But it's not Yale that's most expensive, as you might think. CT colleges some of the most expensive in the US (costs are tuition only)

 

[uconnfan68]

QU is listed on USNews&World Report at just under $54000/yr all costs. My nephew who lives with us is entering Hofstra this fall. They list all costs at just over $54000. Harvard is listing all costs at just under $58000. College costs need to be front and center on the national agenda, I don't care what party holds what branch of government. Moreover, not even Harvard can guarantee that all grads will find a job very quickly. Pretty hard for them all to justify the costs or their out of whack rate of inflation. UConn now has approximately 1/3 of its student population from out of state, it was only 10% for many years. That means fewer state kids getting in and that the school is using outsiders to help defray the cost for those insiders who get in. Another son of mine went to UMich in the early 90s, a year after the Fab 5. and they do the same thing, something that didn't hit home until until he was a soph and I had 3 in college at the same time. UMich was brutal with aid to non-staters and wound up costing me more than the private universities my other 2 attended, not to mention what my kids had to borrow. I could have tried to force UConn on them, but in reality, only one of them had a field of interest that UConn offered a major in. If you want to choke, I went to UConn Law and my tuition and fees were $300/yr for in-staters. My next lowest school would have cost me about ten times as much, and since I wasn't looking at Harvard or Yale, it wasn't much of a decision to go UConn. But QU has a nice campus (actually so does Hofstra for an urban campus).

What century was that?

 

[husky99]

kids at my school that are top 30 in the class where wait listed to uconn or given the choice to go to one of the branches this year. times have changed.

Hey i got into one of the good boston schools and my parent's sat me down and talked money. I was going to have a lexus-like monthly loan payment for YEARS longer then uconn. the ed program was much better rated also for the 5 years masters for the money....

 

[husky99]

some kids are starting to go to a tunxis community college like school for a year or two and then going to uconn or better to save money

 

[cohenzone]

What century was that?

Tappan Reeve was president of my class. If you don't know who is is, Google him. I was there '67-'70, or just a few years after the end of the Civil War.

 

[progrocks]

Paying over 50k for a third rate private school is one of the stupidest decisions one could possibly make (going to a fourth tier law school would be worse, which is also what QU offers!)

If you can not go to an Ivy or a little Ivy, private schools are probably not worth it. UConn has become the third most attractive school to attend in the state from an academic/cost stand point, where 15 years ago I would have listed a few more schools ahead of it. Some of that is the massive rise in tuition costs of the private universities, but some of it is UConn upping its game.

 

[HuskyNan]

My son is applying to MIT ($55,270), WPI ($55,720), RPI ($59,470) and UConn ($22,622). I'm taking donations, btw.

 

[cohenzone]

Paying over 50k for a third rate private school is one of the stupidest decisions one could possibly make (going to a fourth tier law school would be worse, which is also what QU offers!)

If you can not go to an Ivy or a little Ivy, private schools are probably not worth it. UConn has become the third most attractive school to attend in the state from an academic/cost stand point, where 15 years ago I would have listed a few more schools ahead of it. Some of that is the massive rise in tuition costs of the private universities, but some of it is UConn upping its game.

I think the trouble with your answer is that not all schools offer all things to all kids. Moreover, it is impossible to define third or even fourth rate when it comes down to particular depts. and disciplines. For example, UHart might be overall down the chain, but its music school is one of the best in the US. Also, take my nephew who would not do well in a large school for a variety of reasons and he is a great musician who fits well in a place like Hofstra, a medium small private school. He also gets a lot of his costs covered. Keep in mind that the private schools generally have straight scholarship money available to a decent number of the student body. It can range from a full ride to a nice but smaller piece of change. Most public institutions are either large or are not among the top tier or two of schools. Neither of those choices would have been good for a kid like my nephew.

When my own kids were looking at schools, and they all were very good students, I had them all apply to UConn partly because they was no doubt that they would get and it was their fall back. One went Ivy - Cornell but in one of their public majors, the next to UMich and the last to Northwestern. Of the three of them, the only one who majored in something that UConn could have more or less matched was the one who went to UMich. But then, he wound up going to Columbia Law and got into several other really good law schools. It is certainly unknowable if he would have had the same success getting into the same law schools with a UConn undergrad degree, but I'd guess that coming out of Ann Arbor, which is universally considered to be a top 5 state school in the US, made it a lot easier. So that sort of consideration also enters into the undergraduate decision. In terms of costs in the early 90s when my boys were applying and today, the costs then were already viewed to be outrageous and even more so today, cost cannot be ignored. Grad school is a whole other thing. When my son when to Columbia Law, it was the second most expensive law school in the US (NYU was first) and he did not want us to pay. He borrowed almost 100% of the cost and he darn well needed to land a high paying NYC firm job or he would have struggled for years.

 

[husky99]

My son is applying to MIT ($55,270), WPI ($55,720), RPI ($59,470) and UConn ($22,622). I'm taking donations, btw.

Wild rpi is more then mit.

 

[jleves]

I've been around the Pepperdine campus in Malibu, a school in a setting so spectacular, I'm sure I never would have cracked a book there.

I applied to and was accepted at Pepperdine and my mother really wanted me to go there. The campus is beyond stunning. It's like going to college at the Four Seasons. However when they told me that there was no smoking, drinking or dancing on campus, I checked out. Cracking a book would have been the least of my worries.

 

[huskypantz]

Who wants a job? No atmosphere at NU. Ocean and mountains, that's what counts.

I did my masters at NU. There's definitely a city college atmosphere. No UConn, but not a bad place to go.

 

[junglehusky]

I also live near QU, I bike up that hill for exercise... very slowly (I pretend it's Alpe d'Huez). I read somewhere Scotty Burrell also bikes up the hill, but he's doing it every day during his commute to work. QU is going to start a medical school and poached some profs from UConn Health Center in the pre-Herbst era. It'll be interesting to see if they can continue to raise their profile and grow, but also improve academics. Their administration had some friction with the faculty and also the student newspaper a while back, not sure if that has been resolved or not.

 

[cohenzone]

I applied to and was accepted at Pepperdine and my mother really wanted me to go there. The campus is beyond stunning. It's like going to college at the Four Seasons. However when they told me that there was no smoking, drinking or dancing on campus, I checked out. Cracking a book would have been the least of my worries.

Maybe you should have reconsidered. In Malibu, smoking, drinking and dancing are never very far away unless they also chained you to the bed. When I went to UConn, Mansfield was a dry town, but somehow, liquor found its way into the dorms and mouths of the students, often openly at parties which were, as in my dorm at Trumbull House, held with live bands in the dining hall every other Sat. night. We always heard rumors that the state police were going to raid, but it never happened. Maybe the clergy who run Pepperdine are more vigilant.

 

[kibblesnbits]

Wild rpi is more then mit.

Not really. MIT has a very large endowment and massive annual research grants to reduce the burden that must be carried by undergraduates. Not only are annual expenses less, but financial aid at wealthy private schools is significantly higher. Of all the schools my daughter considered, Yale was the least expensive outside of UConn (which after scholarships would have been an incredible bargain) because it has a great financial aid not just for the poor, but also the middle and even upper middle class. I make good money, but not $50K-$60K out of pocket money.

But those schools are the exception. The middle class and non-exclusive tier private schools (including excellent schools such as RPI - my alma mater, WPI, Wesleyan, Trinity, etc), which used to be a good match, are both being squeezed. Something is going to have to break in the next decade or so because the gap between affordability and income is spreading every year.

 

[cohenzone]

Not really. MIT has a very large endowment and massive annual research grants to reduce the burden that must be carried by undergraduates. Not only are annual expenses less, but financial aid at wealthy private schools is significantly higher. Of all the schools my daughter considered, Yale was the least expensive outside of UConn (which after scholarships would have been an incredible bargain) because it has a great financial aid not just for the poor, but also the middle and even upper middle class. I make good money, but not $50K-$60K out of pocket money.

But those schools are the exception. The middle class and non-exclusive tier private schools (including excellent schools such as RPI - my alma mater, WPI, Wesleyan, Trinity, etc), which used to be a good match, are both being squeezed. Something is going to have to break in the next decade or so because the gap between affordability and income is spreading every year.

As I said, big fat issue, and a political one at that because the economy depends on a well educated middle class. I'm really out of the college cost world myself, but if something doesn't change, my grandchildren will be faced with big problems. The closest one to college is still about 10 years away. Hopefully something changes for the good soon. It is the next big personal expense issue now that maybe the health care fight will be reduced to tuning the new product. Much more complicated as well. What I don't really understand is why the costs have pretty much universally gone up in lock step nationwide regardless of real differences in the situations at the schools (eg. major building programs vs. maybe none at all) and way above the inflation rate, in fact inflating when very little else is inflating.

 

[Adios]

Glad I was born when I was!