Here is one of the big questions when picking a college: private or public? Either choice has many advantages, and it is up to the student to decide which college is best for them.
In choosing a place to further my education, I have found several differences between the two types of schools simply from talking with admissions personnel.
Private colleges tend to have higher job placement rates, a close-knit campus environment, and a greater percentage of four-year graduates than public universities.
The big disadvantage of this is the tuition needed to get through the college years that everyone waits their entire lives for. Sometimes you can walk out with more than $100,000 in debt unless you receive vast amounts of scholarships or financial aid.
Public universities tend to have a better price for tuition, have the “campus town” environment, and have certain events not located within a handful of private colleges.
What I tend to worry about when considering attending a public university is actually being admitted into my program of choice. If not admitted, the student has to change universities, and some of the credits they already spent thousands of dollars to obtain, are now not considered to be credible at other universities
So how does a student decide which place is best for them? It truly is a matter of the student’s family situation, personality and how deep they are willing to go into debt.
Are they willing to take the chance of not getting into the major of their choice? Do they want to join a Greek house or go to big football games with thousands of kids they don’t know but feel some connection with just because they are all wearing the same colors?
The 17- and 18-year-olds trying to make these decisions, such as myself, sometimes overthink it all.
I worry about how picking a university will later affect my life or if it will lead me in the direction of a stable job, but all of us need to look at the bigger picture than what lies for us after we complete our college educations. We all need to see that no matter where we go, we will graduate with a degree and will be much more prepared for the world than we were as high school seniors.
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