How does your school calculate P4 costs?

[spacecowgirl]

I'm wondering how the tuition and fees for clinicals are calculated at other schools. The U of South Carolina has done several things to piss off the students of the College of Pharmacy, not the least of which is decide to charge us for 4 semesters of tuition (and subsequent *enrichment* fee, tech fee, blah, blah BS) for 1 year of clinical rotations. This came about with the dissolution of the "Fast Track" program. Do other schools do this? I think it's insane for us to pay for two summer semesters, billed at a higher rate per credit of course, AND fall and spring semester for 32 credits. We won't be on rotation the entire fall or spring semesters, yet we pay as though we are? This is easily an extra 4-5k in loans for me to have to pay for two summer semesters when I may or may not be actually on rotation at that time. I'm taking 34 credits this year, but I'm only paying for two semesters, why should we pay more next year when the school isn't even having to pay instructors?!?!

Do other schools do this? Is this blatant robbery? It seems to me that USC just wants to milk us for all they can. This along with the merger and my general hatred for Pres. Sorensen is making me reconsider any alumni donations I would be willing to make some day

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[ultracet]

ok....
here the 4th year tuition is due in June.... intead of sept

i honestly don't know b/c we are not billed per credit hour i think
i believe that all 4 classes currently pay the same amount/semester

 

[dgroulx]

UF changed their billing this year. We no longer pay by the credit hour and there is a set tuition for the year for each class. The tuition is higher for 3rd & 4th year students to cover rotations. My cost for the year was over $8000. For my final year, it will be a little higher. I was dreading the extra tuition over the summer, but now I don't have to worry about it.

 

[ForgetMeNot]

Midwestern charged us for 4 quarters our last year (we were on rotations for only 3 quarters). I think their reasoning was that our last rotation block rolled over into summer quarter (by like a week).

 

[spacecowgirl]

Clarification: we are billed by the hour for summer only which is at a higher rate than the regular semesters. I was just saying that essentially we are paying 4-5K more for 2 fewer credits over the course of the year because of having to pay for 4 semesters rather than just 2.

Apparently Midwestern has the same greedy philsophy. I am bothered by this because it is doesn't make sense to charge more to receive fewer credits and virtually no class time, the preceptors get small stipends but much much less than a prof would make...and because we were just informed of this now Also having to pay tech fees when we might be on rotation somewhere where we don't even have access to the campus to utilize said technology burns me.

 

[OSURxgirl]

Have you asked your school administration why this is? Band together with other students and demand answers.

 

[ForgetMeNot]

Have you asked your school administration why this is? Band together with other students and demand answers.

Yeah...we tried that. It didn't work.

 

[spacecowgirl]

We're working on it. The poor financial aid lady that is supposed talk to us about it sure is going to catch hell

 

[spacecowgirl]

I'm bumping this up looking for more responses. We're still in the same position, and I'm working hard on gathering info from other schools to compare.

As it stands we are essentially being charged twice for the same 8 credits. Instead of lumping them into the fall and spring semesters, they are being spread out over the summer so we're paying for two summer semesters AND fall AND spring. Because our school charges the same for 12-16 credits, those four credits/rotation we could have fit into the regular school year are now being done in the summer....and we are paying additional costs.

I'm paying for an entire semester of class in the fall and spring when I'm going to have one month off each semester!

 

[ultracet]

we pay tution in june and in december
it is the same amount as other semesters

 

[bananaface]

If we schedule our rotations straight through we can get away with 3 quarters of tuition by finishing before Spring Quarter. Otherwise, we have to pay at least partial tuition for all 4 quarters.

I heard some rumor that the financial aid cap is going down next year. Then the week after I heard that, our cap went up from like 26K to 31K. So maybe it's just going back down. I hope we don't get screwed over.

 

[spacecowgirl]

we pay tution in june and in december
it is the same amount as other semesters

Where do you go?

Do you have a link by chance for me to reference?


Thanks a lot.

 

[ultracet]

Where do you go?

Do you have a link by chance for me to reference?


Thanks a lot.

http://www.samford.edu/schools/pharmacy/tuitionmsop.pdf

they don't differentiate between years....

this is our catalog...

page 6 of 12 breaks down the courses/year
http://www.samford.edu/groups/unirel/catalog2005/Pharmacy.pdf

it doesn't exactly say what you're looking for... but that's as good as i can do right now..

good luck!

 

[28657]

Midwestern CPG charges the same for 1st, 2nd and 3rd years. Even though we graduate June 2, we pay as if we were still going to August ~20th. It's something they pointed out to us since day 1, so no one really bitches about it.

 

[spacecowgirl]

What bothers us is that this is a big change just from this year's P4 class. It doesn't seem right to get $4K more/student in just one year. That's standardized dollars, not even counting inflation.

 

[WSU2007]

Our rotations begin this coming May and are 48 weeks long. We have the month of December off for some reason and the total credit count for the 48 weeks is 24. At least that's how it was done last year, I have a general meeting coming up to learn all the details. I'm anticipating to be registering for 4 more semesters (SPR,SUM,FALL,WINT) and be done. Credit hrs are the same price regardless of time of year and we have 24 rotation credits, oh yeah I still have 2 credits of seminar to do so we will be paying for a total of 26 credits to complete 48 weeks of rotations and two 1 cr seminars.

 

[DaveRX]

Not only is the P4 tuition crazy but the other expenses also goes up. There’s a lot more traveling and unless you’re in a college town there’s no student housing, so rent is usually a lot higher. However if your site is close enough that you can move back home with the parents, it could actually be the cheapest year.