Before he decided on ERAU, he was accepted at both Hillsdale College in Michigan and Patrick Henry College in Virgina. He made a quantum leap from majoring in constitutional law to aeronautical engineering. One of those things you can do when you are 18 or 19 and have no responsibilities besides yourself.
I think the discussion about college costs has to take into account all the scholarships and government money that are available out there. Last August Newt Gingrich had a program on FOX about the rising cost of college tuition, and it's all because of the subsidies that are available whether the student is needy or not.
So the question really needs to be--does Hillsdale take federal loan money to pay for tuition? And the answer is--No. They do offer private scholarships. And they are less expensive then you may imagine. As I remember, Hillsdale charges around $18K a semester.
my daughter will be attending the University of Dallas in the fall. it is a small conservative Catholic university and also takes NO fed money. it is $30k+ per year, but she has received merit based scholarships that will cover about half of that. She only applied to small conservative private schools, and at each, got offers of merit $ to equal about half of the tuition they charge. so i agree, i think the private universities and colleges stay competitive by offering scholarship $, to those students they really want to attract. She IS going the constitutional law route, in all probability, and i would say there is ZERO chance of her making a switch to aeronautical engineering! ; )
Beg pardon, I doubled his tuition for the year. Non-pilot student tuition is around $30K, and it's another $10K for the student pilots.