South Texas College Tuition Increase

[KagomeH]

Forgive me rambling about double majors or minors in my previous post. I was a tad flustered upon learning about the price increase and needing to change schools.

I did reach out an advisor at TAMUC after applying and transcripts have been sent. I also reached out to an advisor at my community college where I earned my AAS and they also recommend a decent path with both schools. I have been working on ASU's "100 Million Learners Certificate" in my spare time to add to my resume.

I plan on trying to get into a Masters of Molecular Pathology program. I also needed my MLS ASCP. The route to get there can be different and I know of various ways to get to the MLS goals first. If not accepted, I want shift my focus towards hospital administration or public safety. My main concern is trying to get a bachelor's degree that can be used outside of healthcare if I do not want to stay there long term.

[bjcheung77]

Wow, that's pretty awesome, I rarely read on here that people are going for specific masters such as the Molecular Pathology one... Very interesting indeed, I look forward to reading how you go about this. Hope everything runs smoothly for you, just make sure to get all the require prerequisites done from undergrad as the priority for admission otherwise you may need to do a 'bridging' program afterwards.

[dy4242]

  Can't figure out how to delete this post

[KagomeH]

I forgot this college still had my FASFA on file.

Without aid/payment assistance to finish 82 credits already on my degree plan I would need $17,000. (This is according to my award letter they emailed me from the financial aid office.)

I applied TAMUC and got accepted. However, I had less credits accepted at TAMUC. Thankfully, I have enough left in FASFA and assistance that I believe I can knock the program completely in Fall 2024. (I may do three semesters into Spring 2025.)

While this school's programs would be great, the cost I cannot justify. I could do UAMS MLT to MLS online for $13,000 (which is a great program just I need a degree quicker). I hope to finish TAMUC by Fall 2024! If I hear anything else that South Texas College that could help or if anything changes, I'll post here. Likewise, anyone has anything they would like to share please post.

[Robson]

Ouch, was there a reason for this? It's strange they're moving into a per credit for a competency based degree option when they already set a per session or per term cost to this.  They could have done the TAMUC route and just bumped up their pricing if there are many students interested and they wanted to...

All I was told was that, "they will be charging regular tuition for each added class even for CBE." My advisor's tone was not happy. I did not push for more information as it seemed like they were already having a rough day.

What major/degree were you hoping to achieve at South? If there is a major at TAMUC that will substitute, I would strongly recommend switching. If you're at South for Computer and Information Technologies, then TAMUC may not be the answer.

I feel like on the whole, even though TAMUC is not College Station, the TAMU system brand is the stronger brand and more recognizable outside of Texas. In my experience, speaking with people about TAMUC and watching a young person I know who is currently enrolled TAMU Corpus Cristi (b&m) speak with people about how school is going.... casuals don't even seem to understand our regional campuses are separate and independent entities that have nothing much to do with the TAMU flagship.

People here just make a lazy mental association leap that it's all just Texas A&M. And if you try to explain it, it just sounds to them like "well ackshually true Champagne is named for the region of France...if it's not from the region of Champagne, it's just sparkling white wine..." and they just kinda tune out clarifications or maybe just don't care. I mean we're not trying to deceive anyone. We're pretty clear about what schools we were/are in, but people seem to want to rub the shine of main brand on us anyway. Who am I to argue?

But besides brand value, I mostly liked my TAMUC experience and felt like I really learned some useful skills. Half the instructors were really positive and felt like they were cheerleaders rooting for your success, emailing you helpful reminders about requirements and deadlines. The other half were just kinda there but would respond if you had questions and offered positive, helpful feedback on written assignments.

Administration tbh could be a little more clunky. They'd miss things or you might have to sorta poke them a little bit to get an answer or problem solved - but they would eventually solve issues and my interactions felt positive... I felt like administration is there for the right reasons and wants to do a good job of serving students and the only reason it takes polite badgering or they miss things is only because they're swamped at work. I felt cared about.

I don't know what your experience with South is. I looked into their program a while back and just ended up opting for TAMUC at the time. I don't remember why. Sorry for the long post. Just trying to provide helpful info. Good luck!

I do live in Texas. I'm more of a Texas Tech person myself, even if Texas A&M has multiple campuses. I cannot join the enemy!   (Joking, I honestly don't care which school!)

I was going to do the BAS Medical Management that had more courses based on actual health management that I felt would be my "weaker" areas hat I would want to learn (particularly the math). I could also change to the regular seven week courses if I found I did not like the CBE program. I could start a CBE program and find myself just wanting to the standard seven week courses (like we do in community college). The courses are more "broad" level Health Services Admin BAS at TAMUC. Otherwise, the degrees are similar.

South Texas College has basically some of the same degrees as TAMUC besides Computer and Information Technologies (and perhaps Operations Management). The cost was cheaper than TAMUC with the price increase (not by huge amount) for fall but it had me sold on saving $100 a month. 

TAMUC has several newer options but I did my heart set on courses in the Health and Medical Management degree (no fault of my own). I was actually very excited for those courses. The Health and Safety Degree at TAMUC or Organizational Leadership BAS seem to be catching my eye. I'll have to sit with an advisor at TAMUC and see what they say. I'm working on sending my transcripts as we speak. I just am confused on what degree at TAMUC to take (at the moment, I just need to sit down and really compare the degrees offered better). I compared the schools and felt the BAS Health and Medical Management classes required "spoke more" to me at the time.

I don't know with these CBE programs if you can even double major (or minor) at each school. Which, if I did, I would double major at TAMUC with the Heath Services Admin or Health Safety BAS with organizational leadership as the other major (or minor). My current employer offers a really decent tuition assistance program.

The new fees are confirmed on the 2024-2025 South College catalog, which gives a blanket fee for all credits. The new tuition fee calculator for 2024-2025 also doesn't provide a separate fee calculation for CBE programs, which they did in the past. On the plus side, it seems that there's no longer a two course/CBE term limit...

[HoustonGuy]

They should probably take down the CBE page then, as it refers to $900/term

https://www.southtexascollege.edu/academics/cbe/