How does the tuition work for PT vs FT? Forum

[jjinva]

AU being an example. I am contemplating PT...but does that end up costing more money in tuition? 3 years vs. 4 years after all...

Or do the PT programs come in at less money per year usually?

[lawschoolgiant]

AU being an example. I am contemplating PT...but does that end up costing more money in tuition? 3 years vs. 4 years after all...

Or do the PT programs come in at less money per year usually?

uhhhh check the website, and use a calculator.

[jjinva]

AU being an example. I am contemplating PT...but does that end up costing more money in tuition? 3 years vs. 4 years after all...

Or do the PT programs come in at less money per year usually?

uhhhh check the website, and use a calculator.

Oh, you mean rely on the school's biased website and not ask any questions of people with actual experience in making that same decision? Wow, what good advice. Go away.

[Z3RO]

The tuition for part time at Georgetown per year is higher than full-time (is this common?), and the total COA per year is about 2k a year higher. Most people are using GradPLUS loans, so COA is what matters here.

I guess if you can work and make more than 2k to cover the difference, and you don't mind losing 1 extra year of income then you'd do well to part-time it.

*forgot to include the link*
http://www.law.georgetown.edu/finaid/fo ... 009-10.pdf

[jjinva]

Wow, very strange. I kind of like the idea of going PT for year one to be sure I can excel with the actual coursework. Then move to FT if I like it. I figure, if I don't like it, I will quit anyway, whats the point of doing something, even PT, if you hate it.

But I also don't want to make foolish financial decisions. Things just got even harder for me. Grrr.

[angioletto]

I don't think the data on the website will be "biased." They list their FT tuition price and their PT tuition price. FT is generally a flat fee for the year while PT is generally per credit hour. Multiply the PT tuition per credit hour by the total number of required credit hours and see if that number is higher than the flat FT tuition rate.

Rough calculations for my school show that taking all first year classes FT would cost 20% less than taking those same exact classes spread out over 2 years PT.

[Connelly]

As mentioned, I would imagine most PT schools charge by the credit hour and most schools probably cap the FT tuition at 12 hours, so anything beyond that is "free" for the FT students relative to the PT students.

Another increase in cost is due to fees you pay every semester. I imagine this would change a lot depending on the school, but I pay in the range of $500-900 in fees every semester on top of tuition. PT would require more semester, thus another couple grand is added on that way.