Mountain State University: A College Education?

Mountain State University is a private college. It is located on three city blocks in the heart of Beckley, West Virginia. You won't see the beautiful landscaping or students lounging around on the grass like you would at other colleges. MSU boasts no landscaping. All you will see are buildings surrounded by parking lots. Considering their lack of landscaping you would assume they would have ample parking spaces. That assumption is wrong. With over 6,000 students enrolled the 300 parking spaces available are not nearly enough for this campus. You must also take into consideration that if you plan on parking in these parking lots you have to have a MSU Parking permit. If you by some lucky chance manage to get one of the coveted parking spaces and you do not have a MSU parking permit then you are very likely to come from class and see your car on the back of a tow truck.

Yet this is only part of the problem associated with Mountain State University. The tuition is considerably higher then the neighboring public colleges. The reason for this is that MSU is a private college, therefore its tuition is not regulated by any agency. For a student, not living on campus, you can expect your tuition to be around $3,700 per semester. Compare that to a public college whose tuition is around $4,300 for both spring and fall semester. If you plan to live on campus you can expect to pay considerably more. It is actually cheaper to rent an apartment and go to school then to live on campus at MSU. Many of the professors and students live as much as 50 miles away from the school. Which if you choose to live that far away MSU does offer a wide variety of independent study courses. These courses can be completed with a proctor or over the web. in my opinion, it is better to take these independent study courses then to attend class. The professors at this college have so many students that it is nearly impossible to give any one student extra time for help on any of there class work. At this college if you have a problem understanding any of your class work be prepared to put out even more money for a tutor.

In conclusion, if you are looking for a college education and can afford to just throw away your college money then by all means enroll at Mountain State University. On the other hand, if you want to get a good education at a college that actually cares about its students, and not the money, then I would look elsewhere. Not only will you be saving a considerable amount of money, you will actually be learning something in the process.