JCLeppe,
I am sure students at non-Senior Military Colleges that offer ROTC, and who are in the ROTC classes do graduate in 4 years, but this is because they are on scholarship have to meet the requirements for their particular scholarship. But this subject is not about scholarship ROTC students - its about the cost of The Citadel and whether $48,000 (actually this is a first year cost that includes uniforms, etc) is worth it - for a non scholarship (either academic or military) Cadet. If one is on a scholarship the cost is considerably reduced.
So the question is value for non-commissioning Cadets. And this was what I was trying to discuss. It really depends on the major (and I think Business or Engineering schools are very much the cost and good value), and the fact that you can pretty much depend on the Cadet graduating in 4 years - compared with the national averages of 30% at most civilian public colleges and universities. Sorry if I did not make myself clear at first.
Not to beat a dead horse too much....
It doesn't matter if a ROTC cadet is on scholarship or not, if they want to be in the program and commission, they still need to graduate in 4 years, no matter where they go to school. I can understand a case where a student/cadet not on scholarship might take an extra year before they start their junior year and contract, but if they do while enrolled in ROTC it would be unlikely they would be offered a contract.
To remain in the ROTC program a non scholarship cadet must adhere to the same requirements as a scholarship cadet, the only thing that is different is that a non scholarship cadet is not required to pass the APFT until they contract their junior year.
You would be hard pressed to find ROTC cadets, scholarship or not, from any school that did not graduate in 4 years other then some engineering majors.
If your only talking about Citadel Cadets that do not plan on commissioning then I can follow your reasoning.
Paying a tuition like this is always going to be a personal decision. For me I would find it very hard to justify, even if a student went to an in state public school and took 5 years to graduate, it would still be a savings of $50,000.00 or more.
My pesonal feeling has always been, get an undergrad degree at a place you can afford and save the money for the graduate degree at a school of your choice.
We have no idea how the OP plans to pay this tuition, if they have the means to pay without sacrifice then great. If they have to borrow the money, take it from retirement accounts or savings, or if the student will be saddled with a huge student loan debt that will be with them for years, then I would hope they would think hard.