<p>
Was your daughter in-state for UC-Berkeley?</p>
<p>"University of Minnesota Morris is a great public liberal arts school "</p>
<p>This is the problem with this website. I mean really?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Do you really believe that the RD article would have even gotten published if it focused attending the free academies? Like Berea, they are extremely difficult to get into. (The article would have been as worthless just as if it said, 'apply to HYP bcos they have the best need-based aid, and attending an Ivy for many is less expensive than thier instate p public.)</p>
<p>btw: Goshen is not <$35k at sticker. With its very conservative budget, it is at $37k. Assuming more distant travel and personal expenses (purchase winter clothes), total COA is closer to $40k. Hillsdale is pushing $35k when one adds in the (obvious) items missing from their site (books, travel, personal expenses). Ditto Thomas Aquinas. Without merit aid at these LACs, the Ivies are still less costly, net, for most low-middle income folks (as BrownParent notes).</p>
<p>And there’s no federal aid at Hillsdale.</p>
<p>There is another thread about this article somewhere. Perhaps they could be merged.</p>
<p>"University of Minnesota Morris is a great public liberal arts school "</p>
<p>This is the problem with this website. I mean really? “”</p>
<p>Yes, really. Informative, it’s almost as though you think that you are so worldly that if you haven’t heard of something, it can’t be good. Yet you are one of the least worldly people on these boards. You’re still in hs and you’ve never spent any time away from Boston.</p>
<p>Believe it or not Informative, there are people on this board from Minnesota and surrounding states near UM-Morris. Believe it or not, there are people looking for a cheap liberal arts college. Believe it or not, not everybody can go to an ivy league school…</p>
<p>UM-Morris:</p>
<p>Finally, we have found ONE affordable (public) LAC…COA ~$20k, including OOS.</p>
<p>The people who I know who have gone to UM Morris have gotten a great education there. It is a gem among public liberal arts colleges.</p>
<p>Two - Truman State, OOS COA ~$21K</p>
<p>sorry, but Truman state offers several Master’s programs, so not sure if it makes the LAC moniker. (Not to mention that ~40% of its students are in what are generally considered ‘vocational’ majors.) But it does cost ~$25k, even for OOS.</p>
<p>But even if we count two, that just reinforces my point: stupid article. ‘There is no there, there.’</p>
<p>I’m never convinced by the old “Do as I say and not as I do” argument.</p>
<p>Claudia Dreifus went to college at NYU and Andrew Hacker went to Amherst - expensive colleges both. I guess their “Skip the expensive colleges” advice applies only to lesser people and not big thinkers like themselves.</p>
<p>everyone just needs to leave their prejudices at the door when it comes to colleges. There’s a college for everybody out there</p>
<p>As I pointed out in my earlier post, Truman State has a couple hundred graduate students and about 5800 undergrads. Technically, it’s a university; in fact, it’s a LAC with a couple of small grad programs. And their figures for 2011-2012 give a COA of about $19K plus books and incidentals (for the cheapest dorm).</p>
<p>The real misconception is thinking that more a small fraction of private universities have endowments enabling them to meet full need. For the vast majority of students who don’t have highly-competitive stats, the next tier down of private colleges will leave them with giant tuition bills.</p>
<p>So yes, if you’re low-income and you can get into Harvard or Duke, great. If you can’t (and 95 percent of applicants can’t, much less the millions who don’t even bother to apply), then the generosity of need-based aid starts to fall off a cliff from there.</p>
<p>polarscribe:</p>
<p>The beauty of the top xx colleges or so, is that they have good-to-great need-based aid. Not only to low income kids fare extremely well, but so do those in the middle class, including those earning low six figures. For many, it is cheaper to send a kid to an Ivy (or top LAC like Amherst), then the instate public. (At least it is here in California.) But yes, your point remains: one has to get accepted first. :)</p>
<p>annasdad: in addition the small grad programs, Truman also has a vocational – not liberal arts — bent. With biz, comm and kinesiology programs comprising nearly half the student body (40+%), it likely has a different feel than a true LAC without such programs. But that is just my opinion.</p>
<p>If you’re going to start excluding schools with substantial numbers of students in business and communications from the LAC category, it’s going to be a very sparse category.</p>