It’s May 1st! Congratulations to all the seniors who have gotten into a MT program they like, and I hope the remaining seniors keep the faith and land something they like from a wait-list or through alternative plans. There are so many paths to a career, not one.
I would appreciate learning the names of any colleges or universities, where you or your S or D was accepted to the MT program and received scholarships and / or grants (based on academic merit, artistic merit and / or need) that covered 55% or more of the total expected cost to attend that particular school. If it is a public institution, and you qualify for an in-state or regional cost of attendance (as opposed to an out-of-state cost of attendance), please note that as well.
Thank you for sharing this information.
@Twelfthman - this is something we were a bit naive too going in. . . you can research some of your child’s preferred schools and it is pretty cut-and-dry WITH SOME SCHOOLS on some of the academic/merit awards. We started to learn about it on some of the tours, if you have x GPA in high school and x SAT/ACT, you get X dollars. My D was offered anywhere from $14k to $38k annually based on grades/test scores alone. Whether than hit 55% or more depended on the school and their tuition costs and what level they hit for that particular school! So, for instance, one school offered $14k for 3.7 GPA and 1300 SATs, $16k for 3.9 GPA and 1400 SAT, etc., so you can easily look at the schools your child is interested in to see if they offer those automatic merit awards and what level your child hits 
Based on academics alone, some of the schools that I know offer from our research and application process (by no means exhaustive): Baldwin Wallace, Pace (although I don’t think it covered 55%, it was sizable), Montclair (does in state), Ball State, TCU (depends on merit level on how close to 55% it gets you). Ohio University, Point Park, LIU, Viterbo. I’m sure others, those come to mind and others can offer additional insight.
Talent and need based aid is a whole different ballgame!
I think this is a hard question to answer which is probably why you don’t have a bunch of answers. I think that if you’re trying to figure out which schools do/don’t make the cut financially, it is pretty tough to come by cold, hard facts as every child’s scores/GPA/talent/need based aid are going to be different. From a general perspective, we found that private schools offered the most/best merit based on test scores/GPA. We also found that a school that isn’t well known for academics, but is well known for MT often gives a kid with strong academics nice merit as their general population may not have as strong an academic background. Schools S applied to but in hind sight should not have due to their reputation for being extremely expensive and giving very little in terms of merit based aid (even though they are great schools): NYU and BoCo.
I found it tough to calculate COA exactly bc only a couple of the schools S applied to listed the grades/test automatic $ if accepted. In my spreadsheet, I created a formula for yearly cost of school, our ‘magic’ number that we were hoping to be at re: paying = how much $ we needed to make it happen, and then added in merit/scholarships, etc.into the calculation, as they came in, thus reducing the ‘how much we need to make it happen’. S’s grades were good, and a good, but not great test score, resulting in $ ranging from $0-$30k from schools he was academically and artistically accepted at. (But the schools he rec’d the higher $ from, also had a higher yearly pricetag to begin with).
But even this calculation is tricky bc you’re basing your number off of the prior year’s tuition & fees, etc.
Best tip: Use the net price calculator (NPC) on each of the school websites…many have you enter your student’s current academic status and financial info and it gives you a good picture.
We found that if you stay out of the Northeast and Chicago, you can find many that your net cost of attendance is $30k/year or less (before loans). That was our threshold and only a couple squeaked above that. But, it is very individual.
Some schools that we found reasonably net “affordable”:
ASU, Ball State, TCU, U of Utah, Viterbo, Univ of Arizona, Texas State, Florida State, Wright State, Northern Colorado, U of OK, OCU, BW.
Most net “affordable” in the Northeast tend to be Molloy and Montclair.
@lithpool Was your magic number anywhere close to your expected financial contribution? If not approximately what percentage. Trying not to be too intrusive with the question, but feel free to ignore if you feel I am.
@MTDad2025 EFC was definitely higher than ‘actual’. (LOL, I have yet to find anyone that said, why yes, my EFC was right on target, and I can definitely afford what they say I can!) That’s not to say there aren’t people out there who have said that…
There are so many caveats re: costs of schools…some schools offer in state tuition for specific majors, some states offer in state for specific majors only if your state does not offer the same degree, some states have ‘deals’ with other states, etc, etc.
I found that there are so many different variables that are unknown, particularly when you start trying to figure out ‘talent $’ bc that one really can be a wild card. So, when creating our school list, I also looked at ‘average aid given’ just as a ballpark re: affordability. It helped in creating the school list, but I admit, I haven’t gone back to see if it was accurate…lol
We could afford our EFC. But, we saved from the time they were little and we did the Federal Student Loan. Only one school actually met EFC without outside loans, but several came close. We did not apply to the known net “expensive” schools. I would consider our family upper, middle class.
My MT son did get a number of awards that had to be for Arts Performance, not academics as those numbers were not scholarship worthy. None of the awards were way up there however. Ithaca College SMU have the most, at $5k. But their sticker price was such that those amounts just bounce off the high expense that they still cost.
SUNY Buffalo gave him $3500. More than the $2500 awards my other kids were offered there for higher academic stats. It was an arts awards and significant off of the more reasonable in state costs for that school. These days we are looking at mid 20s for many instate Publics. Vs three times that amount in sticker prices for a lot of the better known private university.
Not sure the 55% of COA is apples to apples. COA at Pace or Tisch or BOCO is going to be much higher than probably any in-state option, whether they offer even a dime in aid.
@afterp89 I agree one would get wide-ranging cost of attendance from different institutions as it would depend on what their COA is.
Still, it’s helpful to me to know which offer a reduction of 55% or more for their cost of attendance regardless of the starting amount and regardless of whether it is coming from academic merit scholarships, artistic merit scholarships or need.
@Twelfthman What the others say is true. It is hard to know how to give you answers, but it is a great question and any information you get will be helpful. Good luck!
After much wrangling and pleading I found that many schools could get you almost half the way. My child has excellent grades (AP classes etc top 3% of class) and decent, but not exceptional SAT scores. She got some very nice artistic scholarships, but by far the vast majority of scholarship money came from academics.
most gave something (these are rounded figures) but only one got us to more than 55%
School Cost of Attendance Scholarship Offers Out of Pock per year
Baldwin Wallace: $54,000 $21,000 $33,000 39%
Ohio Northern $45,000 $22,000 $23,000 51%
Coastal Carolina $23,000 $14,000 $ 9 ,000 58%
LIU Post $55,000 $25,000 $29,000 45%
Malloy/Cap21 $58,000 $22,000 $36,000 38%
Boston Con $70,000 $15,000 $55,000 21%
U of Tampa $43,000 $15,000 $28,000 35%
Marymount Man $54,000 $14,000 $40,000 26%
So it goes all over the board. Found that the only program to go over 50% was Coastal which is in state and so D was eligible for a bunch of additional money. Serious dream crusher is the COA
@16or32bars Thank you very much for sharing! This is most helpful. You rock.
I wish I had this kind of information when I started this process, but then everyone is kind of hoping their child will be on of the few that gets a free ride somewhere. To me it is kind of like a nocturnal creature that everyone has heard of but only a few have actually seen. You know they exist but don’t know one personally.
@twelfthman here’s a link to a very informative post from a few years back that I refered to many times while evaluating programs, the numbers have likely increased - inflation - but still a good overview
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/1745140-which-schools-give-the-best-merit-aid-another-freakonomics-post.html
@sladdymtmom Thank you. I have definitely read this discussion, one of the many @EmsDad contributions that have been so helpful. I wanted some recent, actual results – we all know that one’s “mileage may vary” but it’s helpful to know examples of great, concrete offers that individual students have received.
One variant that many first student parents don’t realize is the tuition increases each year. Some schools (like Otterbein) have gone to tuition transparency - they will tell you exactly how much it will go up per year before you start. Florida Southern has a 4 year guarantee - if it takes longer - you don’t pay