wondering if anyone has experienced a public college - in state or out of state - that gave your child need based aid that actually made a cost difference?
If you have financial need…University of Virginia and UNC-CH pledge to meet the full need for all accepted students in and out of state.
University of Michigan meets full need for instate students.
When you say “made a cost difference”. What do you mean?
Oh man artist2233; I’d love to know about this too. I’m bookmarking this thread (for my younger kid; not for my S20; I think that ship has sailed!) My S20 applied to several OOS publics that give lots of good merit; and the total costs ended up being within reason to our EFC. One college - which was 24 K more than our EFC after scholarships gave our S20 a $600 grant. So - not meaningful. None of his public colleges applied to say they “meet need;” I think very few do. Some do say they offer grants; I’d too love to know if they come through on that.
What do you mean by “made a cost difference?”
UNC and UVA meet full need for all students, and Michigan meets need for those under a certain income (I believe this holds true for OOS as well, but I am not 100% sure).
This is based on their definition of need.
Also, UVA, UNC, and Michigan require the Profile so look more in depth at you financials.
meaningful - was it enough to be a game changer when choosing a college? Did it bring it within affordability? Was it more than 1K?
Run their Net Price Calculators to see a need-based financial aid estimate from each school that is specific to your situation. As noted above, a few publics offer need-based aid to out of state kids but not many.
These public universities other than the three mentioned that meet need for all…don’t meet need for all.
OOS costs can be over $50000 a year at some. Would $1000 in need based aid make a school that cost affordable?
Have you run you run the net price calculators? They would only be an estimate because your kid won’t be attending college for two years.
Depending on your state, your in-state public universities may give good FA … or bad FA.
What is your state of residency?
Wyoming ‘kinda’ does. OOS tuition is only about $16k per year. First there is a stats based merit program so OOS students can get between $3k and ~$9k off. Then there is a grant program from alums. These are need based, granted by the FA office, and are $1-3k per year. You don’t apply for them but sort of ask for them when you ask for more help with FA. Some are department specific (music, education, nursing).
So ‘only’ $3k, not life changing, but the OOS tuition you are dealing with is very low, and the $3k can be a lot of your OOP.
My S’s school is an instate public.
They didn’t have to give him any merit or need based aid.
He applied early with above average stats and received a merit scholarship.
A few months later they offered him a need based grant.
Ohio State FA packages for in state Pell eligible students fills any gap to at least cover tuition and fees (without loans) for students admitted to the Columbus campus. That enables those students to utilize loans, earnings and outside aid for remaining costs.
176 students will be offered a full CoA (tuition, fees, room, meals, etc.) Land Grant scholarship (this is a merit award that has a need component for eligibility).
http://undergrad.osu.edu/cost-and-aid/financial-aid
http://undergrad.osu.edu/cost-and-aid/merit-based-scholarships
A number of Texas publics give a set amount of merit based on stats alone. U Texas just announced a need based aid program with published aid by income although they don’t give merit (Correct me if I’m wrong). Texas A&M does give merit to high performing students.
UT Austin does give merit (e.g. Forty Acres), but merit is supposedly relatively rare.
https://news.utexas.edu/2015/10/02/five-great-ut-scholarships/
UT Austin’s expanded need-based aid is promoted at https://texasadvance.utexas.edu/ . Its net price calculator is part of this web site: http://www.collegeforalltexans.com/apps/CollegeMoney/ .
UT gives merit but it’s rare.
Many states have a significant tuition reduction pretty much baked-in for in-state residents. For example, the California Blue & Gold: " you will not have to pay UC’s systemwide tuition and fees out of your own pocket if you are a California resident whose total family income is less than $80,000 a year and you qualify for financial aid - and low-income students can qualify for even more grant aid. Keep in mind that Pell grants make a significant dent in in-state tuition for many public colleges, even though negligible in the context of private tuition. California additionally has the Cal Grant system that provides grant support to most students graduating from California high schools and matriculating at in-state universities (including privates).
Although my kids chose to attend out-of-state private colleges, they applied as in-staters to UC’s and we received financial awards from many. The awards included need-based grant money along with small merit awards and even though there was still a “gap” between FAFSA need and what the college provided, it was much less than the gap between FAFSA need and what full-need private colleges determined to be “need” based on consideration of CSS Profile info. (Probably home equity plus the income of the noncustodial parent are the factors that came into play there).
But yes, public colleges in many states do provide appropriate need-based aid to in-state residents. When you also factor in the value of reduced tuition for residents – which benefits wealthy in-staters as well as those with financial need – I think that a lot of states do make a college education reasonably affordable.
For non-residents, it’s a different story – that’s a source of revenue that many underfunded public institutions don’t want to forego.
Are you talking in-state or out-of-state?
In-state’s mission is to educate the students of their state.
Out-of-States mission is to increase revenue from out of state students so they can perform their mission to educate the students of their state.
UT-Austin gave my son all of $1,000/year for merit as an OOS student, and he had excellent stats. That was a few years ago, though.
The OP is asking about need based aid…
Oh, good point. I don’t think UT does anything for OOS for need.