^^that is crazy
Success comes in many ways.
http://www.ncaa.com/news/ncaa/article/2015-10-19/kristin-day-named-2015-ncaa-woman-year
^success story, NCAA woman of the year, graduated with 4.0 GPA from Clarion and got a med school scholarship
@bester1 I don’t understand people like that.
From what I hear Gannon has a very good PA program. St Francis as well, they have a 5yr program.
A lot of kids around here go to the local PSU branch, and that is even difficult to afford for them.
@mommdc I think a PSU branch is now running around 15K (tuition and fees only). It varies slightly depending on branch.
I live in the Phila suburbs and I will say that PSU brand is sooo strong. I have noticed this even more lately (probably me just paying more attention), as there are so many t-shirts, bumper stickers, signs, etc. Everywhere. They could fund their institution on merchandising alone, ha!
I know. And max Pell and state grant is about $10k so they often have to take out a loan and work as well to afford it
Clarification, is the grant amount for $10K, OR is tuition after grant around 10K? Thanks. If the former, I didn’t know they could be that high.
And then quite a few kids go to PASSHE schools or LACs like Allegheny, Juniata, where with merit they can get the price down to a similar level. Or to small catholic schools.
That is kind of where @bester1 and we are. Except that the merit hasn’t quite extended to be enough from the LACs to be comparable, yet (at least for us). Still around 10K/year difference. For higher scoring kids it would probably be the same. @bester1 has a couple of better (or closer in cost) options it seems in WVU and Ohio U.
This is why I keep checking in on this particular thread!
Yes max Pell grant is about $5,800 and max PA grant is about $4,000. That is what a $0 EFC student could expect to get. But if parents can’t contribute it can still fall quite short.
The LACs often offer need based institutional grants as well, but that depends on the family income and they might not meet full need, at least not need determined by FAFSA EFC. They often have their own aid formulas and might take home equity into consideration.
Oldest DD went to local branch campus of Penn State. I would put it on par with a good Community College, but costs more.
@shelleyr25 If your daughter decides to attend Bama she will have made a very wise choice. My son is doing very well, and can’t believe after this semester he will be half way through his college career! He has made friends from all over the country and living the life!
@laralei that is good to hear! We are visiting in Jan and she is excited to see the campus to help finalize her decision.
Looks like the PASSHE strike worries are over for a while…
http://www.pennlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/12/pay_raise-palooza_at_state_sys.html#incart_2box_politics
Received academic scholarship information today from Cleveland State. Would provide $7,500/year for 4 years. This would get her OOS COA to about $18,000 which is less than Bloomsburg. This is before athletic scholarship is finalized at Cleveland State.
Is Cleveland State academically equivalent to Bloomsburg? Is it safe?
http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=bloomsburg&s=all&fv=202134+211158&cp=1&sl=211158+202134
^comparison
^Thanks! 
^I find that comparison tool in College Navigator very helpful.
Also if you click on each school individually, you can look up campus security/crime statistics.
Wow, Bloomsburg has a lot more drug and alcohol violations.
Well…It is all interesting. Marijuana and beer would be an offense on the streets of Bloomsburg but a police officer would not look twice at that on the streets of Cleveland. Entirely different realities for sure.
@bester1, thanks for the info. If the OOS COA for Cleveland State is 29,678 - 7500 = 22,178 (not 18K). Do you not use the personal expenses, transportation, books in your estimations? I had an earlier post about even though small, these expenses can make it difficult to compare 2 schools that are close.
Yes…We are working off of the tuition and housing costs. Nothing more.