Duke NPC comes out to only $9,000, so it is 100% affordable. Do you have any other private, good engineering schools/cs that offer generous aid because I think I’m elegable for a lot. Thanks!
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For private schools…try Denison, RIT, University of Miami, University of Tampa, Rhodes, Butler.
Check the Colleges that Change Lives list. Most of them offer decent merit.
I’m not sure you will be able to get these below $15,000
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They may not necessarily get under the parent contribution of $15k or the stretch budget of $25k (with direct loans and some student work earnings). But check the scholarship web pages for each school.
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After NPC on Case Western, it came out to 19,900, 55k in school, 8k in federal aid. So this is probably way more than the merit. My family can do up to 25k so 19k is in out budget
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Was the npc result for Rice affordable?
I was thinking about Case, but you need to carefully read their policies. I know when I checked couple years ago Case was not taking credits if they were used for HS graduation. Maybe they changed it.
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OP. You need to carefully review each private. I am not sure that schools like Rhodes are great idea. You will be taking a lot of Humanity/Religious classes (I have DD there now), and I am not sure LACS are good place for CS, and definetely not Com Eng.
So I would say stay away from pure LACS. Please carefully read all websites of privates. Academically Case, Lehigh, Rice, Duke, Bucknell(?), Vandy are great but they probably will give you very few if any credits for hard work for 2 years… We were in similar situation with my DD who had 30 college credits and avoided schools that gave no credits. Privates love AP but do not appreciate DE.
Look at Binhampton (NY state school- you may get scholarship there and be a geographical diversity). Maybe schools like Stevens Institute of Technology? I am not sure is Rutgers give OOS scholarship. I would check. Also pay attention how good are different schools in CS. If they are not strong in that area what is the point to go there and pay 50-70k if you can go for free to UTK? UTK is quite strong school.
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I would categorize the schools this way.
Purdue would be a reach and UMich, UT Austin, GT, UW, and UIUC would be very high reaches. UW has a 2% admit rate for OOS, Your GPA might hurt you at GT, and UIUC is a top 5 program and OOS students find it increasingly hard to crack each passing year. UT Austin reserves most of the seats to instate students and UMich is one of the most applied to CS programs and they’ve tightened the LSA CS pathway so the admission standards are likely to get harder.
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Oh, forgot to mention. Please do not forget that all schools (especially private) increase their tuition every year. FA maybe increased in some cases, but merit is fixed. Make sure that you factor it in your decision.
So, first, I agree with the posters above who said:
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Private schools tend to be stingy with giving credit for dual enrollment courses (and sometimes AP credit). So aim for only private schools likely to give you a large aid package: run the Net Price Calculator (NPC) on each school’s website to get an idea.
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Out-of-state public schools tend to be stingy with aid and sometimes admission. University of Washington’s computer science and engineering schools are difficult admissions for in-state students but can be targets; they are reaches for ALL out-of-state students. And even if you did get in, you would get about a max of $8,000 in merit aid, which is not likely to bring out-of-state tuition down to your stated budget.
Keep in mind that federal student loans are capped; you can’t get more than $5500 in loans your first year even if you were willing to borrow more.
So. Most generous private schools with strong CS or CE programs are reaches. Leave them on your reach list.
Don’t bother with any out-of-state public schools with an NPC calculation that is too high. There are a few large schools mentioned above that are often more generous with out-of-state students (Alabama, Arizona, etc.) that might produce better NPC results.
After that, For safeties/targets, stick with your in-state options and maybe some lesser-known schools.
I don’t have any specific knowledge about their programs, but two smaller regional public schools that show up on at least one ranking list for CS and also offer less-expensive nonresident tuition are:
Dakota State University
New Mexico Tech
It might be worth looking at those.
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University of Alabama – Tuscaloosa; University of Alabama – Huntsville; University of Mississippi.
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Excellent!
So, here’s how I see this situation.
Your default/safety is, you go to UTK, get lots of DE credit and a very affordable degree that allows you either to graduate early, or to add more advanced electives, a double-major, or enhancements like the minor in industrial design. (Do look at that - it seems like it could be a nice fit with your existing pursuits: Program: Industrial Design Minor - University of Tennessee, Knoxville - Acalog ACMS™ ) It seems as if you really don’t want to stay in-state, but honestly, it’s a well-respected school and not a bad option.
OOS publics… there are some options, but the big merit isn’t going to come from anyplace that clearly outshines UTK in rank/prestige. That isn’t to say that you might not find a better fit with enough merit, but you have to decide whether this kind of merit-hunting is worth your time. But for heaven’s sake, don’t consider the schools on your list that would require six figures of parent loans. That simply makes no sense.
And, the brass ring: privates with generous aid. It’s terrific that you’re seeing great NPC results from Duke and Lehigh, among others. You can definitely add more of these. Rice has been mentioned, and is terrific for your interests and very generous with aid. Fantastic student experience. Would be just as worthy an ED option as Duke, but quite a different vibe, so it depends what you prefer. Definitely pay attention, not only to the out-of-pocket amount, but also the amount of loans built into the package. You’ll get no-loan aid at the most generous schools (Lehigh recently moved to no-loan aid for low-income students), but a lot of others will require you to take the max in guaranteed loans. That’s acceptable, but no-loan is better! (You can still elect to take the loans to ease your budget crunch while in school.)
Run the NPC’s for WashU in St Louis, Harvey Mudd, Tufts, Boston U, Lafayette, Union (NY), Northeastern, and Carnegie Mellon (you’d want to do CompE at CMU; getting into CS is brutal). (Also URoch and CWRU - looks like you ran those already… and Vandy if you haven’t yet.)
How do you feel about LAC’s with strong CS but no engineering? Schools like St. Olaf College, Grinnell, Wesleyan, and so on… very solid for CS, but is the lack of an engineering school a fit for you?
Then there are the schools that don’t guarantee full-need-met aid, but could still get to your price point with a combination of need aid and merit. Examples: WPI, RPI, Stevens, Bucknell, Clarkson, RIT, Santa Clara, LMU, SMU, and so on. Some NPC’s will estimate merit as well as need aid; others you’ll just have to decide whether you like the school enough to apply and see how the aid turns out.
Bottom line: You should not be “willing to pay 40K” for any school, when that will mean 100K of debt. Why would you do that to yourself when you qualify for generous aid, either in-state or at schools that meet need? There are many good options that will not require parent loans, and you’re a strong enough applicant to score a good aid package. You just need to narrow down your list and find the sweet spot in terms of generosity vs. competitiveness. And scrap anything you don’t like better than UTK, because that’s a very good option.
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Drop Union(NY). It is not written on website, but if you will transfer credits you will be transfer student and not elegible for merit aid… DD dropped it from the list once we discovered it during visit.
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Even if the credits were acquired as DE classes while in HS? That’s unusual. But good to know! Although, they meet need so merit is probably a non-issue for the OP.
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THIS!
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OP please check every school policy! Just because people suggest one or the other school it may not work for you.
At each school check the following and you even may call anonimosly:
- Do they take DE credits?
- Do they take DE credits if they were required for HS graduation?
- Will transfering these DE credits disqualify you from merit aid and qialifying you as a freshman (only freshman are considered for merit aid)? Remember, your situation is unique because you will have an associate degree. That can be red flag for some private. Ask them directly, weather having associate degree will disqualify you from being freshman.
- Is college has Engineering department? How many students enrolled in CS major? Is it big? What classes are offered for both above majors?
- Is CS program in that college considered to be a strong one?
- Is there transfer articulation database between your Comm College and school that you apply (if yes, you can see what classes will transfer right away. GaTech has such database. It is called Oscar. UMD has such database too…). Lack of database is not a problem, but then it becomes gambling what will be taken and what will not be.
- How that college CS program compared to UTK? What school has more interesting classes?
- If you will decided to ED in schools like DUKE, ask for financial preread.
Good luck!
Correct! I think max was 3 classes. After that you are transfer. You may opt to not transfer credits, but that is stupid in OP’s situation…
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Interesting! Well, merit there wouldn’t help him anyway, because they won’t “stack” need aid and merit, so his out of pocket would be the same whether he got merit or not. But, their acceptance rate is lower for transfers than for first-years. (Still around 30% though, so I think he’d have a decent chance either way. Although they’re need-aware, which doesn’t help his odds. Need Blind vs Need Aware | Union College)
At any rate, in my mind, Union isn’t a demonstrably better option than UTK unless it’s better financially, which it likely isn’t. But it’s not a demonstrably worse option either, so if OP wants out of TN that badly, it could be a possibility.
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I think FA for transfer students is very limited. FA is preset at freshman year. OP will not get to 20k COA there.