<p>Have been accepted into:
Chapman - Over $35,000 in scholarships and grants
CSULB - Free Ride </p>
<p>About $16,000 year for Chapman and under $1000 for CSULB (books, food, misc). Is it worth the extra $ to go to Chapman? I am worried about the big cutbacks to the state schools, and that won't be getting better anytime soon.</p>
<p>Major: English / Creative Writing. Minor: maybe Business</p>
<p>I’d go with CSULB personally. I don’t doubt that Chapman is the better school (at least in this comparison ;)) but it certainly isn’t worth 16k a year over CSULB, even if the CSUs are facing cutbacks. Chapman just isn’t worth the extra ~60k</p>
<p>Hi Kumo, Don’t pay any attention to the Chapman basher^^. What can you or your parents afford? If money is an issue, take the free ride regardless of the school providing that you’ll be able to graduate in 4 years. With the public universities in California, you’ll never know. The public universities do have big cutbacks which may take longer to graduate. I heard from a lot of students in the public schools take 5-6 years to finish. In some cases, they gave up and not finish or transfer out. Is your free ride for only 4 years or for your duration there? What fits you better, large class sizes or small class sizes? Have you visited the campuses? When you go to visit the campuses, ask the students there currently in your major, to find out whether they are on track to graduate on time. That will give you a better idea. Good luck!</p>
<p>Also don’t think you’ll just be spending ~1,000 a year on food and books. That seems pretty low, unless you plan on consuming the typical ramen noodle college diet. A more realistic estimate is at least around 3-4k</p>
<p>It’s also a matter of time vs money. Sure, you might get out of Chapman faster, but if you need to take out more money to do so, the time you spend in debt if you go to chapman on loans will take much more time to repay back than if you spend even 5 or 6 years at CSULB (although, realistically speaking, you’ll probably get out in four years.)</p>
<p>So, even if you spend 4k annually, you’d only be 16k in the whole after 4 yaers, compared with 64k at Chapman. I’d agree that you should see what your parents can afford, but i’m assuming (perhaps wrongly) that if money wasn’t an issue for you/your parents, this decision wouldn’t be either.</p>
<p>The CSULB President’s Scholarship is the only reason I applied to CSULB. It is for 4 years only. It offers a lot of benefits including priority registration - making 4 graduation a possibility. I had pretty much written off the CSULB President’s Scholarship since it was getting so close to the decision deadline with no response. Then I received my notice about being awarded the President’s scholarship on 4/20. If I accept, all forms and info must be postmarked by 4/24. They have given me only 4 days to make my decision, including just one day (Monday) to get any follow up questions answered. Yikes! It is also dependent on me being valedictorian. While this has been pretty much assumed by everyone at my school, I want confirmation from the school before I would accept. Otherwise, if they pull the scholarship, I will enrolled in CSULB without all the extras, and on a 6 year track where the cost will be more than Chapman in 4 years. From everyone I know, getting out of CSULB in less than 5 years is pretty difficult.</p>
<p>CSULB for 4 years = $59,000 (based on stated value of President’s Scholarship)
Add 2 more years to CSULB - at about $29,000 + original $59,000 = $88,000 total cost
Chapman for 4 years = about $76,000 (based on cost after Scholarships and Financial Aid)</p>
<p>Cost of Chapman is possible, but things will be tight for the next 4 years. I also was accepted to UCLA and LMU. Cost to attend UCLA is 40% of our net family income, LMU is almost 50%! The cost ruled both out.</p>
<p>PS: I did attend the Chapman Preview Day yesterday. If Chapman isn’t a better school than CSULB, they sure put on a way better presentation, are much more organized, and have much more student involvement. Overall, they seemed at a much higher level than CSULB.</p>
<p>when people talk about cost of attendence, they mainly mean it in regards to tuition. According to their own website CSULB (i’m assuming you’re instate) costs ~7k a year.</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“Financial Aid and Scholarships | California State University Long Beach”>Financial Aid and Scholarships | California State University Long Beach]Costs[/url</a>]</p>
<p>from your post, it seems like you’re misunderstanding your financial aid packages. You should really go talk to a financial aid counselor to discuss this. UCLA costs around 12k or so to attend. If that’s 40% of your family income, then your family income is 30k, in which case you qualify for blue and gold (and the calgrant) and won’t have to pay any tuition.</p>
<p>now, if you mean that the 30k or so cost of attendance is 40% of your family income, then that still means your family makes approximately 75k, still qualifying you for blue and gold (cap is at 80k if memory serves) meaning you won’t have to pay tuition.</p>
<p>my advice is go talk to a financial aid counselor ASAP. A few questions you might want to answer are:</p>
<p>Are you a California resident?</p>
<p>What is your family income?</p>
<p>Where in California do you live exactly?</p>
<p>OK, my facts are a bit off on UCLA, but so are yours.</p>
<p>Total cost to attend UCLA: $32,800 (includes dorm)
Total family income (gross) $81,000
Total financial aid package: $27,000 - all loans</p>