Ten years ago I thought my kids would go to Penn State. Found out the higher ranked private colleges were cheaper because of financial aid.
I agree that NYS ’ ranking is strange, especially since there’s TAP, EOP, AND HEOP.
@austinmshauri Agree with you on NYS affordability. If the study were based solely on “percent of annual income to pay for full-time attendance,” at 18% New York would be in the top 5 most affordable.
For reference, most affordable Alaska is 19%, least affordable New Hampshire is 64%.
@LucieTheLakie - another OOS public in a state with its own low rating? Just south of Pittsburgh? Where Couch-Burning 101 is a required course and the president is a known religious bigot?
@Bestfriendsgirl, sorry, I’m not following. Is that WVU you’re referring to?
I was referring to schools like the University of Alabama, where my son attends tuition-free (plus a stipend) while low-income students in that state often find it out of reach unless they have high stats too.
That’s what I meant by “musical chairs” – high-stats students from CA, IL, PA and other states flee for merit money at schools like Alabama, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, etc., because those schools will essentially pay them for their stats. I can’t speak for the other schools, but need-based aid for less academically competitive Alabamians is pretty terrible, so they go elsewhere in the state or nowhere at all, I guess.
And, of course, many of these southern schools are also recruiting full-pay OOS students, because even at full pay, they’re still cheaper than a lot of their own in-state publics if they’re going to need five years to graduate at their state’s flagship. Or, having been shut out of the flagships (because they’re filling their seats with full-pay OOS and international students) the only in-state options are no better than those southern flagships. Why not go elsewhere and get all the bells and whistles offered at most flagships and get to experience a different part of the country at the same time?
Why is NYS ranked only 39th?
http://www.gse.upenn.edu/pdf/irhe/affordability_diagnosis/New_York_Affordability2016.pdf
To be honest, when I look at the details, I don’t see why it would be ranked 39th… It looks fairly “affordable”, and the rankings by category (Public Two-year, Public 4-year, Private…etc.) are no higher than 31.
Even though Colorado is #31 on that list it doesn’t tell the whole story about us:
http://www.collegian.com/2013/03/colorado-ranks-last-for-higher-education-funding-per-student/26607
The public 4-year schools here have become ridiculously expensive: just in tuition/fees it’s almost $18,000-$20,000 at CSM and $15,000 for CU-Boulder. Now granted that’s for their engineering programs so they charge a premium for them but still the COA for engineering students is $31k+ and with small aid!!! The only reason Colorado isn’t lower on that list is the cost as a percentage of income… That is deceiving when we have a lot of really well off people here while people like me who are middle class and had no college savings beginning the college search had to look OOS for schools… And ironically Alabama had more affordable options with merit aid than Colorado. Oh well. So much for weed money reviving higher Ed here like they said it would back in 2012…
New York is interesting.
Ohio, ranked 45, puts in $96 dollars per student per year. NY is more than 10x that.
And yet:
I guess it’s high cost to start with that makes the difference?
I suspect a lot of states will push back on this report and that there will be revisions made, but I think it’s great that Penn, Vandy, et. al., have done so much of the legwork to put some numbers behind the near-universal (rightful) bitching and moaning that goes on in most states by frustrated students and families.
When I noticed they had Florida ranked 30th, I started to look into the details. Florida has one of the lowest tuition rates (about $6K a year at each of it’s 12 state universities), low cost of living, and each year they award Bright Future (merit based) scholarships to over 100,000 students.
I still haven’t figured out why it’s 30th…
Florida is getting dinged for it’s high poverty rate? and it seems to be getting dinged for it’s low need-based aid, but not credited (much if at all) for it’s wide spread merit based aid.
Florida’s “state public four year nondoctoral institutions” are local CC’s that have started to offer a few BS programs (and then renamed themselves “state colleges”). Almost 100% of the students are commuters (like a normal CC). For that reason, Florida’s Public 2-year institution cost is only slightly lower (by income range) than it’s four year nondoctoral institution. It’s not accurate to compare Florida’s “state public four year nondoctoral institutions” with, for example, California’s state university system.
The numbers are interesting, but the rankings are questionable.
Re: New York
Comparing New York with California:
http://www.gse.upenn.edu/pdf/irhe/affordability_diagnosis/New_York_Affordability2016.pdf
http://www.gse.upenn.edu/pdf/irhe/affordability_diagnosis/California_Affordability2016.pdf
Note: Net price % of income is for the income ranges 0-30/30-48/48-75/75-110/110+ in thousands of dollars.
Public two year:
State NY CA
% of enrollment 34 64
Net price % of income 33/19/17/14/6 33/17/14/11/6
Public four year non-doctoral:
State NY CA
% of enrollment 22 18
Net price % of income 40/23/22/18/8 36/20/19/18/9
Public research:
State NY CA
% of enrollment 7 10
Net price % of income 60/32/29/22/10 52/26/22/23/14
Private four year non-doctoral:
State NY CA
% of enrollment 24 5
Net price % of income 107/50/37/28/15 130/59/42/32/18
Private research:
State NY CA
% of enrollment 13 3
Net price % of income 125/56/44/35/20 98/46/36/32/20
New York is not much worse than California in terms of affordability of its public schools. However, the distribution of students into various types of schools is greatly different. Very large numbers of students in California attend community colleges, and it is common for them to use the community colleges as the start of a transfer pathway to the public four year schools. It appears that New York students are less likely to take this low cost route, and are also much more likely to choose private schools that are significantly more expensive (remember, most private schools are not like Columbia or Stanford in terms of financial aid).
For those in New York, is the transfer pathway starting at community college and finishing a bachelor’s degree at a SUNY considered a good or acceptable route to a bachelor’s degree?
@Gator88NE I’m guessing merit probably goes to wealthier students, for the most part.
^^ I think that’s right.
@OHMomof2 Sure, to a degree, but, as of a few years ago, over 50% was going to students who families income was less than $60K a year (32% to families with incomes less than $20K a year).
Using 2009-10 data (all I could dig up).
Income Level/% Bright Futures Recipients/Average family income
Less than $20K/32.8%/ $9,073
$20K-$40K/ 11.2%/ $29,307
$40K-$60K/ 9.1%/ $49,871
$60K-$80K/ 8.7%/ $70,014
$80K-$100K/ 8.6%/ $89,872
$100K-$150K/ 15.1%/ $121,815
$150K+/ 14.5%/ $350,604
Almost 1/3 are being awarded to families with incomes over $100K, but that’s the nature of merit based aid.
“For those in New York, is the transfer pathway starting at community college and finishing a bachelor’s degree at a SUNY considered a good or acceptable route to a bachelor’s degree?”
In short, yes. Students that transfer from a CC to a SUNY have proven that they can succeed in a college academic setting. They are, more likely than not, motivated to earn their degree. Although I don’t have the data, I would bet that transfer students have a comparatively high (4-6 year) graduation rate.
In the end, their degree is from a SUNY school and they’ve probably saved alot of money along the way.
I guess it isn’t enough to bump the ranking @Gator88NE .
Here’s the overview and purpose of the report: http://www2.gse.upenn.edu/irhe/sites/gse.upenn.edu.irhe/files/Natl_Affordability2016.pdf
@LucieTheLakie - of course I’m referring to WVU - safety school to the nation and a Mecca for kids from high-cost, low-aid states like PA and NJ, not to mention full-pay students nationwide who can’t get into their own state flagships. If it weren’t for OOS kids, it would be less than half its size and a lot of people in the Morgantown area would be starving to death. I saw where West Virginia was ranked #9 and I was surprised it wasn’t higher. In-state tuition, room and board at out state schools comes to around $15 - 18,000 per year. S1 graduated from Marshall University in 2014. He received our PROMISE scholarship, as well as departmental scholarships and grants, and pretty much put himself through school. He does have some debt, but not the crippling kind you read about on CC. None of our state schools are tippy-top, but kids do get a decent education at a reasonable price and tend to do quite well.
Ok, it is not true that instate students aren’t getting merit at Pitt. It’s not automatic like Temple. But we are instate and my D got full tuition. Not sure if it was based on the fact that she is first generation, we live in “the middle of nowhere” as some people called rural PA, or solely on her grades and scores.
Pitt also gives out some institutional aid to low EFC students. We did not qualify so not sure what the EFC cutoff is.
I do agree that we could not afford Pitt or Penn State without merit.
The reason why there are branch campuses of Pitt and Penn State scattered throughout PA and also the 14 PASSHE schools is so that they are more accessible to students in those areas.
From what I have heard the PASSHE schools have good business, nursing, teaching programs, they are comparable in selectivity to the PSU and Pitt branches. Yes I do think that some programs there have been discontinued because there wasn’t enough interest.
^clarifying that we could not afford the main campus of Pitt or Penn State without merit.
Lots of different ways to peel the onion, when it comes to affordability. The researchers at UPenn and Vanderbilt included Private institutions in their analysis, but I’m not sure it’s the state’s role to help make Privates more affordable. Here’s another list…compare it to the one done in this report.
WY $4,890
MT $6,350
NM $6,350
FL $6,360
UT $6,360
AK $6,570
NV $6,670
ID $6,820
NC $6,970
MS $7,150
WV $7,170
OK $7,450
NE $7,610
NY $7,640
ND $7,690
AR $7,870
LA $7,870
IA $7,880
SD $8,050
GA $8,450
KS $8,530
MO $8,560
WI $8,820
IN $9,120
TX $9,120
MD $9,160
TN $9,260
CA $9,270
OR $9,370
US $9,410
ME $9,570
KY $9,570
AL $9,750
CO $9,750
HI $10,170
OH $10,200
WA $10,290
AZ $10,650
MN $10,830
RI $11,390
CT $11,400
MA $11,590
DE $11,680
SC $11,820
VA $11,820
MI $11,990
IL $13,190
NJ $13,300
PA $13,390
VT $14,990
NH $15,160