Maybe because I’m from Philly, WVU isn’t as much on my radar, @Bestfriendsgirl, but it’s good to know of another state flagship that’s a good value with strong appeal for OOS students.
Kids in our area tend to choose PASSHE schools or take the merit money/tuition discounting from one of the privates (especially the many Roman Catholic ones) in the area if they don’t get into or can’t afford Penn State or they don’t want to go to school in North Philly (where Temple is located). And Temple has gotten a LOT more selective too as they develop more of a national reputation (the purpose, no doubt, of those big merit awards). I’ve been shocked at the kids who’ve been rejected from Temple. They often end up at West Chester, bumping a lot of students out of what used to be a sure thing there. UDel also lures some students in our area with merit money, putting it closer in price to Penn State, which is appealing to kids who don’t want to go as far away to school (or to as huge a school) for a “flagship experience.” UMD is another popular choice.
@mommdc, what percentage of Pitt students receive that full-tuition award these days, do you know? I know that not that long ago Pitt was known for spreading around some very generous merit scholarships, but when my HS Class of 2014 son was looking at colleges, the word was that the big Pitt merit money was becoming very hard to come by and frequently went to high-stats OOS students. I know kids from that class wait-listed at Ivies who only received small merit awards from Pitt. Pitt is harder to read at this point.
And, yes, Pitt and Penn State have branch campuses too. I can’t speak for Pitt, but Penn State’s are very expensive for for the quality of the education, but if you want to be assured two years in State College, that’s the route you have to go. The community college system will not guarantee you entrance into Penn State or that you can get out in two years after getting an associate’s degree.
If I recall correctly I got 5k in merit at Pitt, with 2330/2350 superscore, 4.0 UW/4.5 W. Schreyer gave me about as much money as Pitt did, plus an engineering scholarship that made PSU comparable in price.
I feel like I say “don’t go to PSU, you can’t afford it based on what you’ve said here” way more often than I do “We Are.”
@Gator88NE, do you know if those figures represent the average tuition charged of if that is the advertised price for freshmen? If you go through tuition charges for Temple and Penn State there are some big up-charges for some majors and increases once you get beyond a certain number of credit hours. And of course there are all the extra “fees” charged.
I agree on the privates. I’d be interested to see these numbers with only public schools included and if that made any difference.
However, the report in the OP isn’t about affordability in general, it’s about affordability for poor and middle income families specifically. So average tuition-fees doesn’t mean as much there. If you earn $25K a year the fact that one state is $15K vs $30k is meaningless - you can’t afford it anyway.
My kids attended a 2-years school in New York and I paid much much less than the Net Price in the report. This report must be including Room & Board in all Net Price calculations.
@LucieTheLakie That’s based on survey data that the college board collects from colleges (The College Board, Annual Survey of Colleges). It’s accurate, but doesn’t reflect up charges for majors and such.
@LucieTheLakie, when my D (HS grad '15) got her merit letter it said that 2% of applicants (so about 600 if you figure 30,000 applicants) were awarded full tuition. Of course that includes OOS students.
It does seem to depend on major within Pitt. Engineering instate students even with very high stats reported that they got $10,000 or $5,000 merit. When OOS students reported receiving full tuition with similar stats, but of course they also pay about $10k more for OOS tuition.
My D applied to Arts and Sciences. So not sure if it’s easier to get merit there.
The University of Maine has announced it will charge in-state tuition rates to students from other New England states. Their OOS acceptance rate went up 22% over last year! It will bring in some badly needed revenue for the state college system.
For schools with a substantial commuter population, do the numbers include a weighted average of commuter and non-commuter costs? Living with parents and commuting, while it does cost non-zero amounts of money, typically costs less than living on one’s own at the school, so living with parents and commuting is commonly used as a cost-saving measure.
The locations of public universities and community colleges relative to where the population lives can affect affordability due to the possibility or not of commuting. Obviously, those who live in sparsely populated areas are less likely to be in commute range of any college, and colleges in sparsely populated areas offer the commuter option to fewer possible students. Also, if the only school in commute range is a highly selective state flagship, nearby students who are not top-end students may have to spend room and board to attend college elsewhere because they could not get into the nearby highly selective state flagship.
Yes, it is a weighted average. Below is how they come up with Average Net Price.
The above is from College Navigator, which uses the same source of data as this report.
Edit: see the following link for an example of total expenses living off campus vs. total expenses living with Family ($16,600 vs. $8,340) at a Florida CC (“State College”):
Re: Pitt merit. Money definitely depends upon the major. My in-state DD engineering major is 4.3/34 ACT/#1 in her class and received $5,000 merit. We appealed and was not granted any more money. Similar stats seems to have the same result - at least within the Swanson School of Engineering. The bigger awards appeared to go to either non-engineering or OOS.
Re: Temple. What used to be a clear safety is becoming fairly selective. This year, the admissions office had a record of 35,000+ applications. The trend does not appear to be slowing as long as they continue the automatic merit scholarships. They are also test optional and on the Common App.
@LucieTheLakie - I saw that you mentioned UMD. The merit money at UMD for OOS is nearly non-existent. They appear to be the opposite of Pitt. While they do offer large scholarships, the vast majority of the scholarship winners are in-state students. It is also another school where your major can hurt your chances at money. Their engineering program is intensively competitive.
^^ That’s interesting about UMD, @PhilaSkiMom. I don’t know how families afford some of these out-of-state schools. Maybe they’re comparing them to pricey privates where they’re not eligible for need-based aid?
@Gator88NE : the problem is that originally Bright Futures was supposed to cover full tuition, more or less, for all students who qualified for the 4-year university system. Tuition is kept quite low though, half to a third of other states, so middle class families should find it affordable outright. With Pell and original BF, same for lower income students.
However, funds to BF were cut and the bar raised (especially for 'commended ’ act scores) to the point that fewer than 20% instate residents qualify.
So, more students qualified for 4-years but unable to afford them, applied to the special access programs like fsu care, or UFirst at USF . These funds were cut too and of course with more applications it’s more competitive there too, so that more lower income students are left to fend for themselves. ‘bright futures’ as a scholarship program supposedly for all Floridians becomes a sad joke for them.
Based on the comparison between CA and NY, it appears they include Private school to illustrate how well the publics are doing. Meaning, CA gets good scores because the percentage of students attending privates is so low. This is ostensibly because CA provides high quality, affordable education in its publics. CA is also scoring high because so many of its students use the robust Community College system to transfer to 4 year schools.
We are in PA and my DS will be going to IU- Kelley school of business- is higher ranked and with merit money, cheaper than Penn State. (Though he did turn down full tuition at Temple).
We keep hearing that the highest ranked, best attended directional- West Chester- is trying to change their status to state affiliated so they can charge the higher tuition.
Possibly following the model of The College of New Jersey (formerly Trenton State College) - turn West Chester into a selective public LAC, charge more tuition and pretend to be on par with the state flagship - it works for TCNJ, so why not? None of this serves the population that these colleges were originally created for. But we always have the NY Times to suggest the optimal solution - again, just today: admit more Pell Grant students to the Top 25 universities. The comments section was quite illuminating, however.