How can we make it happen for our children to go to Penn State PU…
What a great discussion! My daughter (Smeal-UP, RD, accepted 1/22) and I are still waiting for the financial aid award letter. How long does it normally take to receive it?
Maybe we can help each other by sharing scholarship information. My daughter’s HS counselor provides a list every week, and I am searching constantly.
@dygibbs I spoke to a really nice lady in financial aid office, she said it should start rolling out in March, then I was told it is done electronically. So no human looks at it. I am so scared, I don’t know if I can’t afford to send my son since we are out of state. My son has applied to lot of scholarships, but have not heard I think it is still early. Also Penn State has too many students and not enough finically aid to give out, they are trying to build their endowment but it will not be done probably for years. I am scared that my son won’t be able to go here. He also got into Commonwealth Honors College at UMASS. And he received a really good scholarship and financial aid. But Penn is his top choice.
Let me in box you our list of scholarships to apply for…
$1.8 billion
2016 ENDOWMENT
I don’t understand, I was told that Penn State is trying to build their endowment looked this up and this is what there is $1.8 Billion, and kids can’t get fair share of finically aid? I am confused.
The interest from the endowment pays for a great many things regarding academics, and not all of it is scholarships. As an oos family, you should expect minimal aid and most of that “aid” will be loans, not scholarships. Penn State (never, ever, “Penn” ) is notorious for small amounts of aid spread over their enormous student population, and gets only a tiny part of their funding from the state.
some students, certainly, will get scholarships and assistance. But that is very much the exception and not the rule. Even the high achievers at Schreyer and For The Glory do not get full rides.
For the glory students get $4,000 and Schreyer students get $5,000. I think those are the biggest awards and are rare (about 1% students??)
Most financial aid comes form the colleges themselves. When a public college can’t or won’t provide financial aid for OOS it’s often because OOS applicants are admitted to be full pay while state residents get a discount, but that’s not even the case with Penn State since it’s not a true state school (it’s state related, only about 5% budget comes from the state - think of the contract colleges in NYS). I’m puzzled as to how they can be on Coalition app since that’s supposed to show a commitment to financial aid.
I have experienced Penn State’s financial aid assistance from when my son was accepted in 2014. We’re in-state, and with the package, I still couldn’t afford it. Penn State is my daughter’s first choice, so I pray that her financial aid package is better, along with her receiving additional funds from scholarships, Penn State and/or non-Penn State.
PU???
Penn State at $45,000 (tuition and room and board) per year (and not including books, travel, personal/miscellany) is unfortunately just not an affordable option for most donut hole (ie., middle class/upper mid class) families that do not qualify for need-based aid. Its why none of my kids even bothered to apply and why not more than 1 or 2 students from our out-of-state (OOS) high school choose to attend there. Ohio State, UMass, FSU, Pitt, Vermont, Delaware, Alabama-Tuscaloosa, Arizona, ASU, are just some of the other public universities that offer much better merit aid for OOS applicants and offer a lot of the same ‘full college’ experience with Division 1 sports and top-notch academics and greek life that Penn State has. You will find that many private colleges are more generous in providing need-based aid plus merit aid that make the cost of attendance the same or less than Penn State.
D was accepted to the UPitt @ Bradford, and with her financial aid, her unmet need is $3K, which is affordable. She is waiting to hear from UVM.
@trackmbe3 It’s not just OOS donut hole families that can’t afford Penn State. PSU isn’t affordable even for those instate students who do have need, as Penn State’s need-based institutional aid is as rare as merit aid. Even with eligibility for maximum Pell Grant and maximum state grant, net price for $0 EFC families is over $20,000 a year. This is why I wouldn’t allow my daughter to apply to Penn State, knowing we’d never be able to afford it.
@gygibbs good for her, yeh for us I think Penn State is out.
@TomSrOfBoston Transposed letters…clearly they meant Penn State UP - as in University Park campus.
@dygibbs Has your daughter visited Pitt Bradford? There are only 1500 students and a very rural area. Nothing like Pitt itself or certainly Penn State or even most Penn State commonwealth campuses (PSU Altoona has almost 5k students). Pitt Bradford would be a very different experience than any of the schools she has been accepted to.
As far as financial aid…I have two kids at Penn State and neither got any aid whatsoever - but that was expected as we do not qualify for any need based aid, even with two in college. We are able to pay outright for their first 2 years, but they will have to get loans for their last two years. Since we own a rental house in State College, their last two years housing is “free” so they just get loans for tuition. In our case this was doable and the loans ended up being comparable to other cheaper in state schools where they would have had to pay housing. You have to look at it all.
Penn State notoriously does not give much need based aid. My niece is at UP with the college of Agriculture and she’s made dean’s list every semester and THEY grant her a scholarship every semester. It’s not a tremendous amount but it helps. Still - it’s merit based - not need based. The different colleges themselves have scholarship money to distribute.
Sorry couldn’t go back to edit it …or there is no way to edited it? Meant UP…University Park.
@TomSrOfBoston. She applied to UPitt-Main, with Bradford as her second choice, and was offered Bradford. One of the reasons why she applied to Penn State because she attends a charter school that makes her eligible for the Brook Lenfest Scholarship that covers a significant portion of need based aid. She is also an Affinity Partners Program at her school, a program where they have a collaboration with colleges such as UVM and UVA, to provide financial need-based aid.
Along with UPitt-Bradford and Penn State-UP, she was also accepted to Bloomsburg, Mansfield, and SUNY@Albany.
Waiting to hear from UVM, UVA, Franklin and Marshall (under the Affinity Partners Program), and Temple. If she is accepted at Temple, then she can receive dependent tuition remission for up to 6 credits a semester (I am a Temple Health employee), and apply for the Fly in Four, a $4000/year grant given to a number of freshmen students to help them graduate in 4 years and to limit student-loan debt.
My son applied to Penn State as an OOS student a few years ago. After running their NPC we suspected it would be too much of a stretch for us, and it was. When considering the limited aid they give, which is understandable for OOS students, I can see why in state families might refer to it as “PU.”
I think Penn State ends up being unaffordable for a lot of families. Does your child have affordable safeties lined up in case finances there don’t work out?
Yes my son does, thank god, also Umass Amherst gave really good scholarships to out of state students from what I saw on the posts, $14,000 per year for out of state is really good…now we are just going to wait to hear from Northeastern.
Are Provost Awards something new? As I noted in another thread I thought only Schreyer students got merit aid but my daughter who did not apply to Schreyer received a letter today offering her $4k per year. We are in state but Penn State tuition is high compared to other state’s flagships for their in-State students so every little bit helps.
Provost Awards have apparently been around since 2012. The website says they are granted to less than 15% of incoming freshmen.
Merit options I know of include: Provost, Schreyer, departmental, and special programs like Millennium Scholars.