I got into both CU Boulder College of Music and Indiana’s Jacobs School of music and was wondering what you guys would recommend.
CU Boulder College of Music
Got in for double major in composition and double bass performance
No scholarship
Lots of grant based financial aid + In state tuition
Much cheaper than IU
IU Jacobs School of Music
Top Choice
Only got in for composition (double bass not too big of a deal)
30% of tuition scholarship
work-study, but no grants
Much more expensive than CU, but I am a lot more interested, and liked the faculty as well as the campus much more.
Any advice? I don’t know if it is worth it to take out loans for IU, or go to the cheaper in-state option.
My advice is to not take out loans, go to Boulder, and then go to Indiana for grad school, probably for free. Spend the extra money on summer festivals.
Ditto. Look for the right fit (as opposed to a dream school). And right fit does include a financial fit. Good luck. There could be worse choices than hanging around Pearl Street. I love Boulder! And the Music School has a good reputation.
You also get to do performance at CU Boulder, if that has some importance to you.
UPDATE: I filed an appeal for more aid at IU and received enough aid to make it equal price to Boulder. Probably should have waited to make this post until after I got that info.
Congrats! So you’ve decided to go to IU or are you still thinking?
Still thinking, I dug up some fees that I didn’t see before that makes IU more expensive again. My current teacher is also a CU professor, so I’m feeling a bit of pressure (prof. is not intentionally pressuring, I just don’t want to disappoint him) on that front.
You sounded much more excited about IU, at least as first. Have you talked this over with your current teacher?
I went back and looked at my spreadsheet from my D’s last year at IU (2014-2015). The Jacobs fee was $980 per semester. The other university fees were $650 per semester. These fees are of course outside tuition.
Her first year at IU was the most expensive bc of the meal plan. If you (or anyone) goes to IU, you should consider the CHEAPEST meal plan and add on as needed during the year. Things may have changed. So do your own calculations but this was often the suggestion and made financial sense when she entered IU in 2011.
Dorm charges seemed reasonable unless you want one of the fancy dorms. Most students live off campus second year and that lowered her costs and basically covered the tuition increase for her second year. Being a girl, I wanted her closer to campus. But I know some guys who were living pretty cheaply there.
IU did do a tuition freeze for the 3rd and 4th year if you were on track to graduate in 4 years (may want to check if that is still a policy). Fees were not frozen however. So my D’s costs held very steady for 4 years. I had built in originally a 6% increase so that money ended up going to summer programs (never back to me haha).
Remember that travel costs money as well. Indy is not cheap city to fly too if needed. Bloomington is a fairly cheap place for students to live, eat and entertain themselves.
Be sure to look carefully at your budget. If it works, great! If not, many IU performances are on-line. You can keep an eye on what students there are doing while studying somewhere more affordable. You can also perhaps afford summer programs and mix with kids of various schools to test yourself. And you can gun for IU or another school for graduate school when they may give more money. If you have a good teacher this is all possible. In the end, it is really up to you, your work ethic and how clever/creative you can be in any situation.
Hope this helps in some way.
I have, he is understanding. It’s mostly my parents, they want me to go to in state for my Undergrad. I understand that.
StringContrabass, which school has the teacher you want to spend the next four years with? That’s what should be driving the decision if the financials match up. Our son toiled away at a lesser known program, but was able to learn from one of the best. He added in top level summer festivals and practiced super hard…for graduate school he got into all of his dream schools, with nice packages.