<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>Carleton and Macalester would also be exceptions.</p>
<p>Steve, I went to an instate public which gave me significant merit and financial aid. I was a top student though.</p>
<p>There are a lot of little colleges that have 100% of their students on financial aid and merit money on a lot of them too. I found a bunch of them like Concordia College and a few others in the mid west, also many catholic schools. If your student is in the upper percentiles of such school, there is a good chance of getting a nice aid package. As far as getting a bunch of full rides or close to full rides…ummm, no. You would have to apply to a bunch of these schools and like a lottery see what you get.</p>
<p>A friend of ours whose son was valedictorian of a small Christian school and had some respectable SAT scores went that route. He went to Southeastern U, and did net a nice award, but it was for about half the cost of the school, still leaving quite a bit to pay. He could have gone to a state U for the same price with a smaller award. </p>
<p>Momfromtexas pretty much went that route in looking for full ride scholarships for her kids. A lot of the schools have since stopped with the auto awards that are large amounts, but by using her search methodology, one can come up with some little known schools willing to discount heavily. </p>
<p>It’s a great way to come up with a list of schools at much lower than list prices. But getting full ride or close to it is still tough to do unless your kids’ numbers are good. </p>
<p>With my last son going to college, he did get full tuition award from a local school. He knows the school well as it 's close by and it does offer some nice merit money to local kids. It’s not a school that makes many lists, and frankly, I don’t know if I could recommend it to someone outside of the area, because it is very much a local, suitcase type school For my kids, it would be something familiar, with kids they know there and they share the same local hang outs. Would it be a good choice for someone from, say, Chicago? Ummmm. That’s a tough call. It does not have the amenities that schools that tend to have a sizeable population outside of the area does. </p>
<p>The other problem is that some of these schools are on shaky ground financially. They are accepting every warm body that applies, just about. I’ve seen a few schools that looked shaky to me close, and one was a bit too close for comfort. </p>
<p>Anyone looking for a pretty good tuition free school should consider Antioch. I believe they are waiving tuition for the next couple of years or so as they restructure. The school has a pretty solid infrastructure, fine professors and name recognition.</p>
<p>What about schools like Olin, Cooper, or Berea (KY)?</p>
<p>Many second-tier LACs are essentially buying talent: smart kids with good SAT scores go for half tuition or full ride, and the rest of the students have wealthy parents who will pay to put them in the company of those smart kids.</p>
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<p>Aries,</p>
<p>Copper Union just announced today that this is the last year that they will be offering free tuition. Starting Fall 2014 tuition will be ~ 20k</p>
<p>[Famed</a> free New York City college Cooper Union to begin charging tuition | 7online.com](<a href=“http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/new_york&id=9077473]Famed”>http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/new_york&id=9077473)</p>
<p>Ariees, those are tough schools to gain entry. I was going to suggest St Joseph’s in Philly, because a lot of kids at DS’s school have gotten some nice awards from there, but the cost still is up there, more than a SUNY certainly and if you need money, filling that gap would be tough, and they do NOT meet financial need for the most part.</p>
<p>But in doing so, I came up with [St</a>. Joseph’s College Tuition, Costs and Financial Aid - CollegeData College Profile](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg03_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=395]St”>http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg03_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=395) , voila St Joes’ in Indiana. The midwest counterpart to the Philly school. Look at the stats on that EVERYONE applies for financial aid and EVERYONE gets a merit award. Like the Concordia i found in the midwest, with same name as a school local to me. </p>
<p>So, a kid could do pretty well there. But when you look at the avg SAT1 scores, the AVG is below 500. with an avg ACT of 22 and range of 19-24. You can look at admissions numbers of the school by clicking on that part on the top of the page as my ref is for the fin aid part.</p>
<p>So, that would be a school to give it the old try. If your kid has an ACT in the high 20s, he’d probably get close to a full ride there. I’m sure the school has as strong community infrastructure and is known in the area. How someone coming from elsewhere would feel going there, I don’t know. But you might not be able to beat the price.</p>
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<p>you did not answer the question that Romai asked</p>
<p>she has already stated</p>
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<p>Creighton, with a sticker price of $42k is not giving straight up 42k in need based aid to a kid with a 0 EFC (pell grant) with 18% pell grant recipients, the net price for low income student (0-30K) is ~18k a year. A kid at the top of the appl pool may end up getting their big 25k scholarship along with 5625 Pell , a 5500 loan , perhaps some perkins and some SEOG money (if the school has it), but a full ride, not.</p>
<p>I put in some random numbers for one of the schools SteveMa mentioned-St. Olaf. 50,000 income for family of 4,low assets, 26 ACT. It showed the student still needed to come up with over $13,000 dollars plus do about 7000 worth of work study and Staffords. So, still would need to come up with about 20,000 for an essentially $50,000 private education.</p>
<p>I guess I wouldn’t say $50,000 is low income, not in the mid west–try 30K…and no assets–people in the low income brackets don’t have assets or savings accounts…</p>
<p>As for loans–sorry, if you are low income and need a full FA package, loans will be a part of it.</p>
<p>sybbie719–merit aid is going to be part of the package----most of these schools give automatic merit aid</p>
<p>sybbie: I saw that article this morning, but it said that the school is offering sliding-scale aid. Sayeth the NYT:
I assumed that low-income students would still be paying very little - perhaps ten thousand a year at most.</p>
<p>Creighton, StOlaf and Gustavus are all very good schools and getting some good merit money from them is no easy task. I don’t think any of them fully meet need. Creighton certainly does not. And their biggest merit award still leaves a lot to pay. There is someone on the board who is trying to decide between Creighton and UNeb, and really, it’s not even close financially, and he did get a nice award there. The school is not one that I would target without having a very strong student. </p>
<p>Now at Concordia or St Joes’s, there might be some opportunities, and I don’t know about the other schools that SteMA has listed. Truman has fixed parameters, I believe iand is on our list of schools that give some guaranteed merit.</p>
<p>I think your methodology would work, SteveMA, if someone were to go through a number of schools, but it’s certainly no guarantee. I think it’s sort of what Momfromtexas was doing. If you can write up the steps of your search process, it would be valuable info, more so than the list of schools, because I don’t think the schools themselves are such that they meet full need to everyone though they may give everyone something. You have to trial and error a bunch of schools after targeting them and then picking those where the odds are the best for getting good merit/aid packages. Still a lottery, but one with far greater odds than doing the same with schools with the three big Rs of Rating, Recognition, Reputation.</p>
<p>As Sevmom showed, a NYer would still do better at a SUNY at nearly any income range than fooling around with St Olaf, which is I repeat, a competitive school, selective school, very good school, and hardly one that is a slam dunk for admissions,</p>
<p>Aries, the problem with Cooper Union has always been getting accepted. That is not an easy school to gain acceptance. Those who can get in there, often have a number of admissions choices, and can get some nice merit.</p>
<p>While everyone is “considered” for Creighton’s big $ scholarship (25k) the recipients of the scholarship comes from within the top 10% of the applicant pool. Again the question was need based aid, not need based and merit. So even the low income kid at the top of the pool who gets merit will still be gapped</p>
<p>ariesathena–I believe that students at Cooper Union have to pay their own R&B. Tuition had always been free, but students were responsible for other costs, and I expect that will not change. Not insignificant in Manhattan, unless parents live w/in commuting range. Now, I do not know if there was or will continue to be FA for the R&B.</p>
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Why it is a social problem if a not-bright, not-motivated, low-income kid cannot go to college for very little money? It is a social problem if talented and industrious working-class kids lack opportunities. If rich people want to throw their money away, sending none-to-bright Muffy and Farnsworth to party for four years and earn a degree, well, rich people have money to fling around that other people don’t have. But if you aren’t smart nor exceptionally motivated, aren’t you just aping the customs of the upper class and then getting your panties in a wad when someone else doesn’t finance it?</p>
<p>(Yes, I understand that there is a whole big long stretch of territory between kids who can get into Olin and those who are "not bright’, but I do think that most of the assumption here is that mediocre kids from working class families should be able to act like mediocre kids from very wealthy families - and have someone else pick up the tab. It’s not an assumption with which I agree.)</p>
<p>SteveMa, I would imagine $50,000 for a family of 4 in Ma would be tough. I changed the NPC for St. Olaf to $30,000 with no assets and the kid still would have to come up with over $10,000 from their own money + work study + loans. For a family of 4 making only $30,000, that would be tough. When you add in increased travel costs for someone coming from New England, seems VERY tough.</p>
<p>I know what you mean, Aries. My best student of the bunch has lousy test scores. Yes, we worked with him and they still did not go up much. Mini’s second daughter had unimpressive test scores too. But I would hardly categorize either student as “not bright”. Both are doing very well (mini’s is quite the super star!) , but I can tell you right now that they getting into a school like Olin or Cooper Union would be a high reach. Getting merit money for kids in that category is tough, though they will often do very well in college. A lot of school, name brand even put down some nice bids for my 3.0 with nearly perfect SAT scores. Not so for the kid who could barely crack 1500. Even getting into a school where those scores mark the bottom 25 % is tough. Whether he would get a full ride even at s school like St Joseph’s in Indiana is questionable as he would be just about flat out average there. In fact their accept rate is really not a given, if you look at it. You gotta get in to have a crack at the merit. When that 's even an issue, thinking full ride or full tution or half of what the state schools would cost is rather presumptuous.</p>
<p>SteveMa, your students probably had stats in the upper echelons of the schools where they got the nice merit money.</p>
<p>romanigypsyeyes–so, low income,first generation students can’t be top students? </p>
<p>sally305–both Mac and Carleton are very generous with financial aid…</p>