Full Ride to a State School or Paying for an Ivy?

Any help from students or parents would be appreciated I am struggling here.

I am a parent with a great son. He has been accepted to University of Denver, University of Vermont, and Santa Clara. We residents of Vermont. Santa Clara offered no Merit scholarship but Denver offered a ton of money and UVM offered a merit scholarship also. We are waiting on Bates, American, Northeastern,Occidental, Con College,Trinity.

I am of the mind set(not being very well educated but have a successful landscaping business) that University of Denver and University of Vermont are 2 great places to study Economics/Political science and he can get just as good of an education at these schools, and i could afford to pay for entire bill. Is it really worth the money, if he gets accepted, to go to Bates, Northeastern or Occidental and is not offered any scholarship money.

You’re right about hypothetical students (I won’t stone!), so here’s what I know about a full ride at one public university. The Morehead-Cain Scholarship at UNC (full ride, plus summer work experiences, plus more) is quite prestigious. It is typical for students who become Morehead-Cain scholars to have been accepted at “elite” private universities. I’ve met Moreheads who turned down admissions offers from Stanford and Harvard to attend UNC. At least some of these students were offered substantial financial assistance from the private universities.

@‌Lookinghard, I recommend you start your own thread for input on your specific questions. People will start mixing up answers to you with the OP.

how ?

@Lookinghard‌ go to the forum where this thread is located (“College Search & Selection” – you can follow the link at the bottom of this page) and start a “New Discussion” at the top of the page. It’s pretty easy and I’m sure you’ll get more advice that way.

Thanks I have figured it out ty

D1 summarily dismissed her (more than free ride, actually ) state flagship offer mostly for social reasons.
She did not share the values of most of the kids (or their parents, for that matter) she went to public school with there: intellectual, political, religious, …, and a large chunk of those kids went to the flagship.
She did not get on well with them while at school, and did not wish to continue the association into college.
She wanted to get out of the state, to an environment where more people shared more of her values, and never see those people from her old school again.

I wistfully looked at all those $$ floating away, but I also had to agree that the odds favored that she might well be miserable there.

If everything worked right there she would have done just fine for herself going to the flagship,
As a top student there, with special honors this and that, etc.

On the other hand it would be possible for it not to work out just right. It’s possible her grades wouldn’t stand out as much as one might hope. E.g., If she got marked down for not doing busywork (she hates that), if the tests were too easy so many people got the same result but one could get marked down for a careless error; arbitrary grading from a dumb TA who didn’t understand her paper, etc. Or in this case, if she were to become depressed due to social ostracization, and didn’t do her best work for that reason.

It depends on the particular kid and the particular school. I don’t think we made the wrong decision at the time, based on the realities, perceptions. and her attitudes towards them. But that extra $ would really help now.

Last year my D accepted the offer of our in-state flagship research university and honors college with a very generous merit scholarship. We are a two-earner income household with one child and would have been “full pay” at any university D chose to attend. D is excited about her choice of school–a member of the B1G conference. (Although, she plays violin not sports!) Her reasons for turning down one Ivy, three of the CC top 20 universities and one other “safety”–she wanted to stay closer to home, she’ll graduate without debt, the university has her majors (double major in biochemistry and environmental science), she believes the academic environment for science majors at the university is competitive but not toxic for her (currently, her GPA exceeds requirements for many summer internship or research programs), and she has minimum gen ed requirements to fulfill because of AP credits.

So do the majority on this thread think that flagship public schools with merit scholarships is a better deal than paying for Ivy?

@voiceofreason66 Depends on what state flagship and what the family can afford.

There are no absolutes as you state.

I think the state schools with solid honors programs tips the scales in their favor. Only a fool would go into massive debt at an Ivy. If your student was good enough to get into an Ivy, then I think they’re stellar enough to go far in life and their career. Now if you have the cash and a stellar student ID go the Ivy route. Sure I want a Lamborghini but if someone offered me a Porsche rather than paying for a Lamborghini wouldn’t you take the Porsche?

Depends on many factors: relative opportunities & student body at both schools, goals, family circumstances, amount of merit money, personal aspects, etc.

So I agree with @tomofboston: you can’t make any absolute statements.

For instance, a pre-med or PhD hopeful who would need to take out major loans for a top private and is self-disciplined and can block out the distractions/temptations at most big state flagships can do just as well or better by taking advantage of the research opportunities in some public honors colleges.

A kid who is aiming for Wall Street, comes from a family who can’t afford a top private, and likes to have fun (and may not be self-disciplined enough to keep his/her grades up if he/she fall in with kids who don’t care about academics) likely is better off at a Street target than an average state school.

Plus which, depending on the major, the department may matter more than whether there is an honors college or not. For example, if you ignore cost, if I was a CS major, I’d take non-honors CS at UIUC over Barrett at ASU any day.

The topic question (and variations) gets asked a LOT on College Confidential.

I’d like to know how many students actually face the choice between paying full sticker for an Ivy vs. paying nothing at all for a state school. I suspect that number is fairly small. Roughly half of all Ivy students receive need-based aid. The average need-based scholarship/grant award at Brown (to take one example) is over $40K/year. For the ~half of all Ivy students who receive no need-based aid, how many would have received a “full ride” scholarship at a state school?

@tk21769, if it’s a full tuition scholarship, many. I’m not sure why you think that the number is small. You just need high test scores to get a full tuition scholarship to 'Bama/Temple (which many admits to Ivies/equivalents have) or be NMS to get a full tuition scholarship to 'Bama/OU/ASU/'Zona/UNL, which many admits to Ivies/equivalents are.

And those are just some of the more advertised scholarship programs. Just off the top of my head, a kid who is good enough to get in to an Ivy/equivalent is almost certain to have the option of attending an in-state school tuition-free if they live in OH, MO, KY, AK, MS . . . Actually, the list gets too long. Many kids in GA (not just those who are Ivy material) can attend an in-state public tuition-free thanks to the Hope scholarship.

So I daresay most kids who can get in to an Ivy/equivalent can go to school tuition-free somewhere.

Also, if you include Ivy-equivalents when you speak of “Ivies”, the amount of students roughly doubles.

tk21769 To answer your question "For the ~half of all Ivy students who receive no need-based aid, how many would have received a “full ride” scholarship at a state school? " Probably nearly all of them would have garnered Full Tuition to Full Ride scholarships at many public flagships. There are many schools which provide guaranteed merit awards by attaining a certain level of GPA and test score and for others with competitive scholarships, which these same kids would probably win.

SO this question is relevant to over half of all Ivy/equivalent admits which if far from your belief that it is “fairly small”.

tomofboston The “it depends argument” is not applicable here because these Ivy kids can get into and be awarded merit scholarships at any of the public flagships that have such offerings, so whether you think Alabama Honors is good enough vs Purdue U is a matter of preference. If you think yes to Purdue but no to Alabama then for the purposes of my question your answer would be a “Yes”.

I did not say I thought THAT number is small.
The thread topic refers to “full ride”, not full tuition scholarships.
That’s what I referred to in my post above.
I understand that many students who are admitted to Ivies (and other very selective schools) could get merit scholarships (including full tuition scholarships in some cases) somewhere else. My question is, how typical is it to have a choice between ~$60K/year (for an Ivy or other top private) and $0K for a state school … especially for a state school that many Ivy full-pay students would find appealing (for location and other factors)?

Where is a good source of data on this subject?

UDelaware’s tip-top duPont scholarship is awarded, apparently, to only 30 students/year (less than 1% of the entering class). Ohio State’s Eminence Scholarship, its “premier merit award”, is offered to 25 students/year (about 1/3 of 1% of the ~7K entering freshmen). The University of Oregon’s most prestigious & generous undergraduate scholarship goes to 5 entering freshmen per year. The University of Missouri’s top merit award appears to be only $6500, and is restricted to Missouri residents. And it’s not as if these schools don’t enroll many students with pretty high (~Ivy-level) stats.

These are just some of the first schools I’ve checked on the following list:
http://www.thecollegiateblog.org/2012/12/09/national-universities-that-offer-full-ride-scholarship/
No doubt, many less selective state universities also offer merit scholarships … including, in some cases, guaranteed full ride scholarships for ~Ivy-level stats (sometimes for OOS as well as in-state students.) For example, Southeast Missouri State apparently does. How many full-pay Ivy League admits from the Northeast, the Upper Midwest, or the West Coast would seriously consider a full ride at SE Missouri State rather than the $20K-$30K sticker prices at flagships in their own home states (perhaps with a relatively small merit discount)?

@tk21769‌, now you’re qualifying with the clause “would find appealing”, which is subjective and seems like you’re weaseling out of your original statement that few kids would have the choice between an Ivy and going for free to some state school. The simple fact is that many/most kids who can get in to an Ivy/equivalent can also attend another school for free or close to it. BTW, that list you looked at isn’t comprehensive (and it seems out of date as well; for example, here is a Mizzou scholarship that awards $10K/year to in-staters: http://financialaid.missouri.edu/types-of-aid/scholarships/scholarships/mizzou-scholars-award/index.php). Those aren’t the only scholarships those schools offer (and many are stackable). The simple fact of the matter is that a kid from OH or MO who is good enough to get in to an Ivy/equivalent is very likely to also have the option to attend another school for free or close to it.

@voiceofreason66‌, “it depends” is the right answer. Look at my post #171 (though I meant to say “can afford to pay for an Ivy”). In the latter example, it’s hard to argue that going to an Ivy/equivalent isn’t the right choice.

PurpleTitan Never said that choosing full pay Ivy over full ride flagship was the right or wrong choice. Only that if one states that it depends on the public flagship then the answer to this question is “Yes” and the answer would be “No” for everyone else who would always select Ivy over public flagship regardless of the quality of the flagship.

From my sense of those posting it appears that, subject to which flagship, most would opt out of going to full pay Ivy for little or no pay appealing public flagship. Am I wrong in my conclusions?

@voiceofreason66‌, from reading the parents’ forum, it seems that plenty are willing to be full pay.

Usually, there is a continuum as well.

Just a hypothetical situtation:
Say your kid is interested in CS, and because of test scores and AP results, the choices are 3.5 years at Cornell and Northwestern with AP credits, or half tuition at CWRU and USC (and effectively half-tuition at UIUC, which is known for CS, with AP credits and study-abroad, but he’d take fewer classes) or free tuition at 'Zona/ASU/OU/'Bama/UNL or free-ride at some directionals.

You can pay for all of them without going in to debt, but the full-pay schools would eat in to your savings significantly.

Which do you take? Really tough decision, IMO.

I’m not weaseling out of anything. I’m framing the problem in a way that I believe accurately reflects the real-world choices that many Ivy aspirants face. If you want to frame the problem differently, fine.

OK, so show us a better, more up to date list. Your one Mizzou example (only $10K, and only for Missouri residents) doesn’t seem to clinch the argument that Ivy admits easily can find free alternatives. I’m not actually even saying they can’t. But if a better, more comprehensive list exists, how many state flagships are on it? Of the ones that are, how many full ride scholarships do they actually offer? Are they available to OOS students?

Yes, it is.
I admit, if you cast the net wide enough, you can find colleges that would be quite inexpensive (free, even) for many students with Ivy-level stats. However, we’re talking about an affluent and rather status-conscious demographic. Schools that guarantee full rides for Ivy-level stats, or that offer many more than token numbers of full rides for Ivy-level stats, may not include too many of the state schools they’d typically consider for their safety and “match” alternatives. Many full-pay Ivy aspirants would prefer - and could afford - state flagships at in-state sticker rates (or with more modest merit discounts.) This is what I mean when I say, I suspect it is only a relatively small number of students who actually face the choice between paying full sticker for an Ivy vs. paying nothing at all for a state school. If we want to encourage more of them to apply to Troy University, Alabama State, Prairie View A&M, or SE Missouri State, well, ok.

Meanwhile, Parchment doesn’t even have any matchup data for these 4 schools against any of the 8 Ivies. Maybe another poster can find good Ivy match-ups from some of the other “full ride” schools listed in the following CC thread (post 299):
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-p20.html