Having trouble finding affordable schools to transfer to. I can’t find a good college search engine that lets you search by price before aid.
I’m a first year cc student looking to transfer spring ‘22 or fall ‘22. I’d like to go to a small-midsize liberal arts school in an urban or suburban area to study communications/fine art. I’d like to go somewhere on either the west or east coast, but I’m open to midwest schools if they’re in Michigan or Wisconsin. I’m also open to HWCs
Haven’t gotten grades from cc yet, but my hs gpa is 4.75 and my act is 34.
The absolute max I can pay in tuition, room and board is 40k per year (textbooks are covered by a scholarship so I’m not factoring that into price).
Anyone have any ideas about schools that I could feasibly get into and afford to attend?
University of Minnesota at Morris is an LAC which has about 1,500 students enrolled. Total non-resident tuition, room & board is about $25,000 per academic year. Residents of neighboring states may get a tuition discount.
Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida has about 2,600 students & offers communications as well as visual & performing arts in addition to business & social sciences. Beautiful campus in a gorgeous location. All in COA is less than $35,000 per year.
Since you mentioned Michigan as an acceptable location, I’ll suggest Hope College. Hope’s COA is $47K. Costs & Financial Aid | Admissions Their website says that transfer students are eligible for scholarships ranging from $4K-10K in addition to need based aid, and I’m guessing that they would offer you a merit scholarship given your ACT and hs gpa. Transfer Students. It’s a Christian college fyi, and one of the Colleges That Change Lives. It’s located in a charming small town called Holland.
I’m not sure about your specific finances but Wesleyan and Amherst meet 100% of demonstrated aid. Amherst is definitely a reach and maybe Weslyan too, but it’s an easier admit.
Not sure if I’m interpreting this correctly, but my read is that you are not eligible for need-based aid (is that correct?) and have some sort of outside scholarship for books, but otherwise will be full-pay (minus merit) and have a budget of 40K max.
What do you mean by communications/fine art? You want a communications major supplemented by some studio art classes and perhaps a minor?
So, the first category of schools to look at would be public institutions with a reasonable sticker price and either guaranteed or likely merit.
Agree with the Minnesota Morris suggestion. Small, high quality public LAC with high achieving students - has both communication and studio art majors. It’s more midwest/rural than you want but it could be worth compromising on that parameter for, especially if it comes in significantly cheaper than other options.
UNC Asheville: Nice public LAC (3600 undergrads) in a beautiful, artsy small city. Total direct costs for OOS come in under $35K; total estimated costs (including books, etc.) still under $40K. Merit is possible. Offers a major in Mass Communication. Offers BFA, BA, and minor programs in Art. Great arts scene in Asheville, which is teeming with galleries.
Truman State is Missouri’s honors LAC. (4900 undergrads) Even more affordable than MN-Morris because it has auto-merit even for transfers, bringing the cost even lower than the under-$30K OOS sticker price. Has Communication major and multiple programs in Art & Design (Art BFA, Design BFA, Art BA, Art minor, Design minor). Downside is that as with MN-Morris, it’s a bit middle of nowhere. But high quality + low sticker price may balance this.
SUNY Purchase (4100 undergrads) comes in just under your $40K limit, and additional merit would be possible. It’s fantastic for fine arts, and it’s only about 30 miles outside of NYC. Has a Communications program as well as a BS in Visual Arts that is designed for cross-disciplinary majors (so you could combine Communications+Art in that major). The BFA programs accept transfers only if you start over and complete all four years, but the non-BFA options seem like potentially a good fit. The other small SUNY campuses would be similar financially; Purchase is the “artsiest” but there may be other good possibilities. (Check out SUNY Oswego, which has particularly strong co-op programs and notable media opportunities including an on-campus NPR affiliate… also robust visual arts programs with multiple specializations.)
Find a couple of financial safeties you could be happy with, from this category. This gives you a baseline, as you approach the more complicated task of looking for private LAC’s that may or may not offer you enough merit to attend. You can at least cull the list by eliminating anything you don’t like better than your guaranteed-affordable public choices.
Also, of course, check out your in-state public options and others with tuition reciprocity. If you’re willing to share which state you’re in (or at least whether you’re in a particular consortium like WUE or MSEP), we’ll be able to make more specific suggestions. U of Maine offers its “flagship match” program to transfers, so that’s another possibility, and not too large (9400 undergrads).
Thank you for your suggestions! I’m in Illinois and you were right about the financial stuff. Very unlikely I’ll receive any need-based aid from the institution I apply to. Got a federal loan offer when applying last year, but I’d really like to avoid taking out a loan if possible. You offered some great choices
Coming from IL, MN-Morris and Truman State will have a small additional discount for MSEP. All of the non-flagship U of WI campuses will be bargains too. https://msep.mhec.org/
Private colleges don’t tend to give as much merit to transfers as to first-year applicants, so it may be challenging to find schools in this category that will give you enough merit, despite your strong record. For example, Clark University seems like it could be a good fit, but from what I can see, their transfer merit awards top out at 20K, and their total estimated costs are close to 65K. Earlham might be a good one to check out. (I don’t see specific info about the size of transfer merit awards, but they’re pretty generous in general so it could be worth asking.) Agnes Scott in Atlanta is worth a look - it appears that you could get at least 22K in merit, off of a <60K COA, so that’s potentially in range… and it has the kind of urban-adjacent location you want, and cross-registration at other area institutions like Emory and GT.
