Depending on your state, there may be a “guaranteed transfer” program. Two years at a comm college, take required courses, maintain a gpa, and get into the state public 4 year schools. (In some states, it’s a variety, including privates.)
Don’t leave all this to chance. Run NPCs, see how your stats match the top level (top quartile) of those schools’ freshmen, read up on what those look for, beyond stats. Follow that 3.0-3.4 thread, for good ideas.
Not all state U’s can provide the best fin aid, enough to make this manageable. But see what the branches cost, if one or more are less expensive and commuting distance.
I’m not sure how other state’s work, but here in California there are Cal grants as well as the federal pull grants which make staying in state and going public the most affordable option.
Check out NPC’s for sure, and see what your costs are likely to be.
I’m just concerned that, in some states, what makes X four year “most affordable” among various choices, may not be enough. Or that OP makes enough from some job to eek through first year, then is stuck not having enough for second.
"George Washington University is OVER $70,000 a year cost of attendance. "
I thought that I might mention three BIG mistakes that come up on CC. You absolutely want to avoid all of them:
One big mistake is to only think about "dream" schools where the student absolutely wants to attend, and not think about schools that are "economically safe" (in the sense that the student will be accepted with very high probability, will be able to afford it, and will be willing to attend). Occasionally we will see posts from students who don't have anywhere to go either because they didn't get in anywhere, or the places that they did get accepted to are too expensive.
Occasionally we will see posts, or talk to a student, who went to a great but expensive university, then ran out of money part way through and couldn't finish. Perhaps this is the worst possible result: Go to a great school, realize that academically you can do well there, take on a huge debt, then never graduate. If you start at a university you want to be sure that you can afford to graduate.
To borrow more than a certain limited amount (something like $25,000 total over four years) the student will need a co-signer. With a co-signer, we see some examples of students taking on huge debt. For example, suppose that you find a way (possibly including scholarships) to pay for half of the cost of GWU, but have to borrow the other half. With a bit of inflation the currently cost of $70,000 will probably be at least $80,000 per year by the time you graduate. If you borrow half of the cost, over four years that will probably add up to about $150,000 in debt. This is a horrid amount of debt, and may take decades to pay off. For most students this much debt will make graduate school or medical school or law school impossible, and require living with parents for years, possibly decades, to pay off. This in turn severely limits the job opportunities, since you would need to work within about a hour of a parents home. If you want to get married and have kids at some point, your parents home might feel rather cramped with all of you living there.
Students need to spend more time thinking about and looking for economically safe schools, rather than thinking about dream schools. You should avoid debt that will exceed your first year’s salary, and if graduate school is in the picture then try to avoid any debt at all for undergrad (or at least no more than the 5,500/6,500/7,500/7,500 government loans).
I live in PA and I do plan on applying to other schools in my state like Temple, Allegheny, Bloomsberg, IUP, CUP and then two schools in New England: University of Vermont and New Hampshire. GW and AU are my dream schools because I’m trying to go for political science but I understand it’s not probable. I know I have seen people on this cite who have gotten into those schools with stats and finincial problems like mine, I just don’t understand what sort of system they were able to crack. My sister currently goes Kutztown University it’s a state school and good for education but not for poly-sci. I am not working a job this summer because I don’t have time with pre-planned trips and summer work but I plan on working next year and potentially getting an on-campus job to help pay. There are a bunch of scholarships not from the schools that I plan on applying for but there is a huge risk of not getting anything back. I know also that debt will be an issue because I would like to go to law school as well. I know my only real shot to finance a private school would be to win the scholarship contests outside of college.
Would any of you know of any big scholarship contests that happen annually because like I said that is probably the only way I could come into any money.
Many outside scholarships are small, non-renewable (ie, freshman only.) The larger ones are very competitive. Many colleges subtract those amounts from the aid they give.
Other kids may have some contribution from parents. Then, with summer work, work study, and the smallish student loans, they barely make costs. It’s foolish to go for outside loans, but some kids do that. (The adults here will only endorse the idea of fed student loans.) If you work during the college school year just to make current costs, you may not be getting any jump on the next year’s charges.
Both UVM and UNH are really expensive and they offer limited merit aid and need based FA (even with a very generous award, you’d be looking at $30k per year). They aren’t particularly well known for poli sci or government, so should just be off the table.
Make sure whether those nets already include the student loans or not. If they don’t, part of the net could be handled with a stu loan. Same with, eg, work study. If they use WS in there, it’s not extra money you can earn. It’s already figured in.
The parts, the line items, matter.
Remember, those are estimates.
And please realize that the NPC will likely show a lower cost while your sister is in school. Your FA will be reduced when she graduates. How many (school) years apart are you two? Any younger siblings?
My sister is in her third year of college but she failed her sophomore year so she’s a sophomore going for a six year degree. She does commute and my parents pay everything that financial aid doesn’t cover which is only about 2,000
What is her 6 year degree? Is it some kind of combined BS graduate school program?
Ok…so your parents pay $2k for her college. I wouldn’t expect them to pay more than that for your college. They may say that they can only pay $2k total for both ($1k each). You need to talk to them about that.
This info is important, but it shouldn’t have taken 3 pages of posts to come out. Your first post indicated that they’re “putting your sister thru college.” Paying $2k per year is helpful but it’s not really putting someone thru college in the real sense.
We want to help you, so please provide info that we can use to come up with the best plan.
For a poly sci major who wants to go to law school, you really don’t need a big name school. If you can get into one that pays nearly all of your costs, then super. But, as you’ve seen from the NPCs, GWU and AU will not be affordable since you don’t have the means to cover the remaining costs.
Thank you for all the advice, especially the one about the net price calculator. I agree that the post shouldn’t have been so long but I didn’t realize all of this info would be needed. After talking to my parents and and looking at the rough estimate from the Net Price calculator, my parents said they were willing to invest more in my education from the 5,000-10,000. Though some people think the outside scholarships are almost impossible to get, which they are, I will try some of those. Especially since my high school offers a 20,000 renewable scholarship. I probably won’t take the private schools off my list, I will try but be rational about the state schools.
Thanks again for all the input, this has really opened my eyes to how the proccess works and just how stressful it is.