The max contribution is $15k, which he’s been making for 15 years. $225k is pretty darn good.
if u keep grinding throughout high school, get a upward trend, and be all-around, I think UDub would be a viable choice
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Keep an excel sheet on your computer. Put school name, city, # of students, majors available, and tuition costs. Perhaps add a list for pros and cons as well.
My son is also a sophomore and starting to get a very tentative list out there.
Uni of Washington?
American University?
Google Jesuit colleges. Dont be fearful of the “religious” aspect. They are open to all religions and very welcoming. The core of their mission is service to others and many programs incorporate service learning and community projects into their classes.
Keep the grades up. That will be your biggest hurdle as lower GPA limits choices. Also, as someone else said, have the honest talk with your parents about money. Tell them you are motivated to start looking at colleges now to get a list started. Tell them that you want to be respectful as you understand college is expensive and you want to be mindful of a budget. If they could, would they be open to giving you a guide of how much they may be willing to contribute each year. Depending on where/when/if they went to college, sticker shock to how much college costs now can be a big issue.
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@2plustrio thanks for that idea! 
I had a handwritten list, should add the stuff you suggested. My parents were in college in the 90s
If looking at colleges keeps you positive and motivated during the pandemic, knock yourself out!
Pros and cons could be whatever you see fit. Maybe its weather? Or even school colors or the building looks boring? Does the school food or dorms have high ratings? Stuff like that.
With your grades, perhaps look at college with higher acceptance rates (over 50%) that are within your budget. Of course you can always apply for any school you want but dont fall in love with a school that has less than 25% acceptance rate for example. Keep your mind open.
eta: Dont shut out up and coming cities too. U of Cinncinati? U of Wi-Milwaukee? UNLV? U of Pittsburgh? St Joseph or Temple in Philly? Schools in Nola? Number of students may be less important if you are in the city or in a city that has many colleges.
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@2plustrio I DEFINITELY enjoy plotting my college future. I know I’m a middle of the pack student. Going to a glamorous college in a glamorous city is NOT important to me. Types of classes and people I’d encounter are WAY more important to me.
I seriously doubt you will find an affordable public university in CA. They give zero need based aid to OOS students. Even with the exchange, your total costs will be more than $15,000 a year. Is $15,000 a year what your can contribute each year? You also mention $225,000…is that what’s in your 529? Please clarify!
You are a sophomore, right? At this point you don’t even have end of year 10th grade grades. It’s very possible standardized testing will be required by the time you apply in two years.
I’d add University of New Mexico to your list if your grades and standardized test scores are sufficiently high when you apply. Great school.
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@Thumper yup that $$ amount refers to my 529 ATM. My family told me I need to stay under $100k for 4 years if at all possible. Losing out on CA isn’t the end of the world. Interestingly, I went to WUE and UNM was my top choice (based on # of majors of interest)
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For clarity…your budget then is $25,000 a year…which is very different than $15,000 a year.
Keep working hard. Your options will be more plentiful with the best stats possible. While Arizona is a large school, it might have some of the other things you are looking for in a college. And with the right stats could come in at that $25,000 mark…or so.
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Thanks everyone! I shouldn’t have just thrown out $15k without talking to my dad. I’m glad $25k is a reasonable annual budget.
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For in state maybe, you will need to get decent merit for OOS.
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$25,000 will not go terribly far per year. Work hard and hope for some decent merit aid to help keep costs down.
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I went back to the engine. I used both major categories (Ethnic Studies/Foreign Language) and the lower 2 admission standards, got these schools on all 4 lists (might be off due to eni e issues)
Old Dominion
Arizona
Minnesota (TC)
Buffalo
Cincinnati
Temple
Utah
Michigan St.
Western MI
Maryland
Mizzou
Oregon
LBSU (though I’ve been told it’s out of reach)
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My daughter hasn’t received financial information from UMD, but with an UGPA of 3.9, 33 ACT, after merit, Temple is still $30,000+, all OOS public’s are, except SUNY Binghamton, which is around $27,000 with merit.
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I think the search engines for colleges are a starting point only. As a reference…we did one with my older kid. When we put in his criteria, we got something like 300 choices…some of which did not match his criteria at all. We deleted a few things to try to hone it down, and ended up with NO colleges that met his criteria.
Once he was accepted, we did the search again (not on this forum) and put in his criteria all of which were met by the colleges where he was accepted. They still didn’t come up on the search.
If we had relied on those college search engines, our kid would have ended up at some random school that didn’t meet his criteria.
Honestly, word of mouth helped us. With older kid, it was teachers and friends we had in his field.
With younger kid, I put a query here on CC with the criteria and got great suggestions…and one was where she matriculated and graduated.
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Limited it to <$25k per year, down to.
Fresno St
WMU
LBSU
Thought I know the CA schools are unlikely.
Note that you can get in-state residency in Utah after the first year if you stay for the summer, which brings the cost down from just under $40K to roughly $25K.
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Fresno state although a WUE school, is not urban/big city and you will not find the diversity in student body that you stated you wanted.
You should consider Cal State East Bay (near San Francisco), Sacramento State, Northridge or San Marcos (near San Diego).
https://www.csun.edu/prospective-students/western-undergraduate-exchange
https://www.csusm.edu/finaid/costofattendance/index.html
CSULB is not WUE so you are looking at $40K/year with no financial aid.
I linked the Cost of attendance for WUE students. Remember transportation, books, miscellaneous expenses can be reduced and are never as high as stated.
I would also look at UNR and UNLV (University of Nevada, Reno or Las Vegas), Arizona State and Northern Arizona which are all part of the WUE.
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Note that WUE discount at Arizona State is limited. https://admission.asu.edu/wue says that “WUE programs are limited to select majors at ASU’s Downtown Phoenix, Polytechnic and West campuses”, i.e. not the main Tempe campus that is what most traditional college students think of.
@Gumbymom the NV schools AND ASU are definitely on my radar.
Incidentally: I checked WMU, and they were SERIOUSLY lacking in my desired majors.