<p>First time poster here. Parent of HS senior. She feels she must leave the area although we do have a decent 4yr college in town. She has only applied to two schools UF and Auburn. Was accepted at Auburn based on ACT scores alone. Waiting to hear from UF. I guess my question would be which way should we go in the event UF accepts. She has 32 ACT 1980 SAT 3.95 GPA. Many hours of ECA and multiple clubs. If we stick with Florida schools we get state sponsered money good for tuition. Auburn has stated she will receive 2/3rds of out of state tuition. This still leaves about 5K per year. What are the chances her grades will allow other scholarships to make the difference up?</p>
<p>““Auburn has stated she will receive 2/3rds of out of state tuition. This still leaves about 5K per year””"</p>
<p>2/3rd’s off Tuition still leaves Room and Board,so i doubt 5k covers the remaining tuition and r&B</p>
<p>No the 5K would be the remaining bal just for tuition. I know we will be coming out of pocket even with the prepaid we did many years ago. Basically told her she will need to get enough scholarships to make up for loss of free state money. All new to this and really have no idea how much or many scholarships she might get. Do know we are going to make it a family priority to apply for many</p>
<p>If you mean applying for many small scholarships through your school system, fine. You probably can pull in some of those but what do you do the next three years when those are not available? If you mean try to hit one of the very competitive, large scholarships then your chances are very low. How much can she earn during the summer? Can she get a job now to start paying down the difference? She could probably get some work study in college.</p>
<p>UF is a great school and a great choice if you are Florida residents.</p>
<p>I don’t quite understand your post as regards the finances. With the 2/3 tuition scholarship Auburn is essentially charging you in state fees – about $6000 per year. The University of Florida in state fees are about the same.</p>
<p>Is the reason for the choice is that you’ll be able to save on room and board because your D can live at home if she attends University of Florida?</p>
<p>$5K/year is not difficult to come up with through a part time campus job which has other benefits as well, and easy to come up with if one is working the summers. Even if a scholarship doesn’t come through, if she really wants to attend the more expensive school I suggest being flexible on this and seeing how it can be accommodated. A $5K/yr difference for the more desired college vs the less desired one isn’t really that much to worry too much about if one’s willing to put some work (literally) into it.</p>
<p>You can use the prepaid out-of-state. Call them and find out what they would give for this year for an out-of-state. That will help close the $5K gap and then you would have room and board at either one. </p>
<p>Of course, she probably qualifies for Bright Futures and she can’t take that out-of-state. She might be able to make up all or some of that for one year but most outisde scholarships cannot be used for more than 1 year. She could work, take out loans or you could help her pay the rest of the gap for years 2, 3 and 4.</p>
<p>ucsd__ Its not hard to come up with $5,000 over the summer but keep in mind the kids like to go back to school with spending money. It is easier said than done when a kid is often working minimum wage.</p>
<p>“I don’t quite understand your post as regards the finances. With the 2/3 tuition scholarship Auburn is essentially charging you in state fees – about $6000 per year. The University of Florida in state fees are about the same.”</p>
<p>It is probably because she will qualify for the State of Florida’s Bright Futures program as a Florida resident based on her test scores and GPA which means she will pay no tuition and fees at UF. </p>
<p>When Auburn says she will receive merit aid of 2/3 of the OOS portion of tution, it is telling you that is all that Auburn will be offering. You will have to find other private scholarships for anymore. From a financial stanpoint with the Bright Futures award, UF cannot be beat.</p>
<p>Drusba is right but that still means the difference is just $5K/year.</p>
<p>momma-three - It depends on available money and planned finances of course but if the family decided college A was doable without having student income as a factor but college B was 5K too expensive, then the variable of having the student work a p/t campus job (best option) or part time off-campus job can net close to the $5K and that doesn’t even include the summer jobs or paid internships. The kid could probably earn the 5K delta plus some spending money if they’re really willing to work to contribute. It’s just one solution and if nothing else helps to value how much the kid really wants to go to the other college.</p>
<p>woolif, we’re in Florida and are also looking at Auburn and Alabama, I’m using a spreadsheet to track the numbers. Your 1/3 of the tuition would be more like $7,000 and you’d lose the Bright Futures of about $3,500. The tuition at UF is $5000, so Auburn would be about $5,500 more than UF.</p>
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<p>The question you posed was for scholarships. Most of the scholarships (of the ones that are $$$ and continue from year to year) come from the universities themselves. Have you checked to see if there is a special Auburn scholarship that will pay for the whole tuition (something akin to the Robertson Scholars at Duke/UNC)? Unfortunately, these kinds of scholarships are very competitive and require great grades, test scores, interviews and a community service story.</p>
<p>There are such scholarships that are available from private sources, like the Coca Cola Scholarship–these scholarships are national and VERY competitive.</p>
<p>The best source of scholarships are the local ones available to seniors at your high school through local businesses, foundations, individuals, etc. The problem with these is that they are often less than $1000 and are not renewable. So although you could accumulate the $5000 for the first year, you may out of luck for the subsequent years. (Although one student from our local high school accumulated $18K–but she had a very compelling story). </p>
<p>Many parents expect that their kid will get oodles of outside scholarships just because they have such great grades. But often scholarships target certain groups of people that your kid may not belong to (for example, financial need). </p>
<p>The good news is that, as UCdad pointed out–summer and part time campus jobs can go a long way to bridging that $5000 gap.</p>