<p>I have friends with "kids" (students) at West Chester U , IUP, Kutztown, and Millersville and they are all happy with their choices. It is nice that there are affordable ( in context) options in our state.
Good to hear of another - I have a younger D that will start her search soon so it's good to know of the success stories of PASSHE.
Since my older D was looking for a very large school ( around 17,000) we were fortunate to find a reasonable one OOS. She kind of nixed Penn State because of the weather anyway LOL</p>
<p>As I recall, high property taxes are a trade off for low state income taxes. And, don't most of the property taxes go for local use not state use? I could be wrong. I haven't lived in NJ since the 1970s.</p>
<p>Don't overpraise NC. They stiff the HBCUs, and haven't done too well by Carolina lately. The local schools systems especially outside of the suburbs are not especially outstanding.</p>
<p>The public schools get the majority of their funding from property taxes. This is a big reason that it is so high.</p>
<p>I have two questions.</p>
<p>First, I am confused about how private colleges can be cheaper than in-state publics. Do instate publics give no financial aid? Are the privates only cheaper because they give financial aid? And are we talking about merit aid or need-based aid? </p>
<p>Second: How much should a college education cost? There's a lot of talk in here about how expensive it is. Yes, it's always nice to get something for nothing, but colleges have huge libraries, staff salaries, athletic facilities -- you get something for your money. So what is a reasonable price for a college education?</p>
<p>I'm with sly vt- If your kid doesn't get merit aid or financial aid, I've seen very few private U's that will cost less than a Public U. SUNY tuition is around $5,000 in-state and around $12,000 OOS. Some OOS including PA,& Md had tuition in $15,000 range. I know York college in Pa and a handful of other private U's may have reasonable tuition, but most that I have seen are over $20,000. We concentrated on public U's too because of cost factor. For those able to get financial or merit aid, it's a whole different set of circumstances. Your cost factor can't be compared with those not receiving financial aid. In my "well to do area" of Long Island (because we are mostly 2 income families-) I'd say 2/3 of the kids go to Public U's including SUNY, U of Md., Delaware and some other popular state U's in the NE because of high college costs.</p>
<p>Privates can be cheaper, although not necessarily so, based upon merit aid, and financial aid. It depends upon the % of need met, the amount parents are responisble for (determined by the student aid report, after one fills out the fafsa, profile, and/or the school's aid forms), and the breakdown of % of grants:loans. It is also a matter of how much a school wants a particular student, b/c of what they can bring to the table. Privates may have a larger sticker price, but the may also have more money to give in the form of grants.</p>
<p>I will add, that in our personal experience, and we are middle class, no school came came close to the cost of instate tuition. Some schools came close to, or equal to out of state tution at a public.</p>
<p>
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As I recall, high property taxes are a trade off for low state income taxes.
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</p>
<p>Not so when I was growing up in NJ - in fact, many people who worked in NYC had to pay income taxes to two states! And it's certainly not true now that I've grown up and moved to Mass!</p>
<p>I was refrring to NJ, and aren't the New York taxes deductible from the NJ taxes. I pay to both Wisconsin and Virginia, but the former comes off the latter.</p>
<p>NJ was a late comer to an income tax, and relied heavily on the property taxes. Rutgers was never, and remains so today, well-funded by the state.</p>
<p>tsdad: what's hbcu? This is a very interesting thread, hearing about the situations at different public state universities systems.</p>
<p>homeskulmom, hbcu stands for historically black college/university</p>
<p>Down here in New Mexico we seem to have a very different situation than most of those posted. Kids from this state for the most part seem to stay in state for college. (Although some reports say up to 25% go elsewhere,I seriously doubt their statistics as we have 2 of the largest high schools in the state in our city (2300+) and most kids go to the local state university). One reason is probably the tremendous bargain resident students get due to the succession of lottery scholarships. The scholarships range from getting at least a 2.5 your first semester in college (you pay) and then qualifying for full tuition scholarships for each semester you maintain at least a 2.5 to full scholarships +stipends to full scholarships + stipend + room and board. You have to academically qualify for the lower scholarships but the requirements are not incredibly stringent. As a result, many kids are able to get a college education who might not otherwise be able to. Sure, these are not your top ranked schools, but there are great programs to chose from in various fields where you can get a pretty good education. Kids who have graduated from these universities have gone on to get masters and PhDs at Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, etc.</p>
<p>I have two sons that ended up in private colleges that would cost us less than staying in-state. (Washington) Going private ended up being our only affordable choice. You won't know until you apply, get accepted and get the financial award letter, but I am glad we didn't give in to "sticker shock" and not pursue these other schools</p>