My S is a rising senior in Pennsylvania. In the current state of the country, he is hearing some interesting chatter from his high school guidance counselor. All speculation, but a few topics include: out of state universities having a greater interest in encouraging out of staters to attend, financial incentives to do so, or even possibly relaxing their admission standards a bit.
My S will be studying Environmental Science. Looking for outdoorsy type schools: UC Boulder, Univ of Vermont, Colorado College (reach), Univ of Oregon, and a few LACs like Colby, Lewis and Clark, ESF, etc. He is predominately an A with some Bs student. 3.65 GPA. ACT 33.
My question is not necessarily will he get into these schools, but instead whether anyone is aware of:
What universities offer in state tuition rates for out of staters with high ACT scores and overall cv. I know that western states and Maine offer reciprocals, but Pa. doesn’t seem to fit.
Are there new financial incentives that may be forthcoming because of current events or that foreign students may struggle returning to the US?
Is there anything I should be aware of in regards to financial assistance? My S is focused on affordability.
The U of Colorado does not. If he gets merit money, it will be $6250/yr ($25k for 4 years) but the OOS tuition is pretty high, engineering is an extra $2000, and the cost of room and board is high too. CU has plenty of OOS applicants so doesn’t need to discount to fill the class. The school decided not to raise tuition for this coming year but are losing a lot of state money so I would not be surprised to see those scholarships shaved a little for future classes.
The private schools can give good merit aid, but are usually pretty expensive to begin with.
I know a student who received a lot of money from UVA, but then lost the merit scholarship for gpa falling below 3.0. Then she was at a very expensive school and having to decide if she wanted to transfer or pay up.
Utah is a great school for outdoorsy kids, with the best skiing in the country 30 mins from campus, and amazing climbing, backpacking, etc. with national parks in every direction. My D loves it there (she is double majoring in Environmental Studies) - they do outdoor things almost every weekend and she’s now gone back for the summer to enjoy the outdoors with her friends, they were off climbing again this week and also hiked up a 14000ft peak. Despite the season being cut short she still had 20 days skiing last winter.
There are merit scholarships for high scores, although they also require a high GPA for the top scholarships and so you might not get so much (perhaps up to a $10K-$12K discount for the first year). However, anyone is eligible for instate tuition after the first year if you stay for the summer, which makes it pretty cheap overall (total instate COA is around $25K per year).
International airport in ABQ–where UNM is located for easy travel access.
Sandia Mountains are 15-20 minutes from campus. Trail running, hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing, downhill and X-country skiing. Both my daughters used to knock off a little bit early from med school and go climbing or trail running on sunny afternoons. The Rio Grande is NM is a white water river–so kayaking and rafting are popular summer activities for students. D1 and her best friend used to work summers as white water raft guides. Also downhill skiing/ snowboarding in Santa Fe, Los Alamos, Ruidoso, Taos, Angel Fire (which frequently hosts the winter X-Games). X-country skiing everywhere.
World class rock climbing near Socorro (Literally world class–Ds have met competitive climbers from all over the world while climbing there. )
Plenty of National Forest lands for hiking, mountain biking, camping, backpacking.
Utah is another great place of outdoorsy types, but SLC has a considerable higher cost of living than ABQ.
@Heckofatrip Here are some OOS merit options in the western states:
Research universities: ASU and U of AZ offer good money for stats for OOS students. You can plug your kids numbers into their online calculators to get a merit estimate. ASU has the well-regarded Barrett Honors College. U of AZ just launched a beautiful new honors college. U of NM offers in state tuition for OOS students under the Amigo scholarship. Total COA is about 20K per year. Mountains relatively accessible from these campuses.
Regional Universities: He’d probably get a good amount of merit money at Northern Arizona University - Flagstaff is a beautiful location and not far from the Grand Canyon. Western Washington University north of Seattle also has some OOS merit money - your son would likely get their highest award which would bring COA down to about 29K per year. Gorgeous location for outdoor pursuits and strong in environmental science.
To piggyback off WayOutWestMom, if your family is eligible for the Pell Grant, it’s possible the OOS cost might drop down under $10K/yr if they have decent stats. Sometimes, UNM provides a R&B discount. If your child is at all interested in UNM, it might be really affordable for your family.
Not sure if it is what your son is looking for, but University of North Alabama has an Earth Systems Sustainability major(I believe that is what my son’s roommate is majoring in). They currently offer in-state tuition for any student receiving an institutional scholarship of at least $250 and the current chart shows an award of $9,000 plus housing for your son’s stats. They also have other scholarships that you can apply for such as leadership. If accepted to honors college that offers a small scholarship. The $9,000 covers most of in-state tuition leaving fees and meal plan.
It is within a mile or two of the Tennessee River as well as many lakes. It’s not too far to trails and hiking.
Colorado and UVM have some merit aid, but no auto awards that bring costs down to the instate costs of attendance.
You haven’t told us your income so I am assuming you would not qualify for need based awards anywhere. Or maybe it’s that you don’t think your student will be a competitive applicant for places awarding only or primarily need based aid.
How much can you spend annually for this student’s college education? That piece of information will help folks provide better answers.
I do think your kid would get decent enough aid in Montana, and Wyoming. As noted above, Utah allows students to gain instate residency for tuition after freshman year but there are some guidelines to do so.
This is my opinion only! My opinion is that colleges will be decreasing free money awards to students because of the current situation. But only time will tell about that. I doubt that more free money will be offered when some schools are facing a decline in enrollment, and numbers of students who can be full pay or close to it. But that’s my opinion!
Florida Sate University waives out of state tuition for incoming OOS freshmen at a GPA and ACT level that your child surpasses, and the in state tuition is only about $6,000 a year. FSU is currently in the top 25 ranked public universities, though not sure about their Environmental Science program.
Thumper1- I have somewhat of a vague answer. I have an older S in college. He did not receive any needs-based awards due to our income, but with our second about to enter, based on friends’ experiences and similar incomes, we anticipate that changing. It is difficult to guess, but I’d assume we would receive some, maybe 25-30 k total.? We were told we can pay about 60k per year.
That is certainly interesting but merit is not at all common at UVA. Jefferson Scholars, (only about 30 or so a year ),for instance , are funded privately, not by the university financial aid department. If you know many students getting substantial merit money, they were quite lucky. Are you talking about athletic money possibly?
DUH, I just realized I’m talking about UVM ( as was the OP). Sorry I didn’t notice the conversion of UVM to UVA (and to focus on my error, I kept it up through 2 more posts!). Apologies. My friend paid the extra $18k or so to UVM when the scholarship was lost.
Will agree that U of Wyoming is cheap to being with and then has good merit on top of it. For those stats, he’d get the highest award (now called the Brown and Gold), and tuition would be about $6500 per year. Really. It has great natural resources courses, environmental engineering and studies, and rocks. Lots of rocks.
CSU in Ft Collins is a similar school, but about 3x the size and it will cost you more. It is closer to the airport, is in a bigger city, but the schools are very similar. They are in the same athletic conference and have a lot of rivalries.
