I am currently in the process of deciding which colleges to apply to, and I have narrowed my list down to UNL, K-State, UT Austin, Texas A&M, and maybe the Air Force Academy. However, cost to attend school is a large concern for me. I live in Nebraska so my in-state school options are limited and really UNL is the only in-state college that I am considering. Not because the others are bad schools, but because it has the best engineering program, which I plan to enter, in Nebraska. This really leaves me the option of going to UNL or going out of state. My question is whether or not going out of state is worth it? My ACT composite is a 32 so I don’t believe that getting admitted will be an issue, but like I said, price is a huge concern. Any ideas or even recommendations towards schools would be awesome!
You have an excellent instate option that’s affordable and likely to admit you. This is a no-brainer! The other schools on your radar are obviously good ones, but, no, they’re not worth a lot of extra worry – or certainly debt.
Unl is your safety. Do everything required for Honors college admission to maximize scholarships.
Next, with an act 32, you can get a lot of good scholarships OOS.
What’s your GPA? Have you taken AP or IB classes? Is your school public or private, rural or suburban? How many in your year and what percentage typically go to college? What do you do when you’re not in school?
What’s your EFC? Can your parents afford it?
Nebraska is an under represented state, meaning you’ll get a boost at several top universities - look at Olin, Northeastern, (if you like co ops look into UCincinnati and the cincinatus scholarship), and to suggest others I’d need your stats.
It depends on how much you actually have to pay for the schools. Here’s the approximate cost of tuition, fees, and room and board at three of your schools, and one mentioned above:
UNL: $20,000
K-State: $35,000
UT Austin: $48,000
Northeastern: $65,000
If money is a concern, and you actually had to pay those amounts, I can’t imagine that over four years it’s worth paying $60,000 more for K-State, or $120,000 more for UT, or $180,000 more for Northeastern. But if you run the Net Price Calculators for each school you’re interested in, and look into which have merit scholarships that might be available with your stats, there could be a lot of schools where the cost might be closer to that of UNL. Or if you get something close to a full tuition scholarship, somewhat less.
Have you looked at the Midwest Student Exchange Program? I believe Nebraska is one of the States that participates. K-State might participate in that program as well. We looked at it for my D a while back and there was some nice price discounts for those schools that participated. You may want to look at their website for participating schools and majors as it was a way for out of state students to get near in-state tuition at participating schools.
Here are my stats:
GPA: 4.0 UW
Grade Average is about a 98.7%
Our school does not offer AP or IB courses so I have taken college courses instead. I will have 22 credits when I graduate with classes like Analytic Geometry and Calculus, Macroeconomics, etc. (4.0 in these classes also)
Extracurriculars: Varsity football, basketball, and track. I’m also involved in other school organizations and a youth advisory board for the city.
Rank: 1/30 in a very small public rural school
I also have a background in web development and programming
I have looked at the Midwest Exchange program as well. It certainly makes several of the schools more appealing! For anyone looking at this, you can find more information about the program here: http://msep.mhec.org/
I was really hoping that Purdue was a part of it, but I haven’t found much information about them being a part of the program.
^that makes you very rare and thus interesting for many elite private colleges.
Obviously those stats alone aren’t sufficient for these colleges, but are a positive sign.
How many in your year and what percentage typically go to college?
What do you do when you’re not in school?
What’s your EFC? Can your parents afford it?
If you have high financial need you might look at top private schools that meet 100% of financial need. Like previous posters have said you can run the NPC for these schools. Your profile is good enough to be competitive at every school, not saying you will get admitted, but you do have a decent chance. Personally I never believed OOS tuition is worth it except for the very rich where it simply doesn’t matter.
There are 30 kids in my grade, and I would assume about 80% go to college. I would prefer not to give my financial information out, but I will be paying for the majority of my education myself (which is the big reason I am hesitant to go to a school like UT Austin and such as the out of state rates are terribly high). While I am not in school, I like to work on my UAV and such. Soon I plan to start researching the most effective ways to implement the technology towards agriculture, and hopefully help develop some of the emerging technology within the UAV industry. My business should be up and running next summer. I am also working as a co-founder of an organization called The Movement, which seeks to provide youth with the resources and information to help themselves and others with areas such as mental health, suicide, drug abuse, and also alcohol abuse. That will be completed and running this year. On top of that I enjoy skateboarding, exercising, and hanging out with my friends!
There is nothing wrong with going out of state, but you have to be thorough in researching the costs. Some state universities are actively trying to upgrade their student bodies by using merit scholarships to attract highly qualified students (like you) from out of state. Many other state universities won’t give out-of-staters much of anything. From what I can tell, the ones that would give you significant merit aid include Texas Tech, Florida State, Oklahoma State, Kentucky, Mississippi, West Virginia, Alabama. UNL is a fine option, but if you feel an urge to get out of state, these others will probably give you enough aid to make them affordable. I may be wrong, but I kind of doubt that Texas, Texas A&M, or Kansas State will give you much aid, if any.
How do you plan to pay for college yourself? Have you run the Net Price Calculators at any of the “meets full need” schools? I think some very selective schools would be interested in you.
OP, you may want to ask a moderator to remove the link that you posted, since it totally identifies you. (Very cool, though!!)
If you check out Texas Tech’s out of state scholarships, you will see that your GPA and ACT would get you $6,000 per year, and the small print further indicates you would also get charged tuition at the in-state rate, which is about $6,000 per year. So, in effect, you’d pay zero tuition there.
Don’t assume you know what your financial aid might look like from any given school. The first thing you should do with ANY school is run the Net Price Calculator. You might be pleasantly surprised. You might not. But you really need to have a clearer idea of your financial picture before you either add a school to your list or cross it off because you “know” how much you’ll pay.
Wow! This is all great information! I will definitely go check out the Net Price Calculator for some schools. To be honest I didn’t realize there was one (what a convenient tool). Thank you everyone for your help! I hope its beneficial to anyone else looking as well!
If you are interested in the Air Force Academy, you should look into that right away since there are unique requirements such as getting a nomination. There is an admissions liaison officer assigned to each high school.