Not a parent, but unfortunately this is true. I gave up a lot of colleges because they refused to give financial aid just because my parents manage their money well. Don’t think it was worth it for my family to pay $81k a year for a USC education when I could go somewhere that gave me a good merit scholarship.
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Some kids may be happy in Brookings SD or Wayne, NE. You really don’t know.
The NE is a pretty expensive area for college. I’d say look beyond the NE…
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Wyoming is a great school. At the private school where I teach, we’ve had a few kids apply in the last few years. Sure, a few doesn’t seem like a lot, but considering we used to have no kids applying, a few is a big deal. They’re mostly B students who are casting a wide net and can’t get into the UC schools. My niece’s friend’s sister is at Wyoming doing cheer. Apparently she loves it. It was a bit of a culture shock coming from Southern California, but she’s found her niche
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Wyoming was going to be like 26K.
I can get lower here, and not have to deal with the travel.
Just something to consider:
I’d avoid reach schools if you’re going to need financial help. If your kids applies to reach schools and gets in, they may not get as generous fin aid, because sometimes the school thinks the kid is not as interested in going there as kids who were shoe ins. With a 3.75 your kid has a good chance at a lot of wonderful schools. I’d cast a wide net, you might be surprised at what kind of money you get offered, especially if you look in areas that aren’t as popular.
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Because they literally don’t exist. They come in slightly below 20 and involve travel beyond a car ride.
1060 kills him or needs to go test optional.
Hmmm, I’m surprised. I’d think an out of state student with a 3.75 would get better aid at a school like Wyoming…but then again I’m from Southern California and the only kids I know applying to Wyoming are from SoCal or other states out west…
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Not necessarily. A 3.75 is nothing to sneeze at. It can’t hurt to look at test optional schools if you think that will help…
Are you willing to let your son apply far away? I assume travel costs are a factor in where he applies…
So I’m going to say this again: You are wrong.
You started this thread with an incorrect assumption. The incorrectness of it has been pointed out to you by a number of different posters, and yet you insist.
So, if I understand correctly, your child has a 3.75/1160. Excellent! (Well, except that in one place you say 1160, in another 1060. No matter, we’ll forge ahead anyway.) Now we can look at specifics, and to keep this brief I’ll limit it to places that have already been mentioned as low-cost options plus a few well-known ones, listing them in no particular order and assuming on-campus housing and a high-tier meal plan. I won’t be factoring in travel costs, so I recognize that the target isn’t $20–30k but rather a bit lower, but let’s be honest, travel is likely to be less than $2k for a pair of round trips from New Jersey, so it’s not a big difference, and a number of schools factor at least some travel into their COA anyway.
- University of Wyoming: Their OOS cost of attendance is $30,718, and guaranteed scholarships for those stats of $4k, so a net of $26,718.
- Prairie View A&M: OOS COA $25,489, no guaranteed scholarships, so that’s the net.
- Western Carolina University: OOS COA $21,705, no guaranteed scholarships, so that’s the net.
- South Dakota State University: OOS COA $26,873, guaranteed scholarships of $1,500, net of $25,373.
- Truman State University: OOS COA $25,573, no guaranteed scholarships, so that’s the net. (Note: It appears that this year only they are possibly awarding automatic scholarships based on GPA only, in which case the net is $5k lower.)
- Wayne State College [note: not Wayne State University]: OOS COA $21,218, guaranteed scholarships of $2500, so a net of $18,718.
- Louisiana Tech: OOS COA $30,141, guaranteed scholarships of $11,049, so a net of $19,092.
- Bemidji State University: OOS COA $18,886, guaranteed scholarships of $500, so a net of $18,386.
- Peru State College: OOS COA $20,936, guaranteed scholarships of $2,250, so a net of $18,686.
- Oklahoma Panhandle State University: OOS COA $14,848, guaranteed scholarships of $1,000, so a net of $13,848.
- Chadron State College: OOS COA $17,432, guaranteed scholarships of $1,000, so a net of $16,432.
- Alcorn State University: OOS COA $21,510, no guaranteed scholarships, so that’s the net.
- University of North Carolina Pembroke: OOS COA $19,523, no guaranteed scholarships, so that’s the net.
And that’s only taking into account guaranteed scholarships. Other scholarships are likely at many if not most of these.
So please don’t say it’s impossible to get below either $30k or $20k. Is it easy? No. Are there lots of options? Well, there’s a good number for the <$30k level, not all that much for the <$20k level—but the crucial thing is that they are there. So please stop claiming they don’t exist.
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That means that the total net price should be:
- $16k to $20k for a “stretch” budget, requiring student loans (up to $5.5k) and student work. Leaves no margin of safety (e.g. if he cannot find a job) and realistically not doable if he does football (a big time commitment).
- $13k to $15k for a “not-as-stretchy” budget, requiring student loans or student work. Probably the limit if he does football.
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So like I said college will cost 20-30k. Nearly all of these examples are 20k plus. Unleas he goes somewhere he will be completely unhappy
He is already at slightly below 20 with no travel.
It looks like one way to get the cost way down (and stay in New Jersey) would be to have your son apply to one of the community colleges that offers direct transfer to one of the in-state 4 year colleges. It looks like Rowan has a couple of CCs that offer direct transfer, and one of them boasts of being able to help their students get a BA for about $30k total cost (for all 4 years combined). There are probably many CCs in the state that offer similar programs.
Your son might not be able to do football for his first 2 years if he went to CC route (but he very well may be able depending on what the CC offers for sport), but if he wants to be a coach it might be a good idea to see if he could find a coaching volunteer position for those 2 years in community college and then get on the college team for his junior/senior year.
The problem doesn’t really appear to be not being able to get a bachelors for under $20-30k a year. The problem you actually have is wanting to have your son attend a 4 year residential school directly after high school, play football, and stay where he wants to be for well below that price while not having tippy top grades/stats.
Something is going to have to give. There really isn’t free money, it is always a set of trade offs when you can’t afford to pay out of pocket for the full cost.
This link to New Jersey transferring info might be helpful:
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Chiming in as a 2019 parent from PA who was in your boat - middling stats and horrible in-state prices for every college, all ending up at $20k+ for us (we are somewhat higher salary than you but it doesn’t seem like it goes far, does it?)
We completely gave up on PA and looked at WV and Ohio (and Stockton was also one of our top choices; sad to hear the merit chart is no longer valid).
Look at Cleveland State, Bowling Green, Youngstown State, Kent State and Toledo. All are within a (long) day’s drive. All would come in below $20k for you, I’m pretty sure.
WVU has high OOS costs but it does offer merit charts you can look at online. And there are other regional colleges in WV that might be cheap - I just looked up West Virginia State University, which has an $8k Black and Gold scholly and a total COA for OOS of under $28k for this year.
Good luck. I think you can do better by casting your eye west, and it doesn’t have to be all the way to Wyoming, though that’s a nice school.
Make sure you google the school’s name and “merit scholarship chart” - in quotes - and you should be able to see some useful info
With his stats (assuming the SAT is 1160), he’d qualify for instate tuition under the Amigo scholarship at UNM. Total cost of attendance is less than 20K.
There are other western state schools other than WY where he might get some merit - try Arizona State, Northern Arizona University, U of Utah (where it’s possible to establish in- state residency within a year).
In NJ, he might qualify for merit at Stockton, Ramapo, or Montclair State.
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I believe Stockton got rid of their merit program for 2021. NOT sure what or if they replaced the table they had before.
I don’t know the table but my son got $7000 with a 3.8W and a 30 ACT/1390 SAT, his higher stat twin isn’t applying there.
The amounts seem lower than in prior years
These are all about the same or only slightly less than the 19 K I am looking at now. And would involve much more travel.