Is Michigan weak in any way?

Not true…

Princeton In particular meets Full EFC based determined need for all applicants.

Princeton for D18 would be about $18,000 less per year than Michigan.

That’s for an income segment of around $200,000.

So what you is just not necessarily true…Yes UofM has the Go Blue instate thingy but for the most part the argument is the OOS segment making more than $100,000. UofM falls far short in this segment as compaired to most all schools that meet 100% of Need Based Aid.

If you are in this segment much better off applying to a ton of elite schools that look to meet 100% of Need Based Aid. State or Private

Just Saying

I see both sides of the coin here. Yes, it would be awesome for Michigan to use some of their endowment to lower everyone’s cost. Yes, you have a choice and can go to other schools but alot of OOS school don’t give OOS families money, so why be so enraged with Michigan. Purdue, Wisconsin, Georgia Tech, Berkeley , my own state Illinois gave us $0.00. Michigan gave us a nice OOS grant since I have another kid in college (another OOS college). It made it almost the same as UIUC.

When tuition went up so did the money they gave. I can go on but you get the picture. Lot’s of schools don’t show love for OOS students.

. ABSOLUTELY. 100% agree. However, name another state school that meets 100% of need for OOS students. I believe UVA does. UNC-CH says they do. I don’t think there are others. @Knowsstuff is correct. U-M does a lot more than almost every public university in the country.

It really is apples and oranges comparing private colleges to public universities.

You can’t compare the financial resources the Ivy League schools have for financial aid to what is available for Michigan. Michigan has an $11 billion endowment to support financial aid for around 6600 freshmen each year. The total freshmen classes at Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, and Brown are about the same size. Their combined endowments approach $100 billion. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton alone are over $90 billion.

And yes, I know that Michigan gets public funding, but you can’t expect State funding to support OOS financial aid. I am also aware that some public Universities are far more generous with merit aid for OOS students. That’s clearly a business decision to improve the student profile. But Michigan does not need to do this. It’s already at the top rank of public Universities.

No it’s not Apples ? and Oranges ?

It’s maybe $18,000 per year vrs Princeton and any other school that meets 100% of Need Based Aid for D18. Yes UVA does offer 100% need based aid. With a 7-8 billion dollar endowment…

Bottom line is anyone in that segment that is not getting Need Based Aid at UofM would be $$$ much better off financially applying to a whole list of schools that offer 100% need based aid to that segment. Likely maybe the $100,000 {(?) not sure of the exact transition point } plusish OOS student.

It’s the bottom line COST for an elite education. It’s the Forest for the Trees. Why apply to U of M if the end result is not attainable because of endpoint cost.

The total OOS cost-of-attendance is about the same at Michigan, UCB and UCLA.

“However, name another state school that meets 100% of need for OOS students. I believe UVA does. UNC-CH says they do…”

Answer:

UVA 69% instate
UNC 72% instate
Michigan 51% instate

Question:

Which school would have the hardest time offering 100% of need for OOS students?

There are so many families on CC threads that have gotten OOS money from Michigan. They are known not to give OOS money. I think that has changed a bit the last few years. There are so many factors to why since everyone’s circumstances are different. I know for sure if we didn’t have two in college we wouldn’t get anything. But lots of public schools don’t give anything so just not sure why this subject keeps going round and round.

Michigan has a larger endowment than Dartmouth and Brown combined. It has the third largest public university endowment behind Texas (systemwide all campuses) and Texas A&M. Again, I will repeat this…$160 million is about 10% of what they pulled in from their investments last year. and if they dedicated it to lowering everyone’s undergrad tuition 20%, it would make a big difference. It would also put them in line with every other state university out there OOS (incl Berkeley, UVA, etc) and extremely competitive in state.

@sbdad12. I second that ?. Write up the proposal and send it in… Lol… Yes, it would be totally awesome if Michigan took that type of step. I would also like a tuition freeze for 4 years.

My friend has a kid who is a double legacy. He and his wife both attended Michigan, and I’m guessing together make $200K. They decided to send their kid instate because they couldnt afford to send him to U of M and they got no aid. Cost of attendance would have been about 55% of takehome pay for them. It’s ridiculous and I can’t believe anyone is defending the university.

I’m going to send a letter to President Schlissel and CC the regents. It won’t do much, but I know I’m not alone. I am not asking for special treatment as a loyal alum, just bring our tuition in line with every other state university, including the highly ranked ones. It’s always been the most expensive. (UVM at one time might have been a bit more)

“I am not asking for special treatment as a loyal alum, just bring our tuition in line with every other state university, including the highly ranked ones.”

Attending the UCs costs as much as attending Michigan when you factor in cost of living. UVa as well. Elite universities, public or private, will cost a lot of money because the programs and faculty offered at those universities are costly. Unsurprisingly, the top 4 public universities in the nation all cost roughly the same.

https://sfs.virginia.edu/cost/19-20

https://finaid.umich.edu/cost-of-attendance/

https://financialaid.berkeley.edu/cost-attendance

At any rate, do me a favor and do not refer to Michigan as a “public university”. Michigan is not merely a public university. Michigan is an elite university. It charges according to its quality. If it did not charge the tuition it does, the university will collapse and become no better than your average public university. It will not longer offer the programs, resources, faculty and classroom experience that make it the exceptional university that it is.

That being said, I agree that Michigan needs to do a better job of meeting the needs of all students admitted, regardless of residence status, and it is definitely working hard to do so. Michigan has improved significantly in the domain of FA, and will continue to do so. Hopefully, in the near future, Michigan will meet 100% of all demonstrated need, and adopt a need-blind approach to admissions.

Alexandre…

UofM is off by about $15,000 more per year vrs UVA for OOS Need Based Aid.

That’s the segment UofM skips over.

D18 would have to fork over an additional $18,000 per year to attend UofM over UVA.

So endpoint cost after aid is not the same. Not even close.

I thought UofM was need blind with admissions. Has that changed?

Yes, it’s need-blind in admissions. Needing aid will not affect an admissions decision. But that’s irrelevant to the amount of aid a student will get.

I really don’t understand the relevance of the kid being a double legacy. Why is there an expectation that children of alumni have to go to U-M? Alumni can choose not to allow their kids to go there due to cost. No matter what the price, there will always be alumni who say it’s too costly for them.

I certainly am not defending the price of college. It’s outrageous everywhere. Personally, I think public universities should be paid for through our taxes and it should be cost-free at time of enrollment. But for some reason, people tend to pick on University of Michigan when MANY expensive colleges do not even meet full need for ANYONE. (NYU is a prime example.)

Clearly, you are not in the cohort for whom Michigan is choosing to meet full need. That’s their current policy. Why is it so important that your child attend Michigan? It’s not the right fit if the price isn’t right for your family. Luckily she has other options that are a better financial fit.

With all due respect, it’s not an elite university and I’m a proud alum. I know I will catch a lot of grief for saying so, but the admissions requirements aren’t close to the Ivies, Berkeley, UCLA, or Northwestern. Good luck getting in to UCLA unless you have a 4.4-4.5, 35-36 on the ACT, and are not just on the football team, but are the captain or the editor of the school newspaper. My kid has a decent shot at getting in to Michigan, but she’s not even bothering applying to Berkeley, UCLA, or UVA. Her target schools are now UCSB, Cal Poly SLO, Wisconsin, etc. Probably as difficult to get into UCSB or even Davis from my kid’s school than it is Michigan. Would I pay $65K for Berkeley OOS, no for that either. Stanford if my kid got in? Almost definitely, because it’s a school that with the right connections can potentially alter your course in life.

As for the double legacy, one would think that we would want to promote a university where alums can send their kids to their alma mater if academics were equal. It’s partially what builds community and loyalty. I’m over it, knowing that even if she gets in, we can’t afford it, and we were talking about it at the dinner table tonight. My kid is like, oh well. She certainly is not crushed.

The university will collapse if they don’t charge $53K/year in tuition? Really? With a $12B and growing endowment? Hardly. How do two of the other schools that you mention, Berkeley, and UCLA, both in more costly locations, thrive yet they charge $10K-$14K less OOS per year and together have less endowment funds than Michigan?

The original question asked on this thread “Is Michigan Weak in any way?” I thought I would throw my two cents in and say that OOS tuition is outrageous, as it is at other schools like the UCs and UVA. I look at it as a weakness that the only people that can afford to send their kids there are the wealthy or the low to mid income. You have a large chunk of the population that can’t afford it.

This can be said just about any school. Just to complete our stuff. Michigan doesn’t meet our need but what they give helps. My wife is an alumni and we are OOS.

My son applied for study abroad scholarship. It was $3,000 but with travel expenses and extra costs they figure $6500 but it seems they estimate very high since we can do it much cheaper. They gave him $4,000. So the complete study abroad and money to pay for the airfare and some other expenses. We are good with that plus he is waiting on a department scholarship for study abroad also.
When he did the Barger leadership Institute last summer he and his friend didn’t have a place to stay since they had to come back to school for a week in the summer for it. Michigan paid for their travel and let them pick any Arbnb on campus and Michigan just paid for it. Through the org they started they both were just flown to LA for a conference that they helped start for the weekend. They shared an arbnb with 16 kids, the two from Michigan that started this intercollegiate org with kids from Stanford, USC and Berkeley. When they started their org Alumni came out of the woodwork to offer help. Professors/alumni have been helping them since day one get their org off the ground. Because they had one of the first conferences in their interest in the Midwest they were featured in an industry tech article about their experience and how Michigan helped. Etc etc. I can go on and on. When I talk with other families there seems to be similar stories of success with their kids and opportunities.

Maybe that’s what we’re paying for?

There were also “many” schools that we could not afford without some merit that both my kids applied to. My daughter got accepted into Emerson, they pick like 20 kids for her field so it’s an honor. She got very little merit and we can’t send her since her brother is coming up in two years.It broke our hearts If she went she would of had a decent amount of debt. Price was like $62,000. So she went to her number two with good merit for like half. She will graduate without any debt since we are able to do so. Graduating debt free to us is the goal. For my son. There were many schools that offered him half scholarships. There were like most of his safeties. Like anything below the top 15-20 is where the true money was. The cost difference for us was “worth it” to send him to Michigan. As I said our flagship UIUC gave us nothing. Nada… And why 48% of accepted freshman in Illinois go out of state. That’s a crazy high number. I talk to families all the time that send their kids to Alabama. They get 3/4 to full scholarships. They say that Nick Saban make this happen since their program brings in like billions to their economy. One parent I just talked to their kid is doing a cybersecuriy internship this summer from there and it seems they love the school. So they are sending their kid where they can afford. Not complaining about where they can’t afford to send her.

So lots of schools price people out of attending. If you can’t send your child to whatever school then pick one that is within your financial means. It seems everyone commenting has other choices that are financially stable for them. Congratulations to your kids wherever they land, they will thrive and do great.

@Brantly I think that is a good way to think of it. We are likely saying yes to MI vs the other ones you mention based on what you pointed out. Doing the cost over 4 years makes MI worth a 2nd look especially since the others you mentioned may not have as many merit offers OVER the 4 years as a whole. The one year merit offer looks great, but the other three make MI “more” affordable. (speaking of Vandy and Tulane–not P).