I am interested in engineering, but am open to change. I will be an out-of-state student at either school. While money is always a factor, I am looking for the “best” school for my future. I know this is subject, so I am simply seeking food for thought.
It really depends on what YOU want in a college experience. They are both very good for engineering but you couldn’t pick two more different environments – Penn State has an enrollment of 95,000+ while Lafayette has an enrollment of 2,500 or so. I’d strongly suggest that you visit each school again and decide which environment is right for you. See if you can picture yourself as a student on campus. Think about location, size of school, size of classes (Laf will all be small, Penn State will have huge lectures), is big time sports important to you, etc. My D is at Laf and she absolutely loves it, but she wanted a LAC environment from the start. Her friends who are in engineering are very happy with the program there. If you have any specific questions about Laf you can PM me and I"ll try to answer (I’m a mom of a student, not a student).
Does Lafayette typically offer financial assistance across the board? Sticker price for PSU significantly less.
Agree with others that they’re both great schools and great for engineering, but do you have no other choices sizewise in between the two? Also, have you run their net price calculators? Are they comparable in cost for you?
Happy1: while Penn State is very large, it doesn’t have 95,000 students - this may be a typo but I figured OP might not know that. There are about 30,000 undergrads at Penn State.
Would you potentially qualify for Honors College at Penn State? Would you only be interested in Penn State University Park or would you be interested in Erie, too? What other PA colleges are you considering (Lehigh, F&M, Gettysburg, Bucknell, Dickinson - not all offer engineering but all are strong in the sciences)? Any non-PA colleges?
I’m not sure what you mean by “across the board”. Run the online net price calculators for both schools.
If both wind up within your price range, try to visit both campuses (preferably on overnight visits).
Sorry, the number I found online first must be for all of the Penn State campuses. Per the Penn State website, enrollment at University Park was recently listed at over 46,000 (includes grad students). Lafayette has no grad students.
http://news.psu.edu/story/291612/2013/10/16/academics/enrollment-sees-slight-increase
I will check for calculators. The “sticker prices” for the schools show PSU as considerably less expensive. While the campuses differed, I found both appealing.
Sticker price = price you see, as officially published; net price = the price your family would be likely to pay based on your residency, grades, financial means, etc; can be quite different from each other… or quite similar (alas).
So run the NPC on every college cited on this thread. 
What state are you in @CollegeLife2015?
My son was really interested in Lafayette for a lot of the reasons you seem to be–interested in engineering but wanted other options if he decided it wasn’t for him and didn’t want to attend a very tech-centric school. He was coming from a small private school, so the small classes and collegial environment at Lafayette were a big draw too. We’re PA residents, so he applied to Penn State as well.
Even though his stats were well above the 75th percentile, and he demonstrated boatloads of interest, he ended up getting wait-listed RD at Lafayette and ultimately chose Alabama over Penn State because he felt it offered him a better overall value. He also liked the atmosphere at Bama better, which while large, isn’t as big as Penn State. All three schools have really beautiful campuses, however.
Son’s stats earned him a full four-year scholarship at Alabama, plus another $2500 a year for engineering. So if you’re a junior, take a look at Bama and some other schools that may offer you merit money for your stats, in addition to applying to Lafayette and Penn State–the latter of which offers very little in the way of merit money. FWIW, Bama is costing us half of what Penn State would have. In your case, depending where you’re coming from and your stats, it could be as much of a third of the cost.
Lafayette has some terrific scholarships, and they do offer FA, but a lot of that includes loans. Based on their NPC, we couldn’t swing the cost without one of their big merit awards, which my son didn’t receive. I suspect that’s why he was wait-listed. We let them know we couldn’t afford the school without merit money and they weren’t going to jeopardize their yield on a kid they believed wasn’t likely to come.
Lafayette is a lot closer to our home, which would have been nice, but my son feels Bama is offering him anything Lafayette would have, since he’s done fine in those big weeder classes at Bama. Bama’s engineering facilities are amazing too–much more impressive than Lafayette’s.
Good luck!
First of all see if you get in both schools (the only way you would know you are in Lafayette is if you applied ED in which case you would be committed unless you can’t afford the school). Then see what you can afford after scholarships etc. If you are still unsure I agree with the recommendation of going to both school’s accepted student day (or visit another day if you can’t make that day). Think hard about the environment you want to spend the next four years in because the two schools are really on the opposite end of the spectrum for everything but quality of education. Think about things like if you learn better in small classes or will be fine in large lectures? do you want a school with big time sports? and anything else that is important to you.
There’s also Lehigh, not far from Lafayette, that offers very good financial aid. About twice as big as Lafayette, but much smaller than Penn State.
@happy1 first of all, penn state doesn’t have 95,000 students. That is worldwide meaning that’s the amount of students who go to a penn state campus. Penn state University has about 45,000 students.
@NASA2014 Please refer to my apology and correction on post #6 above.
And that acknowledged error does not change the bulk of my initial suggestion which is that the OP should try to re-visit the two schools and consider which environment he/she would prefer to spend the next four years.
Lafayette College’s online calculator shows no financial help. I’ve taken several looks at Lafayette, and plan to visit PSU again. At this point, I can see myself in both environments (though my HS size is similar to LC). I am OOS (nonresident of PA). I am seeking an opportunity to study engineering in an environment that would allow me to explore other fields.
You need to speak with your parents about what they can provide. Try to get an annual number. When you have that and you run the NPCs, you’ll have some idea of what YOU have to contribute to your education. You can only borrow $5500 the first year and $27K total. You can earn and save at most about $4K. So YOU can fill a $10K gap. And that’s only if the financial aid award doesn’t consider your loan and work study possibilities. That’s what you have to work with unless you earn a merit award.
Does anyone have a sense of the “typical” disparity between LC and PSU in terms of cost? I know this is very subjective.
I saw a figure one time that indicated the size of the group of LC applicants offered the 24K scholarship. I don’t want to mislead you by stating something my memory was fuzzy on, but I think it’s safe to say it was about 15% of the class. That brings the COA down to about 36K. Still a huge chunk of change if you’re also not getting any grant aid.
Now LC also has that bigger merit award, but we’re talking far fewer people getting that. That would make PSU more expensive than LC probably.
PSU’s COA is 35K in-state. Plus there’s the possibility of some in-state aid from PSU.
Pretty equivalent schools in terms of cost (if you’re in LC’s top 15%) but also in engineering. But it’s like comparing apples and oranges otherwise.
@CollegeLife2015 - the “typical” disparity would be totally meaningless to you, because it may or may not reflect your family’s particular situation. I know it’s tough, but you really need to wait until you have the full financial aid information to really make an informed decision.
Given that you are OOS to Penn State, it’s probably less likely that you will be offered significant aid there. But who knows - one of my best friends got a full scholarship to Penn State, and she was a New York resident.
For some reason I thought you were in-state. That changes a lot about the arithmetic. PSU OOS will be 48K.