Small quibble…
It’s PASSHE, not PASHE for our “true” state schools.
https://www.passhe.edu/Pages/default.aspx
And in general, I think our state has too many competing for the same students between all the PASSHE schools and remote campuses of the others.
You are correct!
Penn State does not match the Pell grant. Pitt will match it dollar for dollar. I know this because my child is a recipient of that benefit. It was a deciding factor on their choice to attend Pitt. If you are low income, the Pell Grant match essentially makes it an almost $14,000 grant. That is huge.
Community college costs are no bargain in PA either.
The per-semester COA (no room & board) for the nearest community college to us (one hour by car) is over $4k.
Pell doesn’t cover it; there is a state grant that, combined with Pell, will. But sheesh.
As far as I can tell the legislature would prefer not to fund higher ed at all.
PA reidents will recall that the last governor’s race did include a candidate who wanted a Florida-style attack on all education, including higher ed.
I hear people say more students should go to trade school – but those aren’t cheap either. And when SCOTUS finally rules on admissions and how race factors into it, who knows what will happen with financial aid.
I’m honestly curious here, if your child went to Pitt and didn’t attend a commonwealth PSU campus, then how did your family have, as you stated, such an unsatisfactory experience with the commonwealth system at Penn State?
Can one really judge a system that they didn’t participate in?
Most of the Penn State scholarships from the different colleges are need based as is the Penn State Academic Grant. They might not call it a Pell Grant match but that is what it is as so little aid is available in general as has been discussed here. Pitt and Temple would offer a match in the February aid offer. Penn State scholarships come out at different times so you might not see it up front. Probably intentional on Penn States part to keep number of need aid students down. That said both schools have about the same number of Pell Grant students per class, Pitt at 500 or so per their CDS, Penn state 915 with similar graduation success. So somehow at both school Pell Grant students can make payment. Its not a perfect system at any of these schools. A state school like West Chest might have 2x the Pell students but fewer graduate than at Penn State or Pitt. So those students leave with loans and no degree at a high rate.
I wasn’t going to respond, but we just finished a tour of Penn State’s food science department this afternoon. Which by the way is a very impressive program. My family’s experience stems from our years of experience with the school, both academically and through cooperative extension. One thing that happens when you live close to a university system like Penn State is that you see both the good and the not so good of the system. When it comes to the branch campuses, there was another student on our tour who was participating in the 2+2 program. He was an example of why that system doesn’t work as well as it should with so many small campuses. His particular campus didn’t offer anywhere near enough classes for him to fill 2 years. He was going have to transfer after one year and will in fact be behind because he wasn’t set up with correct classes. In my daughter’s case, she will also have to transfer after one year because our local campus (which is even one of the larger ones) won’t be able to offer her enough of the required science classes. We have seen other students have the same problem and ultimately need an extra semester or entire year to complete their degree. In theory, the branch campus concept should work well, but I feel they need to have fewer of them to offer more classes for students to fill the required Gen Eds.
As to financial aid, that was a discussion we had today with the advisor. If there are matching grants or scholarships, neither of my children have been offered them. All we were given was the Pell, PHEAA and Provost. My older daughter was offered this but my younger daughter missed out because her application got stuck in processing quagmire for way too long, so she is out of luck on that. Unfortunately , this might ultimately have an impact on her decision to attend Penn State. We discussed this with the advisor and basically Penn State likes to wait and offer departmental dollars once they see if the student will stay in the major. This is fine, but it’s really a leap of faith when you don’t have a college savings account to start with. I’m holding my breath, because I won’t count on any money until we actually see it. At least at Pitt (where my older daughter chose to go) we knew up front what the aid package, including the Pell match was so we could determine if it was practical for her to attend. This really does make a difference for many low income families. Virginia Tech does the same thing. My daughter keeps getting emails from them saying that even though your first year is expensive you will qualify for many scholarships afterwards. That is just not a financial risk we can take.
Finally, our experience this year during the application process left us with the impression that Penn State wasn’t prepared to handle the record number of applications it received. We got caught in a black hole where admissions kept giving my daughter the run around. I hope no one else experienced the poor treatment she did. It took us bringing the issue up with an acquaintance at Penn State to get a resolution. No student should have to go through that. My point to our acquaintance was that if my student fell through the cracks with us helping her, how many other potential students did as well. We know Penn State is losing many highly qualified College of Agriculture students to other state land grant universities for similar reasons.
So while I can fully agree that Penn State is a great school, I think it’s perfectly fine to mention the not so great parts too.
@aheltzel
Absolutely. Many of us long-timers here often point out Penn State’s downfalls, especially in the area of financial aid and the greek system. The commonwealth campus system probably needs to update considering so many students now come in with tons of transfer credits from dual enrollment in HS. So those students may run out of classes too soon. The commonwealth campus system worked very well for my family, both with dual enrollment at a local campus while my kids were in HS and my son attending Altoona, but I can certainly understand that our experience isn’t universal. My other kids started right at UP which made things cleaner for sure. I did take exception to the “no one wants to go to a commonwealth campus” comment because in our case, that just wasn’t true.
Still, My question to you was honest and not intended to be snarky in any way. Thank you for explaining and I do not disagree with you.
At this point it is highly likely my daughter will start at Altoona campus for a variety of reasons. (Going to be hard to so no to Cornell) A couple things we noticed during her tour. Even in the middle of the day, the campus seemed really empty. It just felt strange to me, especially compared to other small colleges we have visited. It really feels like a commuter college. A family was there from Illinois. Their child was admitted to the 2+2. They seemed really disappointed because they didn’t really understand how program worked. It was not what they expected. Finally, when we met with the advisor at the Altoona campus concerning scheduling, her advice didn’t line up with the advice from the advisor at Main campus. This is one of the biggest challenges with the branch campus system. Students really need to be on top their major requirements.
I’m just not sure how Penn State is going to continue to fund their University. It’s very expensive to run the university system. They are going to have to start making cuts. Altoona campus is far from maxed out student number wise. In fact, the financial aid person told us that they don’t fill all the housing they have.
I wouldn’t attend Altoona from Illinois - even though it’s a 4-year campus, it’s not a good value and there are better, cheaper choices in Illinois even for a student who’s not been admitted to UIUC.
I’m really not sure a student admitted to Cornell should attend there, too, as it’s likely she would have enough advanced classes not to match with the prescribed “typical” curriculum (which would explain why the Altoona scheduling person might not have been able to square things for your child - students with lots of advanced classes tend to attend UP and there are several sections and levels to accomodate them). Did you daughter get Schreyer at Altoona, at least?
Are there no choices beside Cornell and PSU Altoona?
What environment is she looking for?
What major did she request?
Coming from my high school, a student interested in one of the branch campuses like Altoona wouldn’t have even applied to Cornell. The academic caliber of the students isn’t the same. Main campus (UP) students would match as would some who choose other PASSHE schools like West Chester (due to finances or preferences).
The branch campuses get overlap with our community college students, and unlike what I hear from CA, our ccs aren’t (usually) in the same depth class-wise. This is fine when the classes taken there aren’t in one’s major (Gen Eds) or similar. It seems to work as a stepping stone to more easily adjust to college.
Or perhaps students from other high schools choose differently.
Which Penn State campuses (besides UP) would be recommended for someone who would think of applying to a school like Cornell? My guess might be Behrend would be one, but that’s just a guess on my part.
Perhaps there are PA residents who find Cornell and starting at the PSU branch within commute range to be affordable, but four years at PSU University Park to be unaffordable?
I haven’t been at school since Covid other than a few days this school year, but prior to that I just don’t know of anyone at our school of that caliber who went that route, or even tried for it.
Possibly, but students who are academically capable of getting into Cornell tend to get good offers from other schools - not necessarily Top X schools, but good schools nonetheless, esp if there is financial need. At least a couple have gone to Alabama.
Behrend, perhaps, if Cornell was chosen for CS or Engineering, but there really wouldn’t be much overlap.
Private colleges in the State (which tend to adjust their prices to be competitive with PSU) or commuting to Pitt/Temple would likely be better choices than a branch campus for someone admitted to Cornell.
Yes, we are leaning that way for him (Purdue), which is unfortunate given I’m a Penn State ME myself! I have a friend whose son in a freshman in ArchE here, and when I mentioned this topic, he offered that his son has two classes being taught by grad students, not professors. These budget issues may already be starting to show in the engineering department.
This is VERY common at big universities that have doctoral programs. It’s a question I’ve asked at every college tour since my oldest went to Penn State in 2015. Most big schools have TA’s or grad students that teach - and in some subjects that might be ok. But my kids did struggle in the higher level math classes that had doctoral math students teaching who knew math - but didn’t know how to teach. I’d be surprised if Purdue doesn’t also allow TA’s or grad assistants to teach some classes. I’d ask for sure if that’s your deciding factor because it’s not uncommon.
I’ve had 3 of 4 kids go to Penn State and my youngest is going to RIT In the fall ( Penn State didn’t have much in way of his major interest). I asked there about TA’s or grad assistants teaching and they said never.
There are GREAT THINGS about Penn State - and sometimes, not so great things. Like everywhere I guess.
fwiw: Professors/faculty teach classes (lecture) at teh University of California campuses, including Berkeley and UCLA. The TA’s run the discussion/lab sections.
Interesting! It’s not like it’s every class at PSU but seems to be especially prevalent in the math classes.