I love that out of the box thinking. When the budget is pretty low ($20k) showing flexibility in thinking super important!
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University of Wyoming also belongs to National Student Exchange. NSE allows up to a full year of exchange at any of the other ~200 participating schools, most of which are in the United States. You only pay whatever tuition you are already paying at your home institution, and credits transfer automatically. Lots of urban schools belong. https://www.nse.org/exchange/colleges-universities/alpha-location/
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University of South Carolina was under $20K with merit alone for my daughter. University of Iowa and University of Denver were close - but more like $25ish COA. University of Richmond might have gotten there as she was invited to interview for their Richmond Scholars, but ended up getting into her ED school, so withdrew before final numbers were out. Best of luck finding the right school for him.
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Maybe Fordham…and maybe Boston University? Run the net price calculator and see what you get. I think the BU one includes merit aid…but not sure.
And adding that I agree Pitt and Ohio State are worth the application! Marquette would be great if the cost comes in at the right price point. Great sports there, and Milwaukee is a terrific smaller city.
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Try Clark University. Received about 26k/yr in merit scholarship-- didn’t apply for need based though from what I have heard, they seem to be doing decent with meeting aid need.
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Even with $30k merit, COA at Clark is around $40k, no?
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Fordham does not meet need, and CCers often report a large gap.
Also, tuition + room and board will be over $84K for 2023-2024 (it’s D24’s first choice, and we’re wringing our hands over here…).
Their larger scholarships are for selected NMSF/NM Recognition Scholars. The more common $10-20K in merit would not get close to OP’s budget.
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Unless you go ED, Richmond is now very selective.
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Yeah though they should be able to cover the rest with need-based, especially if you apply through EA
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Richmond is very selective. But according to Dataverse which pulled this info from the latest Common Data Set, the RD admission rate was 21%. That number is nothing to get excited about…except if you’re thinking about schools that are extremely generous and extremely rejective, with 5% admit rates. Then 21% starts looking better, but admittedly, only in comparison.
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That is outdated information. From Richmond’s website for Class of 2026, the overall acceptance rate was 24%, with no breakout by round. But I agree their RD acceptance rate is higher than the schools where it’s low single digits. With that said, there is no reason for the vast majority of applicants to miss the EA deadline for Richmond. I expect they pick and choose those RD applicants who fit their remaining institutional priorities at that point.
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Richmond took only 14% of class from RD last year. I’m sharing bc we didn’t catch this stat until after my daughter applied EA with a profile right in their usual range and got deferred. If we had it to do over, we would have gone ED. EA round was tough this year with so many apps. (UR’s acceptance rate reaches all-time low for class of 2026 - University of Richmond's Student Newspaper)
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I was just about to say the University of Minnesota for his stats and interests.
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I know…but sometimes their merit aid packages are good for some students.
@Mwfan1921 do you know if they allow stacking of merit and need based aid?
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My reading of the statistics are different. From the student profile page that @Mwfan1921 linked and that was included within the article you shared from UR’s student newspaper, this is the statistic: Enrolled class by application plan: 41% ED, 44% EA, 14% RD, and 1% wait list.
As that totals up to 100%, I don’t think they’re saying those were the admits for those divisions. Instead, it’s what percentage of students in the entering class was selected via that pathway.
Thus, the numbers I shared above may be slightly lower (i.e. 24% acceptance rate instead of 29%), but I suspect that the overall numbers by ED/EA/RD are probably similar.
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I believe they do stack aid, but I would still say they are on the stingy side, only meeting 65% of need on average (based on CDS 2021-22). I agree they do offer some strong FA packages to students they really want.
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Thank you all for the great suggestions!
We have a number of new schools to investigate further.
I really appreciate all the knowledgeable people here.
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UofSC could be a good fit and right on the money.
Apply early and do not miss prompts for other rounds of scholarships
If you have financial need, UMiami will get you to EFC and possibly more with merit.
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I was going to suggest University of Colorado Denver. Like others, it’s a specific campus. (I don’t think Boulder is WUE). Since our kid is going for music performance, Denver is where he applied, and the COA is going to be around $30K. There are additional possible scholarships we’re going to try for. I believe there are several majors CU Denver is known for. It’s definitely a city campus, right in downtown.
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I have not researched these schools in any way other than music faculty and cost, so do your own research on these. We’re considering them as financial safeties.
University of Memphis has several factors you have to add based on housing choices, etc, but it looks like the COA comes in around your budget.
University of New Orleans is in an amazing city and comes in around 26K pre-aid-pre-scholarships.
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