^^I strongly recommend running the net price calculator at all colleges you are considering. You may find colleges like Pitt and PSU very expensive too. ESU might be less.
If wanting to stick to state schools for cost, I’d compare Millersville. It’s where many of our science types go. IUP is another, but Millersville gets the most.
@ghoula To give you some idea of the costs, I plugged in your financial information assuming you’re a PA resident, 4 people in your family with only you attending college next year, 48K family income, no family financial assets, you with no income, living on campus, 3.6 UW GPA and 1100 SAT. Here is the cost of attendance (after grant aid) from the net price calculators for various colleges people have suggested.
ESU and Millersville (and likely all non-flagship state unis): 14,400
Pitt and PSU: 23,300
Juniata: 19,300
Eckerd: 25,900
Gettysburg: 20,200
Allegheny: 22,900
Obviously, these are estimates, and I don’t have all of your family information. However, you can see the trends here. The cheapest option of four year school is to attend a non-flagship state university, especially one that is close to your home so you could live at home. Attending community college while living at home for the first two years and then transferring to a state university may be the cheapest option of all.
Run the NPCs for each college indeed. Franklin&Marshall, Lafayette, Dickinson, and Muhlenberg are supposed to have good financial aid. Wooster, Juniata, and Allegheny would likely give you merit aid on top of need-based aidin order to entice you :).
So run the NPC on each college because each college will calculate differently and write the break down - tuition + R&B = …x… other costs = .y…* - z:grants/scholarships (add up grants, scholarships, Pell, awards… but not loans or work study) = …NET COST… <- net cost is what you need to compare. Then you can subtract $2,000 for a likely work study and $5,500 for the automatic federal loans and see what your family has to pay.
You’ll find that Penn State and Pitt may be too expensive, unless you get a Provost grant, a special Ebelerly or Science grant, and/or a state grant. Temple would give you an automatic full tuition scholarship + two $4,000 stipends so apply soon to lock that in.
- you can often cut down on those by renting books or buying used, being frugal and no going out...