Mid-size schools with merit financial aid?

USD seems to be more generous with their merit (up to $25K) and FA than Santa Clara. I think they just have deeper pockets. My daughter starts at USD at the end of the month, so she will find out about campus feel/affluence. I’m a single teacher (near retirement, no complaint about income, but not in the fancy car range!), so she’s not a “University of Spoiled Daughters” kid. I think she’ll be fine. The campus IS amazingly beautiful and the shorts-and-Tshirt kids we saw on campus seemed to be happy, normal, and relaxed. When we visited (from midwest) on admitted students day it blew all the competition out of the water. Goodbye Dayton, Butler, Miami O, Denver, St. Olaf, Denison, and a bunch of Big 10s where she was accepted with similar merit or out of pocket expenses.

Dayton was a runner up, with University of Iowa a surprisingly strong contender (and cheaper than our in-state flagship!)

Good luck! Your daughter should do great in admissions/merit. Mine had lower ACT and got all acceptances and merit from the private schools she applied to.

These are very similar choices to hers – USD, Dayton, Butler, Miami, Denver – so thank you for that perspective about USD! We’re also hoping that maybe there could be a bit of draw in that we’re from Wisconsin and they probably don’t get a ton of applicants from here.

I really like what I have read about SLU, too. At least on paper, it seems that students are engaged, faculty are challenging, etc. We haven’t visited, though.

My wife (law) and I (masters) are both Iowa grads, so it’s heartening to hear that it was in the running!

We visited Valpo and it just didn’t click with her. I rather liked it, but… dad isn’t the one going there, right?

I attended USD many moons ago, and although the socioeconomics are at all levels, the majority of students do come from affluent homes.

USD is a beautiful campus, but in CAR COUNTRY SoCal, she’s going to need to Uber to get to lots of places since the area the campus sits on, does not have a lot of access to “walkable” places. She needs to find a friend from LA County with a car.

auntbea, that is a consideration at USD. Students can take surfing for a gym class, but you have to get down to the beach. I hear shared uber is big and so is making friends with upperclassmen with cars!

LiterateGuy, one of the most charming parts about U Iowa seemed to be the college town area right next to the school. Actually we liked everything about Iowa–just didn’t have the climate and ocean to compete with USD!

Actually, @bobo44, the affluent freshman do have cars. I got rides from several kids Mercedes’. ;))

My niece went to USD (grad 3 years ago). She didn’t have a car her first year but did bring her 10+ year old car for the other years (or maybe just 2 of them). There are those rental cars available too (Zip cars) and she used those quite a bit.

She had gone to Catholic high school in Denver and it an other Catholic high schools seem to be ‘feeder’ schools for USD as there were 10-15 kids she knew, she roomed with her BFF. Some kids are wealthy, but not all (and certainly not niece).

I was going to suggest running the NPC at SLU and Marquette, but I see others have already suggested those schools.

Is this student going to be National Merit Finalist?

Villanova is not known for generous merit aid. Their large merit scholarships usually go to URM/hooked/lower income students. My high stats, 35ACT, 3.9 U/W gpa D was offered $10k merit aid and was also gapped several years ago, making Villanova the most expensive school on her app list.

U Delaware offers merit to OOS students, a very nice school at the high end of medium sized. It is in a cute college town, too.

She’s not going to be a National Merit Finalist.

Delaware is an interesting choice. Her cousin went there and loved it. They also are strong in figure skating.

We’ve also looked at Bradley and Gonzaga as places were she has a good shot at admission and merit aid. Other possibles would be places like Drake and Duquesne.

(I should also add that I’m a faculty member at U of Wisconsin, and we don’t get ANY kind of a deal here for our kids! So we’re looking at regular in-state tuition at UW and Minnesota – reciprocity there.)

If she receives $20000 in merit from Butler that would bring tuition down to the $20000 range not including room and board, so that might be in your range. Indianapolis always has something going on if you want to get off campus and Butler does a good job of campus activities. Of my four kids, the two Butler kids have absolutely loved their time on campus and have never questioned their choice.

It sounds like you are hoping for a Jesuit or Catholic college. Is that one of your parent criteria?

@LiterateGuy1766

Honestly, no – we’re not shooting for Jesuit/Catholic. It just seems that some of these schools are in that mold, though. We’re totally ok with secular/state schools. Of course we have some those in WI with the non-flagship UW schools, but I don’t think she’s interested in Lacrosse, Stout, etc.

If we could knock down Butler’s COA into the mid-$20,000’s with merit aid, I think we’d have a winner. Same with Denver.

Dayton intrigues me a little because students seem to love it so dearly. They must be doing something right.

“If we could knock down Butler’s COA into the mid-$20,000’s with merit aid, I think we’d have a winner. Same with Denver.”

I’d be astonished if that happened without need based aid. Our experience was that Butler don’t go above $20K per year (half tuition). So you are left with $20K in tuition plus another $17K-$20K for room, board and other expenses.

Yeah, I wasn’t saying that I expected it.

Though it’s slightly bigger (4000+ freshmen per year) the University of Utah would be more likely to get close to your price target. Instate tuition is available after the first year, bringing the COA down to the low $20Ks, and decent merit aid is also available to cover some or all of the OOS tuition.

Not sure if you would consider it mid-size at 2400 students, but Trinity University in Texas meets you cost criteria. It would be about $35k. Their merit money is very transparent on their web site.

I like Trinity a lot as a possibility (seems like a great school with good merit aid), and have encouraged her to look into it. Size and location might be issues. 2,400 is maybe a little small for her.

Our kiddo was also looking at schools under 10,000 students.

She applied to USD, Santa Clara, and University of South Carolina. I know…South Carolina was an odd choice, BUT she really liked it. They have a terrific honors college which makes the large school feel smaller. Her merit aid was outstanding…cost would have been under $10,000 a year.

She chose Santa Clara…but South Carolina would have been great in her opinion! Oh…she got $6000 in merit aid from SCU, but her stats were not as high. SCU is costly.

South Carolina also does a lot of interesting stuff targeted at first-year students (I know this from own work in this area). I think if we go the flagship state school route, it will be with Wisconsin or Minnesota. She wants to keep figure skating, which is another (!) factor. Obvs, something will have to give – few students get what they want in terms of size, location, aid, etc.

We like Santa Clara a lot, but there seems to be a mantra here and elsewhere regarding cost, cost, cost.