Need help; do all out of state public colleges exempt offering much aid?

<p>My friend (who got a great scholarship at NYU) got only 300$ of aid from UCLA and undoubtedly denied it. There are a couple of schools that I am interested in going, but they are all out of state, public schools. (U. of Texas, Austin, Rutgers, etc-)</p>

<p>Is it even worth applying to those schools? For example, rutgers is only 8% out of state. This probably means they barely offer much aid to those out-of state kids that applied.</p>

<p>Any advice would be great. Thanks.</p>

<p>Some OOS Publics will offer merit aid to high scorers. Here is the thread on that: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html?highlight=guaranteed[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html?highlight=guaranteed&lt;/a&gt; There are two other Publics that meet financial need, regardless of state - UVA and UNC-CH. Since they do meet need, they are highly selective. If you don’t have the high scores and GPA to make it into those public schools you’ll have to look to the lower cost publics like the SUNYs or some in the midwest.</p>

<p>I heard someone local complaining that U Pitt seemed to offer better money to OOS students than PA ones, but I don’t know how accurate this is.</p>

<p>So I guess i can’t really generalize until I get accepted or something right?</p>

<p>Aid being met by out of state public schools ( or private schools in general) can be difficult to accomplish without scholarships.</p>

<p>You can absolutely generalize. There are UVA and UNC-CH that do offer need based aid to OOS students. Some others offer guaranteed merit aid and you can see if you qualify. Other than that, don’t count on aid from an OOS public.</p>

<p>There is a BIG difference between OOS financial aid and OOS merit scholarships. </p>

<p>I believe that only UVa and UNC-CH give financial aid to OOS students. So, nearly no OOS publics give financial aid to OOS students - except for the small amount of free aid from the federal gov’t for low income students.</p>

<p>However, some OOS publics give big merit scholarships to OOS students who have high stats.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that OOS publics charge an OOS high rate for a reason. It wouldn’t make much sense then to then just cover the OOS extra cost with financial aid. </p>

<p>So, what is your situation? Are you a US citizen or green card resident? What state do you live in?</p>

<p>What are your stats? How much will your parents pay?</p>

<p>*I heard someone local complaining that U Pitt seemed to offer better money to OOS students than PA ones, but I don’t know how accurate this is. *</p>

<p>I believe the complaint is about merit money for OOS students…not aid. Pitt has a rep for giving good merit to targeted OOS students with high stats to help their OOS numbers.</p>

<p>Dad<em>of</em>3: There’s definitely some truth to this, at least anecdotally. As a PA resident, Pitt was my most expensive option come April (out of a list that included OOS publics and private schools). They only offer $2000 in merit to in-state applicants if you’re not being given a full-ride or full-tuition scholarship, whereas out-of-state applicants can be given $10,000.</p>

<p>Gevamna–The $10,000 for OOS students off sets the increased OOS costs. The $2000 off in-state tuition at Pitt makes in-state tuition $12,154 for next year. The $10,000 makes out of state tuition $13,852 for next year. In this case, less is more.</p>

<p>^^^
That’s true for a lot of publics… The total amount awarded in merit scholarships to high stats OOS students may be a higher amount, but the OOS student may still end up paying more than an instate student who received a smaller dollar amount.</p>