<p>You need to check each school’s financial aid policies.</p>
<p>For example, CSUs do not adjust financial aid based on type of housing, but UCs do. So the choice of living situation as it relates to financial aid may not be the same at each school. Check the net price calculators to see if financial aid changes with living situation. Note that cost and convenience of off campus housing or commuting from grandma’s can vary be lot from the school’s assumed budget.</p>
<p>Also, some schools have frosh live in the dorm requirements.</p>
<p>it’s better to live on campus for a college that meets full need, since room&board will be covered by financial aid if he lives on campus, but he’ll be on his grandmother’s dime for food if he lives with her. Colleges don’t give FA covering room&board to students who live off campus.
However, if he can commute to CPP, that’d make the school more affordable since room&board are not included in the budget.
See if he could commute to Whittier, for instance, too - better than CPP.</p>
<p>Other LACs just outside of the Washington DC area to consider that emphasize writing (and are strong in Poli Sci- and give merit aid) are Washington College in Chestertown, MD and Goucher College in Baltimore. Both have made successful pushes to attract more geographic diversity and would be very interested in a student from CA. I personally haven’t visited either campus but my impression is that Goucher would feel more urban (very close to Baltimore if not in Baltimore itself) and Washington more isolated (in a smaller, picturesque, historical town on the Chesapeake Bay).</p>
Will he be comfortable with that?</p>