Is it possible for you to stretch to $30k per year?
At the risk of stating the obvious, my understanding is that the in-state cost of attendance at U.Oregon and Oregon State are a bit under $30k per year without any aid. Similarly, in US dollars Simon Fraser University (approximately in Vancouver BC) is about $30k per year for international students (C$40k in Canadian dollars).
As far as I can tell all of these three do provide some merit based financial aid, although I have no idea how much. Given your son’s stats, I think that all of these are both very good universities and safeties.
Look into Montana State University (or University of Montana) - they can be generous to out of state students with good stats and there are WUE scholarships. It shouldn’t be too hard to get the costs to $25,000 per year.
You are probably close to the score that would get your son a one year OOS tuition waiver at the University of Utah. Staying over the summer (which you can get paid to do as an orientation leader) would give residency for subsequent years, and the total cost at in-state rates is close to $20K per year (about $4K-$5K less than Oregon). It’s a great location if your son likes the outdoors, with skiing 45 minutes away, and the facilities are amazing, with many brand new buildings. Also PAC-12 sports similar to U of O.
First the bad news - my D received many WUE scholarship offers four years ago and Wyoming was the only one that beat the cost of our in-state choices.
Now the good news - he seems perfectly situated to have a great experience at either O-State or the Big Green Zero. He would be competitive for scholarships at either to help with cost, especially if he can get a top-1% SAT score.
Try not to let yourself get lost in the woods on this. The number of potential choices can be overwhelming, and seeing a kid from Oregon (we’re in WA, so similar issues) get excited about colleges in the South or in flyover country with net costs under $20k is unlikely.
Thanks Magnetron,
The prevailing narrative at my son’s school is that there are many “deals” out there for kids with high grades and scores, better than UofO and OSU. Some of this is likely just urban legend. Considering it sounds like you just went through this (and WA is probably similar to OR) any hints or tips you might suggest? A kid from our neighborhood goes to Alabama for free (parents have more $ then we do) because he is a student manager on the football team. Seems like there are a few of these options out there. UofO and OSU have really cut back on merit (as have most schools) and have a small number of uber competitive scholarships but typically they are going to the really, really unique kid (example: refugee, speaks multiple languages, started non profit to protect endangered birds, aced all tests…).
One college that provides good merit aid to a large number of students is Trinity University in San Antonio. The Trinity website lists gpa and standardized test scores from some scholarships that are required and it appears that the scholarships are automatic and based only on these two criteria (there are other scholarships listed that are not automatic and only available to a small number of students). It appears your son would quality for the $23,000 per year amount and could potentially quality for the $26,000 level with a slight increase in his SAT score.
This still may not be enough to get to a net cost of $20,000 without additional aid, but may be worth investigating. It is not entirely clear from the website whether Trinity would offer need based aid on top of the merit aid, but it appears to me they likely would not, as it indicates Trinity considers merit aid as part of a family’s resources.
I’m obviously biased (graduated from Trinity 30 years ago), but many in other parts of the country are unaware of Trinity’s “automatic” scholarships based on gpa and test scores and wanted to let you know of that option.