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<p>All the original Big 10 schools are doing well with geographic diversity last time I looked. The education is not to be beat and each has something to offer plus some well known and well recruited majors. Like the NE has always been proud of their select private schools, the midwest has always been proud of their public universities. Like the NE privates each of the original Big 10 schools has their own “personality” which is refreshing. I’m divided on how I feel about the influx of out of region kids relative to my own kids as we wait for S3’s Michigan decision since these are supposedly “state public schools” but my 90 year old father said even when he was at Michigan there were quite a few kids from the NY area back then so for some of the unis this is not a change. I think UIUC has been known for awhile by certain groups of kids.</p>
<p>Is there anyway to view this article without registering? I am out of state and cannot register.</p>
<p>Registration is required. but I believe you get 5 free articles a month.</p>
<p>I fail to see any reason why a kid from Illinois would pay OOS tuition to go to Michigan - or vice versa. These big flagships have so much more in common than points on which they differ.</p>
<p>Well, sometimes they might not get into one and they do the other, I’ve seen this happen. If the family can afford the tuition hit then I see no harm. My sib’s spouse’s kiddo applied to Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio and Indiana 4 years ago and ended up at Indiana…home state was Illinois. Some states have reciprocity…we’re unfortunate in that regard.</p>
<p>Not everyone has the need to be as tight with a buck as others have to be. If a family can afford it, what’s the big deal?</p>
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<p>Really? I can think of quite a few reasons a kid from Illinois might enroll at Michigan instead of Illinois (and a substantial number do every year, though far fewer go in the other direction).</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The kid’s a Michigan legacy and it’s part of the family tradition. Unlike most state schools, Michigan actually cares a great deal about the legacy thing. As do many University of Michigan families.</p></li>
<li><p>The kid gets a full or partial athletic scholarship, or is a non-scholarship recruited athlete, and Michigan’s program in the sport is better (e.g., gymnastics), and/or Illinois doesn’t have the sport (e.g., ice hockey, men’s swimming, lacrosse, men’s soccer, women’s water polo, field hockey, rowing).</p></li>
<li><p>The kid is inclined toward a social science or humanities field where Michigan has a strong program and Illinois doesn’t. On the whole Illinois can match or beat Michigan in STEM fields, but Michigan tends to be much stronger in most humanities and social sciences fields.</p></li>
<li><p>The kid is a Ross Business School pre-admit at Michigan and calculates that a BBA from the #3-ranked undergrad business school might be enough of an edge over a degree from the #14-ranked business school as a path to that much-coveted Wall Street job that it’s worth the incremental tuition cost.</p></li>
<li><p>The kid is admitted to Michigan’s LS&A Honors Program, the top ranked honors program in the country where the median stats are comparable to Ivy League schools and where the student can expect to take small classes with extremely well-qualified peers taught by top professors. Illinois also has a variety of honors programs, but they’re much less transparent about it, and it’s not at all clear what the opportunities are or what it adds up to.</p></li>
<li><p>The kid is admitted to Michigan’s Residential College, a “small college within a great university.” As best I can tell, Illinois doesn’t offer similar small college-like opportunities; it’s much more of a mass market institution.</p></li>
<li><p>The kid has personal or family ties to the state of Michigan, would much prefer to end up there after college, and figures her chances of that are better if she goes to school there.</p></li>
<li><p>Any combination of the above.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I’m sure there are more reasons. E.g., Ann Arbor’s a more fun and interesting town. Some kids want to get away from the crowd they ran with in HS and are better off going out-of-state. And the cultures of the two schools are really quite different. That’s not to say it’s a sensible choice for everyone. But for those who can make it work financially and have a strong preference . . . why not?</p>
<p>I say this as the father of a daughter who is applying to Michigan as an OOS student. She’s a double legacy there, she really likes the town of Ann Arbor, she likes the feel and academic culture of the school, she’s convinced (as am I) that academically it’s top-to-bottom better than our own state flagship (Minnesota) in any field she’d ever care to study and at least marginally better than Wisconsin where she’d get tuition reciprocity as a Minnesota resident, and miles better in terms of class sizes and student-faculty ratio and the academic qualifications of the student body, especially if she’s admitted to Michigan’s Honors Program but to a substantial degree even if not. Her first choice is a leading LAC, where she’s applied ED and would be a full-pay. But if she’s not accepted there and is admitted at Michigan and decides Michigan is her next-best option, would I be willing to pay OOS tuition for her to go there, over Minnesota or Wisconsin? You bet I would, because I want my daughter to get the best education she can, at a place she’ll be happy to be, and because, bottom line, if we can afford full-pay at a top private school, we certainly can afford to send her to Michigan if that’s the best option available to her.</p>
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<p>There are special merit scholarships available for out-of-state students which can remove any price differential – and maybe a lot more.</p>
<h1>9 - The Big House. :D</h1>
<p>Good I’m happy about this. There’s a good possibility that I will be going to UIUC and in college I want to be around new and unique people.</p>
<p>Let’s also keep this in perspective. In 2010, 5,469 Illinois residents enrolled as freshmen at the University of Illinois, along with 15 Michiganders, 17 Wisconsinites, 12 Indianans, and 10 Iowans.</p>
<p>That same year, 3,946 Michiganders enrolled as freshmen at the University of Michigan, along with 319 Illinoisans, 148 Ohioans, 31 Indianans, and 24 Wisconsinites. Michigan actually gets more New Yorkers (361) than Illinoisans, and almost as many Californians (297) and New Jerseyans (234).</p>
<p>Also, 3,479 Wisconsinites enrolled at UW-Madison, along with 738 Minnesotans (who get tuition reciprocity), 676 Illinoisans (who don’t), 30 Michiganders, and 14 Iowans.</p>
<p>Purdue enrolled 3,887 Indianans as freshmen, together with 557 Illinoisans, 139 Ohioans, and 69 Michiganders.</p>
<p>Indiana enrolled 4,425 freshmen from Indiana, along with 837 from Illinois, 153 from Ohio, and 59 from Michigan.</p>
<p>Perhaps most stunningly, Iowa enrolled 2,096 Iowans as freshmen in 2010, along with 1,589 Illinoisans, 145 Minnesotans, 95 Wisconsinites, and 13 Nebraskans.</p>
<p>Ohio State enrolled 5,225 Ohio freshmen, 123 Illinoisans, 107 Pennsylvanians, 46 Michiganders, and 33 Indianans.</p>
<p>Michigan State enrolled 5,964 Michiganders, 249 Illinoisans, 58 Ohioans, 34 Wisconsinites, and 23 Indianans.</p>
<p>Minnesota got 3,450 Minnesotans, 940 Wisconsinites (with tuition reciprocity), 251 Illinoisans, and 58 Iowans.</p>
<p>Generally, then, students in the B1G states do not flee their home state for OOS publics, even those in contiguous states; it’s generally just a small handful who do, often for idiosyncratic reasons. The big exceptions to this rule are Minnesota-Wisconsin, where tuition reciprocity makes for a permeable border, and Illinois, which exports very large numbers of students to OOS public universities in all contiguous states, and even some that are not contiguous. In fact, more Illinois residents attend CIC (B1G + Chicago) schools other than their state flagship, than attend the University of Illinois. Illinois is the only B1G state flagship remotely close to this mark.</p>
<p>The real question, then, is what is it about the University of Illinois that makes it so unattractive a destination that so many Illinois residents would eschew it in favor of OOS publics at a higher price? That invites not an Illinois-Michigan comparison; that involves relatively small numbers, and it’s easily explainable, IMO, by comparative academic strengths. [Well, that plus The Big House, as bluebayou so insightfully put it].</p>
<p>The bigger question is why do so many Illinois residents end up at schools like Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, Purdue, Michigan State, and Minnesota, generally schools of lesser or at best equal strength to Illinois. In some, perhaps many cases, it may be that the applicant was rejected by Illinois but accepted by the less-selective OOS school, which was perceived as better than any in-state Illinois fallback options. Still, one would think that with export-import numbers as lopsided as this, Illinois must also be losing large numbers of admitted students to OOS public competitors. Why is less clear.</p>
<p>Hypotheses?</p>
<p>My D (current freshman) was accepted at UIUC to the business school but chose to attend a non-contiguous OOS flagship at considerably less cost than UIUC would have been. UIUC has a better business school but the school D attends is a better fit. Wisconsin (higher cost than UIUC but not by all that much) was her second choice; Illinois and Indiana were close contenders after that (and about the same cost with Indiana’s guaranteed scholarships). UIUC was expensive for an in-state public, appeared to be in turmoil, didn’t have a particularly appealing campus, and just didn’t compete well with the OOS publics D considered.</p>
<p>annasdad–I will give you a lot of reasons $$$$$. Most of the kids I know that go out of state to flagships in other states do so because they cost less–yes, LESS, then our in state flagship. Either the costs start out lower, several states, or the merit aid is more generous bringing the cost below our flagship. Our kids didn’t apply to any in-state schools because through either reciprocity, student exchange programs are just flat out lower costs, other state schools cost a heck of a lot less–as did every private school to which they applied to the tune of $10,000/year+ less.</p>
<p>I think Annasdad knows that an OOS public can be cheaper or similarly priced with merit aid. I think his own D attends an OOS public with merit aid.</p>
<p>I think he was questioning why someone would pay full freight for UMich if UIUC was their instate flagship. </p>
<p>As PG mentions, for some families money isn’t an issue. That’s super. 
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<p>As BClinton mentions, for some families they have legacy ties or may be seeking a specific sport.</p>
<p>That said, probably the majority of us would not pay out an add’l $100k for our child to attend an OOS public if the instate option was quite comparable. </p>
<p>For those who have more than one child, paying full freight for an OOS public can mean paying an extra $200k or more. For some families, paying the extra cost is no biggie. For those getting merit at the OOS school, there isn’t an extra expense and cost may actually be cheaper. For the non-affluent full payers, the extra OOS cost is often a deal breaker.</p>
<p>I know that Illinois sends a lot of kids to Alabama because with a full tuition scholarship, Bama is much cheaper.</p>
<p>bclintonk</p>
<p>I can tell you why we have so many IL students at UIowa (and at Iowa State). They don’t have the grades and scores for admission to UIUC, especially in business and engineering. But they want the big time sports experience. </p>
<p>Iowa State enrolled 1700 OOS US students (34% of the class) this fall, mostly from Illinois and Minnesota and many majoring in business, engineering, or ag related. Most are pretty good students with ACT’s in the 25-29 range, generally not quite good enough for admission to engineering or business at U MN or U IL. Iowa State is also very cheap for OOS students, a student with an ACT in the 27-29 range will only pay about $23,000 per year. This is about the same as it would cost them instate for NIU, SIU, etc. U Iowa is a little more expensive, at about $30,000 per year.</p>
<p>We get some top students from IL with ACTs > 31 but not too many. These students can almost always attend U Iowa for less than UIUC.</p>
<p>Take off the rose-colored glasses, and UIUC is revealed as a big compromise for a serious student: underfunded, deferred-maintenance campus, lack of adequate on-campus housing, student ghetto off-campus housing, dumpy city, enormous lecture-hall classes, difficulties when registering for classes, lots of kids need 5+ years to graduate, full-pay for upper-middle class in-state students, etc. Yes, it makes UoIowa pretty attractive.</p>
<p>Also, admissions policy limits acceptance counts from each in-state HS, even if that HS produces a disproportionate number of excellent ACT 30+ caliber students. Plus, admission policies are corrupted by an established “elected official’s designation” preferential enrollment policy which allows clouted students to override admission selection process. There’s been press coverage regarding that issue too.</p>
<p>There’s still a great love of UIUC in Illinois which reflects its “golden age” reputation, and not the new reality of the current experience.</p>
<p>For those who don’t have Tribune access, article notes that undergrad enrollment for this year’s freshman class was 25% out-of-state, which includes a disproportionate number of Chinese foreign students.</p>
<p>When I was an Illinois high schooler, you couldn’t have paid me to go to UIUC. I’ve gotten more open-minded over time, and U-C has become a slightly better college town, but I’m still no great fan of the place. Something about flat, frozen cornfields lacks appeal.</p>
<p>I disagree that UIUC gets a lot of love in Illinois in a way that’s comparable to the love the other big 10 schools get in their home states. I see way more Michigan and Iowa banners on houses and bars around Chicago.</p>
<p>Californians have been paying OOS tuition to attend lesser-ranked U of Colorado at Boulder for decades. It’s been a great way to fill the the empty coffers in Boulder even if everyone pretty much knew the California kids were there because of the skiing - and because they weren’t good enough to get into the UCs.</p>
<p>Kids with money do all kinds of things that kids without money can’t consider. Going OOS to a public is one of them.</p>
<p>Wisconsin is actually in worse financial shape.</p>
<p>Illinois residents (through their legislature) have been unwilling to fund their public institutions for decades. State-funded institutions live in fear of budget rescission (give-backs) during the veto sessions that all budgets have to have substantial slush funds, so when the rescission goes through it won’t actually hurt on-going programs. Faculty is retiring in droves in order to preserve their pensions (long promised, and fully paid from faculty salaries, both in forgone income and actual substantial individual payments). </p>
<p>Michigan lost its state funding so long ago that they’ve adjusted to laughable amounts of state funding. Michigan essentially functions as a private institution. Illinois is headed that way. And if that means more out of state students in order to fund the in-state students whose parents and neighbors are unwilling to pay more taxes, that’s the cost of the political decisions voters make. There is no free lunch.</p>