Out of State at MU

Colleges and Universities A-Z Miami University - Ohio
1

<p>Miami is a really good deal for instate students. It is a great school, and there are many financial resources and safeties built in for Ohioans.</p>

<p>Miami looks to out-of-state students for income. They are pretty consistent about keeping in-state students costs low by making out of state students pay all the increases. I can't find the most recent article I read, where they say they are trying to maintain their desire to serve instate students while admitting enough out of staters to balance the budget. Here is the press release from last year:
Trustees freeze in-state tuition; **Out-of-state students to pay six percent more**
Miami</a> University News: News Release</p>

<p>Out of state students pay close to double for things like study abroad as well. We really didn't understand the ramifications when we decided upon this school for D. In hindsight, I think we might have made a different decision. D receives several different scholarships, which are stagnant, so our costs are increasing every year, and it is no where near full ride. Not quite half. It may be coincidence, but any additional scholarships she has applied for since attending MU have seemed to favor instaters. It does seem like out-of-staters get treated like red-headed stepchildren.</p>

<p>There are other disadvantages. Many of D's friends are Ohio natives. They went to HS together. They spend breaks and summers together. D has plenty of friends, and has been warmly welcomed, but she misses out on all the extras that happen off-season.</p>

<p>It is our own fault; my other kids attended private schools, so we didn't really fully understand what it meant to be OOS at a public school. The main OOSers we'd talked to were folks on scholarship (such as Harrison) so we didn't get exposed to the full story.</p>

<p>D loves Miami, and doesn't regret her choice (but she doesn't know anything different, either.) As her parents, H and I see a difference in how she is being treated from how our sons were. I just wanted to post our experience in case someone else can learn from it.</p>

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<p>Binx, I agree with most of what you stated above. However, I'd like to add additional context. 38% of Miami students are OOS. This is an unusually high OOS percentage for a public institution. Most public universities limit OOS students to 20-25%. Historically, for the most part, Miami granted total scholarships in proportion to the in-state/OOS ratio, which I personally find fair. This likely varies on an individual scholarship level, as the donor of certain scholarships may specify allocation for in-state students only; and said allocation is subject to change, of course. Given Miami's unusually high OOS student population, the challenges mentioned above for OOS students seem magnified. However, these are, in fact, common issues faced by OOS students at ALL public universities and certainly not unique to Miami U. Certainly, these variables must be taken into account when any student decides to attend any OOS public university.</p>

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<p>Binx -- Thank you for posting this. My younger D has some OOS publics on her tentative list, and this are issues I have been thinking about.</p>

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<p>I do not mean to imply that Miami is unfair in any "unusual" way. My experience with being OOS is limited to my D's school. (My two S's attended private schools out of state.) My D applied to a number of private schools; MU was the only public, and we ultimately chose it because it was the best combination of price and what she was looking for. We are paying less for her than we paid for the boys. She is very happy there. I do not mean this as a whine, only offering points to consider that we had not fully understood.</p>

<p>Of the 36% OOS students, nearly half come from "eastern mid west" states. MU is on the Indiana border, and many students are still "local" who qualify on paper as OOS. (I am unclear if the freshman profile includes branch campuses of MU. I am also unclear if the "reciprocity agreement" between Indiana and Ohio for those branch campuses is still in effect. If so, then at least a portion of those OOS students are paying instate rates.)</p>

<p>The campus shuts down for breaks. I have come to understand that this is common for state schools. It was new to us. So we must bring D home or find a place for her, for Thanksgiving and Spring Break - something we didn't do with our sons.</p>

<p>On the 3-day weekend called "fall break" the campus is nearly deserted. D is alone on weekends maybe once a month, as her roommate goes home. (Last year and this year - different roommates.)</p>

<p>On parents' weekend, freshman year, my D felt like she was the only one who didn't have parents in attendance. (At S's school, with so many parents living far away, this wasn't an issue.)</p>

<p>As I mentioned before, study abroad is twice the cost for OOS students. If you go during the spring or fall, it's not a big deal - not much more than we would pay anyway. But D wanted to go during the summer, since, as a double degree student, she can't fit the time in during the school year. Since we don't receive aid for the "third semester", the cost was prohibitive.</p>

<p>D tried to talk to MU about outside study abroad alternatives, to find programs that were more affordable. The advisor was rather snippy, feeling that MU's programs were reasonable. My general impression is that they are really not aware how much some of the students must pay.</p>

<p>Students in-state can take courses at other Ohio schools, and receive automatic transfer credit - nice if you want to pick up a couple courses over the summer. </p>

<p>In many aspects, what my D gets is very much what she would have gotten from a private school. The difference is that the majority of her classmates are getting something different. And it is the feeling of being treated differently that we hadn't anticipated.</p>

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<p>This is an informative post. Something for the out of staters to consider since Miami seems to be heavily recruiting from out of state. Do you mind saying where your sons went to school? Were the private schools out of state as well and were they about the same size as Miami?</p>

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<p>Thanks for this thread. DD and I will be heading to MU in three weeks for a visit. I hadnt know about the travel abroad aspect. I gives us another thing to think about in respect to out of state choices as DD is set on making an abroad trip part of her college experience.</p>

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<p>Sons' schools were quite different. Eldest went to UPenn. Second went/goes to Juilliard. UPenn undergrad isn't that different from Miami, size-wise, but setting was very different - downtown Philly vs. Oxford. Juilliard has about 350 students, in downtown NYC. Both sons had access to public transportation, off-campus cultural events, etc. Not a state/private difference but a big city / small town difference. </p>

<p>So we are really comparing apples and oranges for a lot of things. Education-wise, I believe my D is getting exactly what she needs, which is, of course, different from what my sons' needed.</p>

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<p>Good post.</p>

<p>As an OOS parent with an accepted son, nothing I didn't already know.
Many top state schools do not offer merit to OOS, but Miami is not a top 50 ranked school. Would be nice if merit were fair to all attending, especially since OOS pay more to begin with. (We all pay taxes to our home state for school funding.) </p>

<p>Seems like a great school. We are waiting for merit $ info, but are not hopeful given MU's reputation in this regard. (Great merit from some good privates make it more economical and our state schools have reasonable tuition.)</p>

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<p>binx- The 6% OOS increase makes up for the instate freeze in tuition.
What about room and board increases?</p>

<p>Many other schools are making cutbacks to keep increases at 0-3% for all students.</p>

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<p>Room and Board went up slightly, I think, from freshman to sophomore year. But Miami has a deal that if a student stays on campus after that, the costs will be frozen at the sophomore rate. If the student moves off campus, then back on, he/she will pay the higher rate. </p>

<p>They lose many students to off-campus housing because it is cheaper. We are encouraging our D to stay on campus, though, for the ease and security.</p>

<p>For a number of reasons, in-state publics were not a great option for my D. (The main reason being that we'd lived out of the country for several years during high school, and it confused Georgia greatly! Even though we maintained residency here while we were gone. We probably could have tried to help them figure it all out, but there wasn't a school that offered what she wanted anyway. But I agree - I wish we could apply the taxes we pay for in-state schools to other schools!)</p>

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<p>Yeah, unfortunately, I think it's pretty normal for public universities to raise costs for OOS students only. Just to clarify for others about the study abroad costs, OOSers pay double because of the associated cost of tuition. It can be inconvenient to do an OOS study abroad program, but it's certainly possible, especially if you transfer the credits to a flexible department. Also, I have not had very good experiences with the study abroad office, so I would advise talking to a departmental advisor about possible programs and transfer credit. Miami does not provide a lot of support for summer programs (except for the Honors summer tuition waiver).</p>

<p>Miami actually did overhaul the merit awards this year to allow for more scholarship tiers; it will benefit OOS students because the maximum OOS award was raised to $7000. binx, I'm curious what scholarships seem to have favored in-state students-- were these departmental or university-wide things for current students?</p>

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<p>Aussie, I'd rather not list specific things. She's only a sophomore, and hopefully will have more chances, so I don't want to stir the pot. She has applied or been eligible for several different things, and like I said above, it might just be a coincidence that everyone she knows who got it was already paying instate. It might be a perception thing, too. Or just sour grapes. If 65% of the students are instate, it makes sense that there would be more in-staters getting the money. It's just that it seems they need it much less! </p>

<p>Does that merit overhaul only apply to incoming freshmen? What was it raised from? It wasn't that much less, was it? I'm thinking it was $6500 or so.</p>

<p>We are still looking at study abroad options. We are pretty much limited to programs that Miami approves of but which we would pay directly. It's frustrating to have those limits. Even programs that Miami doesn't run, such as Junior Year in Munich, we have to pay Miami tuition for. It's not Miami teachers, it's not in-state, and it isn't costing Miami anything for us to participate. So why do we have to pay out of state tuition for it? Would it be possible to do a program like that through our own state univ and transfer the credits to MU? It seems like summer programs should be exempt from the OOS tuition difference, since our FAFSA, etc, is only calculating a two-term cost.</p>

<p>Off the subject, but related, do you (or anyone) know how to go about taking classes at another (non-Ohio, non-tri-state) college without actually having to withdraw from one? Is there a name for that? All I can find on websites is transfers, but I'm thinking that if she doesn't have anything else to do this summer, perhaps she could knock out a few courses at in-state rates.</p>

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<p>I don't know if there is a name for it but lots of kids do it to get cheaper credits, get ahead or make up work. I know a student at my sons school that took a year of Chem over the summer at our local state u and got the credits for the course. </p>

<p>She should contact her advisor and should have the school and course description handy to make sure they will accept credits. </p>

<p>binx- how was Miami at crediting AP courses taken?</p>

<p>Is OOS merit limited to $7000?</p>

<p>I think this is where safety/match privates do better for us.</p>

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<p>Even though my kid gets scholarships, I'm not really sure what is considered the "out of state" scholarship. She gets two different scholarships that together, I think, make up her OOS award, but they have different names. In addition to what I think is the OOS scholarship, she gets a small scholarship for being a "scholar" (Scholars get a thou per year, Honors get two). Plus there are departmental scholarships, and my D gets one from the music dept. So the "official" OOS scholarship has a limit, but there are other scholarships available that are not specific to where you reside. And then there are another half dozen or so just for Ohio residents.</p>

<p>MU is great about AP credits. Unfortunately, my D didn't have many because she did 3 of her high school years in Germany. Her math and language arts AP scores cut some requirements. Her German AP score would have eliminated second year German, but since she's fluent, it was a non-issue. She still received credit for it, but it didn't eliminate any requirements for her. </p>

<p>Here is the list of APs they accept:
Miami</a> University: Undergraduate Admission: AP and IB Credit</p>

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<p>I believe all public Ohio schools are required to accept AP scores above a 3 for credit, effective next year. binx, one of my friends took physics at a home university, and I think she had to apply for admission. It's definitely possible to do; I don't know the rules, but I'm sure an advisor would. (I saw your D last weekend, btw, but I wasn't sure if she recognized/remembered me).</p>

<p>The OOS award that I referred to is one scholarship, and there are others for which OOS students might be eligible. The Scholars program no longer exists for incoming students, and Honors no longer has a scholarship directly coupled with the program. (This is where the larger OOS award comes in; incoming students will have the same size or larger scholarship package that they would have gotten with the coupled Honors scholarship... it's basically just renaming where everything comes from). I have absolutely no idea if this will affect current students. I also don't remember what the maximum OOS award has been in the past.</p>

<p>I actually didn't know that you had to pay Miami tuition for JYM or other OOS study abroad programs. My account was only charged the expenses billed by JYM... but I also had to fight tooth and nail for Miami to consider it an affiliated program, so it may have flown under the radar. Because of that experience, I do think that you could find non-Miami-sponsored programs and pay their tuition and fees.</p>

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<p>Study abroad-</p>

<p>I think it is typical to pay your home school tuition even if the school you are studying at costs less.</p>

<p>My older son is study abroad in the UK now and had to pay full tuition to his own private U even though the school he is at is less than 1/4 the tuition. (Works for him though as he has a full tuition scholarship so we didn't have to pay tuition anyway.)</p>

<p>Some schools offer study abroad benefits in their honors program or part of a scholarship package.</p>

<p>Younger son will have 7 AP classes and 1 college class upon graduation so it may help with graduating a bit early (unlikely) or at least taking less classes per semester since he'll have a hard major (engineering). Something to keep in mind when considering any school. Hope he gets some merit $ though to keep Miami on the list. Seems like a great place.</p>

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<p>It IS a great place! Absolutely.</p>

<p>Crazed, I hope you noticed the part that the APs are mostly only good for exempting foundation courses, or for placing in a higher level class (rather than getting to skip it completely). My D only had 3 APs, and only 2 of them exempted her from anything. But that would be great for your S if it does allow him to have a lighter load. Engineering is a tough major (I'm married to one). My D is a double degree student, and is carrying 23 credits this semester. But then, both of her degrees are in things she enjoys and does well at, so it's not been overly difficult.</p>

<p>Here's our history with study abroad: My S1 did JYM (like Aussie) and had to pay UPenn prices. However, in talking with some of the other students there, we learned that colleges were very individual in how they priced it - some paid direct, some paid via their colleges. It was frustrating then, too. We paid a lot for S to go (He was our first, and we didn't know what we were doing), and one of his JYM classmates went to UGA - our state uni. And paid much, much less. It was ironic, because we LIVED in Germany then, but maintained residency in Georgia. So our state taxes paid for this girl to go, via our state uni, and we paid a lot more for our S to go via UPenn. PLUS, we paid German taxes to support the Uni. Argh.</p>

<p>That experience is what led me to look for outside options for my D to go abroad, and to try not to have to subsidize everyone else's way this time!</p>

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<p>BInx-
Noticed you are from Atl burbs. My sister lives in Duluth. Nice area.</p>

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<p>At the very least, AP classes are good for placing out of Miami Plan. I APed out of all but one Miami Plan requirement, which allowed me to jump into classes that interested me right away. In retrospect, I wish I had explored more departments in my first two years, but I'm happy with where I ended up.</p>

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<p>We're in Lawrenceville, very close to Duluth. Past few days are why I love it here - absolutely gorgeous, short-sleeve weather.</p>

<p>The Miami Plan - as frustrating as it can be, trying to jump through all the hoops - is nice for forcing students to experience subject areas they never would have considered otherwise. My D is loving her physics astronomy course. And her speech pathology course has allowed her to consider a field she had no experience with otherwise. Both are far outside her German/music concentrations.</p>