This discussion was created from comments split from: Penn State or University of Penn.
How do I find out if a school does not offer OOS FA?
^
- If you have a question, make your own thread.
- Call the school
If your “OOS” that means public university, no public (that I know of) school gives much if any FA and certainly not on the scale of private schools (where the word OOS doesn’t really apply) however the federal govt does give FA which goes through the university so that is what you’ll get through FAFSA which will include loans. Public schools do, however, offer merit aid.
UNC and UVA meet full need for OOS students.
Most public schools don’t even give institutional need based grants to their own instate students.
The majority of aid comes from merit, and federal or state aid.
So if you look at the public school in another state, they have even less incentive to give aid to OOS students, they get a higher tuition from them.
Exceptions are a few schools, UVA, UNC and U Michigan, who give need based aid to OOS students.
And then there are OOS publics who want to attract high stats students and offer merit for them to attend.
If you run net price calculator on PSU and U Penn website you can see if you qualify for any aid from them, based on income and assets.
@mommdc There are a number of public universities that give SOME need based aid to OOS students.
The only ones that guarantee to meet full need for ALL accepted students are UVA and UNC-CH. Michigan is working in that direction. All require the Profile in addition to the FAFSA.
It definitely depends on the school. My OOS son received $9500 in merit and $7200 in institutional need-based aid from Iowa State.
^^^ Yes, my son also received merit and institutional need-based aid from Iowa State as an OOS student. There are not many public universities that give need-based aid to OOS students, but they are out there! Iowa State met our full need based on our FAFSA EFC (with merit, work study, subsidized federal loans, and an institutional grant to cover the remaining need).
Thanks everyone! I assume the UNC mentioned above is UNC at Chapel Hill, which is a complete (unrealistic) reach for S. Same goes for UVA.
FA or not, our EFC is about 50k (various calculators come up with different numbers but this is the rough number), so I really do not expect we will get much need-based aid. I am hoping he can land some merit based aid to offset the out of pocket expense. We have enough college savings to fund his college for up to 30k a year. Our in-state flagship Umass Amherst is our first choice (30k a year) but it is very competitive for his desired major (CS) and I doubt S will get in with his B+ stats. This is why we are looking at a lot of OOS schools. S prefers large and diverse non-LAC schools.
Try SUNY Buffalo. OOS comes in around your target cost.
Or U Toledo.
For family income below $90k, UMich meet the need of OOS students starting this year.
Thanks @billcsho. That is what I was told as well, together with UNC. Unfortunately, those are way out of S’s reach.
Check out UNM. They have generous OOS merit with not too high of a bar. Don’t know if they offer his desired major but I would think so. Much of the merit is automatic but apply early before funds are depleted. I think NM State offers similar.
COA for qualifying OOSers around $20k including rm & bd.
@alooknac UNM is New Mexico? Just making sure.
Yes, Univ. of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
My D applied in August I think, $20 fee, no essay, and had acceptance in hand maybe a month later. Confirmation of Amigo Scholarship followed a month or two later.
D did not want to attend our own state U but was satisfied with UNM as a safety because of its very different geographic locale and cultural environment. We did not visit and she is attending college elsewhere.
I think UNM is an overlooked bargain. Like many flagship U’s, it offers an Honors College & honors housing.