<p>Hi,</p>
<p>My son is undecided about what he wants to do in college. He has got into UVA. We would have to pay out of state. He has also got into Pitt where he would go to the Honors College with a full tuition and fee waiver. Is the 50 grand a year for UVA worth it?</p>
<p>To be perfectly blunt - Absolutely not. Your son will do wonderfully in the honors program at Pitt. Go to the pitt board and post - there are many students that are regulars on that forum that will answer all your questions.</p>
<p>But NO - UVA is not worth it.</p>
<p>No. Unless you’re very rich with money to burn.</p>
<p>Definitely Pitt. And if your son is hesitant, offer to send him on trip to Europe this summer with the gazillion dollars you’ll save by not going to UVA :)</p>
<p>Pitt is a great school. The price for UVA out of state is really high.</p>
<p>Congrats to your son on his Pitt acceptance and scholarship award. It’s a terrific college, and Pittsburgh is a fun city.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your comments. They are very helpful.</p>
<p>Pitt. The honors program is great, and as others have said, Pittsburgh is a fun city.
Honestly, I would never pay out-of-state for a state university.</p>
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<p>Some state universities’ out of state list prices are similar to or lower than some other state universities’ in state list prices, although state universities are typically more generous with need based financial aid to in state students (Virginia is reputedly an exception, but if the OP did not get much financial aid there, then that may imply a high family income that gets little financial aid anywhere). Merit scholarships add another student-specific variable to the comparison.</p>
<p>In the specific comparison of this thread, Pittsburgh for non-tuition expenses only seems like a much better deal than Virginia at list price, except possibly under specific unusual circumstances.</p>
<p>^Agree. Truman State’s OOS COA for an Illinois resident is less than that of any Illinois public.</p>
<p>UVA’s OOS tuition is $10,000 more that we paid for OOS tuition at my daughter’s college.</p>
<p>There are several states around us with lower cost OOS tuition than our own in-state.</p>
<p>OP, I wouldn’t look at it as $50,000 more but $200,000 more, at least. There isn’t any school that is worth paying that much more for.</p>
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<p>Truman States OOS COA for an ILLINOIS RESIDENT is less than that of any Illinois public?</p>
<p>Did you mean that Truman State’s cost for ALL OOS residents is less than the cost of an instate Public in Illinois?</p>
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<p>The first sentence is merely a narrower version of the broader claim in the second sentence. If the second sentence is true, then the first sentence has to be true (though not the other way around).</p>
<p>Thumper, Truman is probably less expensive for any Midwesterner except those from Iowa. I think OOS COA is about $18,000 at Truman. If you are part of the Midwest Consortium, pretty much all Midwestern States except Iowa, you pay 150% of in-state costs at Truman, so around $16,000 or so. That’s about $4000 less than our in-state.</p>
<p>thumper, what Steve said, with the qualification that it’s $4k less than one of our directionals (or ISU). It’s about $10K less than UIUC or UIC. We’re looking at a net, not including books, incidentals, or transportation, of $11-12K - with no loans.</p>
<p>I am intrigued by your response. I would pay $25,000 more per year than the UVA resident. In Pitt, I would pay only for the accommodation. What am I missing? My other issue is that he has got a merit scholarship from Oberlin college for $17,000 a year, and were he to go there I would still pay $10,000 less a year than for UVA. My thinking is that at that price, he should at least get some individual attention. Your thoughts?</p>
<p>Price is not an indicator of “individual attention”. If a school has a rep for giving such, then fine. But, price won’t tell you that.</p>
<p>Is your son some kind of music major? If not, what is his major?</p>
<p>if your son is in Pitt’s honors college, he’ll likely get individual attention if desired.</p>
<p>Many IL kids go OOS - it’s cheaper than instate. U of I is very stingy.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what is meant by “individual attention.” There are only a few select situations where this is guaranteed: a good disabilities office (I am thinking this is not germane in this case), Sarah Lawrence (individual relationship with professors as part of the curriculum), Oxford/Cambridge with don system and Williams with tutorials.</p>
<p>The rest is at the discretion of the student/faculty member and totally unpredictable. In general, a smaller school with have closer faculty student relations, but this is not always the case.</p>
<p>Your son will get individual attention at many places if he asks for it by going to office hours and striking up relationships with professors, taking music lessons, arranging an independent study.</p>
<p>As others have said, price certainly isn’t an indicator of this, especially when the price is an out of state surplus cost.</p>
<p>The “price” is really half of what you’re paying since that is what most students are paying.</p>
<p>I would not consider paying that over Pitt, and I agree, that the honors college will mostly likely provide more “individual attention.”</p>
<p>If money is not an option, I would consider Oberlin if the student was very committed to paying for a LAC.</p>
<p>Money was an option here, and both mine got good FA packages that different by 5K at the most. In that situation, they didn’t have to decide by money, but they knew that if the costs were much different than that, money would definitely be a consideration.</p>
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<p>And it will get worse. The current proposal in our dysfunctional General Assembly is to shift the cost of faculty pensions from the state budget to the universities.</p>