Nothing obvious regarding future increases, but the total cost has definitely gone up. OOS Tuition is shown as 25,500. My son was accepted CSE and he was really counting on the Gold National (we’re in IL). He didn’t get it, so no “U” for us.
My son got his FA letter and the increase is there. However, there is no mention of future increases. I expected a 4 year plan but not really. I am sure if I call they tell me that they do not know either since those things are voted every June or whatever. I was reading on line that they will reassess next year and move accordingly. However, I find the whole thing very uncertain.
So far the cost of attendance is 41K (surcharge for Business school included). If the future increases go ahead then by the fourth year the coa will be 50K.
For us, another college came through with a decent Merit award so I guess that’s it for the U. It might be different for California or Illinois but in the east cost I do not see how many families will by pass the plethora of equally ranked big state schools in the area to send their kid to Minnesota for full price. I saw it happened for a few friends last year. The minute that U Maryland or U Conn offered Merit, Minnesota got off the list even if it was about the same money!
I personally feel very highly about the U but ( and this is a big but ) I do not believe it will give my kid much bigger of an advantage going there than our own state school. I was ok to pay a bit more because of fit and to offer a different experience but not that much more.
Admissions rep at our local info session for OOS admitted students said they will be putting in an annual increase cap for years 2, 3, 4 for any admitted OOS students. I believe it was 5%. So the biggest jump for OOS will be from 2015/2016 to freshman year 2016/2017. Sounds like they didn’t put this in the FA awards however.
If your OOS and the big jump in tuition this year is going to force you to drop Minnesota, contact your admission rep and let them know this is the reason. At a minimum, Minnesota should move up the date by when it announces tuition increases, June is ridiculous considering applicants have to apply about six months earlier.
“I saw it happened for a few friends last year. The minute that U Maryland or U Conn offered Merit, Minnesota got off the list even if it was about the same money!”
@am9799 that doesn’t surprise me at all. For some of its colleges the U of MN is a safety for high performing kids who are considering many out of state options. It has been that way for some time.
Well my daughter did receive the National Excellence award, but she got full tuition at Bama so off to Georgia we go for Spring Break. Graduating debt free vs OOS tuition increases is a no brainer. U of MN was her first choice but that has changed.
@optimom171 My twins received the Gold National from UMN (IS tuition) and also Full Tuition at UA. They are going to UA for engineering. Considering the Tuition/R&B cost is $13K/year lower at UA, agree that the decision is a no brainer.
UMN was their first choice in July until they heard about and visited UA. Have you visited UA?
Yes, we had an excellent visit to Bama over spring break. Did the campus tour and was able to spend an hour with a woman engineering professor who answered my daughters questions and gave us a tour of the engineering building. My daughter is super excited to attend Alabama! I’m excited for her.
College is such an important decision, but reading through some of the posts, I can see that many parents and students are not very well informed.
Campus visits are necessary (for the kids, mainly for experience), but you really learn very little from them to base your decisions on. For most of the families/students who consider academically rigorous colleges, the academic reputation of the program and quality of faculty are the most important factors to consider. For talented students, the academic reputation and better training allow students to go to (better) graduate schools if they so desire and have more and better choices of jobs when they graduate college.
UMN and Bama both have engineering schools, but there is a big difference in quality in almost all disciplines of engineering (and other disciplines as well). I can see that if the costs are the same or UMN is slightly higher, going to UMN is a no brainer. But if the cost at UMN is moderately or even substantially higher, going to Bama is NOT a no brainer because of the difference in academics. I understand financial considerations for different families can be different, but if I were asked by a friend for his son/daughter’s choice, I would say go to UMN if the cost differential is manageable.
This is my first post on CC, and indeed I was asked by a friend to provide some suggestions (only related to one of the two schools here). I am not connected to the two schools, but know the schools reasonably well because I work in higher ed/corporate that place and recruit (graduate) students.
I would tend to agree with you, @BostonTech77. However, @CyclonesGrad and others will tell you that, at least as far as engineering programs go, the reputation of the overall institution isn’t (as) important. Seems that engineers, particularly chem. engineers (I know this from stats that CyclonesGrad has posted) make pretty good money regardless of where they graduate from. What do you think about that?
The oil boom in the last decade created plenty of job opportunities for graduates from fields such as chem and geo engineering, but we could be at the end of that boom (who knows), then what happens?
In engineering, if you graduate from a reputable school and work hard enough, you can always expect to find a job. But the question is whether finding “a” job is the ultimate goal. Job and career opportunities do differ substantially across the different levels of schools. In almost all engineering fields, academic reputation carries a lot of weight because it is related to quality of faculty and students and quality of training . A simple example, most computer science majors can expect to find a job, but the opportunities at MIT/Stanford are definitely better, and the jobs those graduates get are also different.
I have worked with many graduate students. I have been very impressed with many students who overcome various hurdles to get the proper training they need and go on to have good careers. Unfortunately, one of the hurdles is the colleges they selected for their undergraduate study – the level of schools that does not prepare them as well to advance their careers (beyond immediately finding a job after graduation). If the students are good enough intellectually, I just hope that we expand the opportunities for them, and at least do not create the hurdles for them.
The post is already too long, but here are a few gripes about the so-called “honors” colleges of the lower-tier schools. Those states/universities under-invest in education, but instead are playing the “ranking” game. They do not invest in faculty and resources, because it takes years and decades to improve the academic quality/reputation. They only want to lure good students to improve their ranking cheaply. They promise free tuition and small classes, but the small classes are taught by the same faculty and there is very little difference in the resources available to honor and non-honor students. I do not know, but I suspect that eventually, the reputation of the university, not the honor program, carries the weight.
I am not against the idea that universities want to get better students, and if some academically outstanding students can get a free education, that is great. But if you get better students, and you make a promise to those students and their families , you need to deliver. You need to provide a free and better education, and you need to prepare those students well for their future.
Thanks for the thoughtful post, @BostonTech77. You are painting with a pretty broad brush, though. I think the two schools in question here are ranked close enough that the prestige argument may not apply. Of course, when you throw around “MIT/Stanford”, then the equation changes. Anyway, I have lots of opinions on this, too, but they are just that, based on research and reading I’ve done over the last 6 months. I also hire into the engineering field, and agree that I give more credence to certain schools…but I would view these schools pretty close, and the individual makes more of a difference.
As for Honors programs/colleges, they are again all so different I don’t think there’s one size fits all.
Plus, the amount of money saved in choosing one school over another just may mean the difference between pain and comfort for the parents. You never know.
Economists have a term called “permanent income” which is the present value of future earnings. If you knew that number for each institution, you could then compare that number against the present value of education expenses. In other words, you do a standard Net Present Value analysis, like you would any project or investment.
I don’t know the Permanent income of someone who does engineering at CSE vs. 'Bama. I think those five-year salary #'s that we’ve seen are supposed to serve as a proxy but they don’t tell the entire story of course. There is one statistic I know and I consider it relevant: CSE is a safety for applications reaching for the top-tier engineering programs: Northwestern, MIT, Stanford, CMU, etc. Is 'Bama considered a safety in the same way? My anecdotal evidence (from other families I know and what I’ve heard) would suggest the answer is “no”. Now, perhaps that’s because they just aren’t up with what’s happening at UA. But I don’t think that’s correct - many of them are academics (including engineering) and know their schools - and colleagues - very well. They know who has influenced the field and where those guys are located. That sort of thing.
I also think there is something about going to a school with a deeper field of quality departments - across all the colleges not just the sciences and engineering. One way to determine how “deep” the field is would be to look at how many departments have faculty who are considered by their peers to be top contributors to their field of research. For instance, my husband and I discovered that Wisconsin has better faculty using this metric than does U of MN - not only for the “best” majors (in terms of getting a job) but also for the worst! (feminist studies). University of Wisconsin just has more movers and shakers among it’s faculty than does U of MN. That in large part explains why University of Wisconsin is harder for an OOS student to get into than UMN (I know, I know - you all thought it was the weather . … ). Now, most undergraduate applicants don’t go researching peer-reviewed assessments of faculty in order to select their colleges. Instead they talk to their counselor, or read USNews, or go off general reputation. My point is that this reputation comes from SOMEWHERE and I believe a big part of it comes precisely from the “quality” aspect. And I don’t think it’s just kids who act on that aspect - employers and grad school admissions committees do as well.
FWIW.
@BostonTech77, I have been working in the engineering field for multi-national companies for 33 years, 12 years at the last and 6+ years at the current, and will say that for a BS degree the ranking of the school means very little when hiring if they are a accredited and have name recognition. UA and UMN are both nationally recognized. The ROI (10 year) on the debt incurred to go to a higher ranked school would not be worth it. In fact, in most cases it would be negative. Only way to go to a highly ranked school is if you can pay outright, which means the very-wealthy or very low income that get significant aid.
I see in your earlier post that you place graduate students. Could you give insight to what fields?
I certainly understand that prestige of a university, especially for grad school, is important for an MBA; I know this because of my choice to go to a lower tier local school. However, UG for engineering is a different story. There is not much difference between accredited programs so name recognition is helpful.
In the industry I am in and was in, Heavy Trucks and Ag/Construction equipment, a student coming from MIT/Stanford would be looked at skeptically because the thought would be they are too research oriented and not practical enough for basic design engineering. The vast majority of engineers in these industries have only a BS degree and nothing more is needed other than an MBA if they want to move into management.
Have you been to UA and UMN? My oldest daughter went to UMN for Child Psychology. I am very familiar with the school and what it offers. Being a graduate engineer and working in industry, I very closely looked at both the UMN and UA programs, including curriculum and facilities, to determine how comparable they are. Both were almost the same. UA has spent significant amounts of money over the last 10 years to build their engineering program. The facilities are comparable to any I have seen.
Reputation in USN&WR is self serving in that one of the major categories is how universities rate each other. The other major category is six year graduation rate. Engineering has significant rigor so you need to bring in good students that withstand that test. That is why schools give good merit aid to high performing students for engineering. Nothing different than Mfg, good material in = good product out.
One more point: UMN worked in raising their engineering standards in 2008 by cutting tuition and giving more merit aid to OOS students going into engineering. That is how they have helped their ranking as the two categories mentioned above have increased. UA embarked on the same path in 2010 and will reach UMN in the same length of time; which is about 7 years. Here are some stats:
UMN (middle 75% ACT)
24 - 29 (2008)
30 - 33 (2015)
UA
24 - 31 (2010)
28 - 33 (2015)
Sorry for the length but I needed to give my perspective and experience. I also wanted to give some facts.
Appreciate the views/feedback provided in the posts. I actually agree with many of the views in the recent posts. Both @Mamelot and @CyclonesGrad did a lot of research. @Mamelot used a lot of “soft” information, and @CyclonesGrad relies on hard numbers (ACT, ROI).
My initial idea was to give a somewhat “insider” view/opinion given the type of work I do (both academic and corporate, in computer software field). In academia and to a lesser extend in corporate, we use more “soft” information, similar to the @Mamelot approach, to evaluate the quality of programs and training of the graduates. How productive/influential are the faculty? Are they pushing the envelopes in their research? Do the students have exposure to what is happening today and possibly what is happening in the future. It is difficult to quantify this, but for people who work in the field, it is fairly straightforward and typically there is not a lot of disagreement.
There are many considerations for college choice. Academic quality is one of them. How important is the academic quality of a program to an undergraduate (it is extremely important for graduate, particularly PhD students)? Well, that depends. In previous posts, I mentioned but perhaps did not emphasize that I am talking about students who are good/very good academically, as that is typically the case for merit award students, honors students. Those students certainly will benefit more from higher quality programs. It also depends on the fields of study. I agree with @CyclonesGrad on this point. For some fields, whether you get your training at Harvard or from a reputable regional public, it may not matter as much. Some professions only require the attainment of certain sets of skills (man vs machine), and if you have that and can do the work, then that is enough. Other professions require man vs man competition, you need to have the basic skills, but you also need to adapt for the future and engage in competition with your peers. High quality programs prepare the students better and provide more opportunities for students in those fields. Some fields in engineering could belong to the former, others the latter. But I would say, increasingly, engineering schools, particularly the good ones are operating in models closer to the latter.
I would caution against relying too much on the hard numbers. For example, the ACT scores of entering freshman class. One of the reasons actually is that some schools do what they can to improve the hard numbers without materially improving the more important aspects of academic quality. I know the two schools in general, and reasonably well in my field. This is one case where I could say there is a significant difference in overall academic quality based on the “soft” information. Has UA improved in the few areas I know over the past decade, possible. Does UA have some individual outstanding faculty? definitely yes. Does UA have clusters of outstanding faculty? possibly no. Put differently, do UMN PhD graduates go to teach at UA level schools? Definitely. Do UA level PhD graduates go to teach at UMN schools? Very unlikely.
@BostonTech77 I can understand your points regarding Computer Science and EE that support emerging industries, i.e. electric cars, new computer technology, NASA.
I am mainly talking from my experience in mundane, basic industries such as truck manufacturing and components, construction and agricultural machinery, etc. There are many industries where visionary ideas are not needed but only solid understanding of engineering principles. Mechanical Eng, Metallurgical Eng, Chemical Eng come to mind. These are nuts and bolts engineering.
If a student is thinking about grad school, then I would say that going to a prestigious school may help getting into a top grad program. Being a high stat student does not automatically mean that student wants to go to grad school and eventually get a PHD.
There are many engineering students, including me, that went to middle of the road universities, Iowa State as an example, that have been successful and had good careers without getting an MS in engineering. There are many students who are not technocrats but get your hands dirty type of engineers. Depends what you want out of life.
I do agree with @BostonTech77 that prestige of a grad program for certain fields is very important. Getting an MBA is one of those. I went to a regional university, Northern Illinois University, to get my MBA which has worked OK for me. However, there have been many times that I have wondered how much further my career could have gone if I had gone to Northwestern or UofC. Sometimes you make decisions on circumstances at the time; I had a new born and just purchased a home and could not afford to go to Northwestern or UofC without incurring major debt. I did not want that at that time of my life.
@Bostontech77, I understand and agree that your position on prestige is important for some and for some it really does not matter. We all need to agree that not all students should be painted with the same brush.
@BostonTech77 Where are you living today? What drew you to this CC site?
I live in the Chicago Metro area and originally went on this site because my twins applied and were accepted to UMN CSE. If the cost had been closer between UMN and UA, I would have tried to convince them to go to UMN. However, the difference right now is $13K/year or $52K total for each. I cannot afford that and my kids would have about $35K each in loans upon graduation which comes to about $400/mo for 10 years. Considering a starting engineer starts at about $60K gross or $5K/month. The debt payment is 8% of gross salary. That is considerable, especially if someone wants to buy a home in that period because banks use the ratios of 28/35% of gross as max monthly payment for P&I/taxes. The student loan eats more than the differential (35% - 28%) by itself and that does not even include a car loan. If a student graduates with no college loans, they have a much better chance of getting off on a good foot financially.
That is why I counseled my children to go where they could graduate debt free.
Aw, c’mon @CyclonesGrad - all your kids need to do is marry someone with a nice car and no undergrad debt. That’s what my hubby did and it worked out very well for him. 
@CyclonesGrad, I live on the east cost, but have lived/worked in the southeast, and know some of the Midwestern universities well because of my work. I have been to UMN a few times but I am not connected to that university at all. Have never been to UA, but know a few people there.
A friend asked me about my opinions of his son’s college choice, UMN is one of them and he would be an OOS student. I suspect he is asking me because my primary employment is at a university, not because I know all those universities well. I happen to read this thread because I was searching for information about tuition increase at UMN. I knew of CC, but always thought it is a site for college or high school students. Was surprised to know many parents also post and share information here. I am a parent, but my kids are not going to college, yet.
I do not feel comfortable my opinions could affect your decisions. As I said before, academic quality is one of the many factors in college choice. It is a factor I choose to offer some opinions on because this is something I know about and I also sense that many parents may not be as well-informed about this matter. Schools do not disclose much academic quality information to students/parents or only disclose information selectively. UA certainly is a very reputable school locally, but for engineering, there is a difference between UA and UMN.
Financial considerations are important. @CyclonesGrad, you are doing a lot of math for your kids. I honestly do not know what decisions I will make myself if I were in your shoes. But I also think that the kids’ interests and their career plans matter. It is ok if they are willing to take some risks. I have seen a fair number of cases similarly gifted students have very different opportunities/career paths because of their college/major choices.
@bostontech77 using the criteria of academic quality I’m interested to know what you think might be comparable institutions to UMN overall and particularly in the engineering, chemistry, physics, CS, etc. depts. (so what is known as the College of Science and Engineering or the former Institute of Technology). While just an opinion it’s based on experience in the academy so could be very helpful information for those who are still figuring out whether UMN is a good choice given the tuition increase. Many times we parents tend to look to new physical plant or a ramped up honors college - the stuff that Admissions obviously wants us to know about 
As you pointed out, academic quality is something that is a bit more esoteric and hidden. However, the latter definitely feeds into the rankings so it good to understand it a bit better!
I totally agree that sometimes we need to view those test scores with some skepticism. UMN plays the rankings game with the stats as well - most of them do. However, I’ve read about some pretty egregious manipulation (Not UA but other schools). That’s why I tend to ask academics I know for an opinion if a school suddenly starts climbing in the rankings - it takes time and lots of money to build a decent department and if the school is climbing a bit too rapidly that often means something else is going on - like finagling of the numbers.
@Mamelot, I do not think I am qualified to give an overall assessment of UMN engineering school. Even for the academic areas I am familiar with, it is difficult to compare the universities that are pretty close to each other in quality. Most of the Big Ten engineering (science) schools are very good (to outstanding), and UMN would be in the middle of the pack in this very good group. This group would compare favorably with most of the public flagships (except for the couple cali schools), and would be in a different category from some of the public flagships (UA being one of them): AAU, R1, etc. That being said, OOS tuition is high and will go higher, if the academic quality is similar, there is really no need to pay OOS (and in my opinion there is really no need to pay second-tier private tuition) unless for reasons other than academics.
I understand most parents here share information on college choice for undergrad.There are many issues with US News ranking of colleges (data manipulation and the ranking methodology itself). However, its ranking of graduate programs is pretty informative. I did not find many surprises when browsing that list. So, for academic quality, even for undergraduate, the US news ranking of graduate programs is helpful. After all, it is the same faculty. If they can train graduate students well, they should be able to do the same for undergraduate.