Hi. We are residents of PA and live in the western part of the state. I am concerned that PASSHE will soon be forced to consolidate. It seems like Cal U of PA, Edinboro and Clarion are likely targets. Check out slide 35 on the report.
http://www.passhe.edu/PACT/Documents/PPT_Financial%20Dashboard.pdf
Passhe schools are less well funded and honestly have been led rather erratically for some of them.
I’ll check the slides.
Is your Child admitted to one of them? If so where else did s/he apply and what are hiq/her stats?
Do you have a question about one of them?
Hi MYOS1634. We are in the search process. Daughter is a junior. She swims. She likes York College of Pa, Shippensburg, Gannon, Clarion and is looking at Niagara, Penn state Erie and Baldwin Wallace.
IUP finding ways to increase tuition at our already expensive state schools.
http://triblive.com/news/regional/10206609-74/students-iup-tuition
Not much interest in the PASSHE schools?
I guess not many people on CC are interested.
I read your chart and was surprised to see Mansfield seemed to be doing better than expected!
Many small privates in PA will provide merit for a kid with merely above average stats, but you have to look at their criteria for honors program and run the NPC.
If you live in a border county, any agreement with the other state?
We live in Allegheny County. Thank you for the response.
@bester1 OK, I’ll bite. I know more about the small private colleges in PA, of which there are many, as you know. My D17 would prefer a larger school, however, and her grades and test scores probably won’t be good enough for admission and good financial aid (preferential packaging) at LACs anyway. She’d love to go to a large southern public school, but this would also be impossible financially (we have a FAFSA EFC of 0). So right now we’re exploring the PASSHE schools. Of these, she is mostly interested in West Chester. We haven’t visited any yet, as D17 is really dragging her feet regarding everything college-related. She did take the March SAT, but scores won’t be released until May 10. Do you have any recommendations regarding western PA PASSHE schools? We live in south central PA (Harrisburg area). My S15 received a good financial aid package from IUP but didn’t end up going there (chose community college instead).
@kidzncatz : what’s her current GPA ? Any pst range ?
West Chester is the best of the Passhe schools. It’s also rather commuter/suitcase. The least commuter /suitcase is Mansfield up in Tioga county, by the Marcellus Shale sites. Mansfield is very easy to get into.
Efc zero with an average stats kid is a rough proposition in PA. See if your kid can up the curriculum rigor during senior year. If at all possible, see that she takes more than 2 years of a foreign language, math through pre-calculus or math analysis, three years of science and social science (but 4 of each really would be better) and honors englishvor AP English language if her current teacher thinks she can get a B in it.
Run the NPC on Gettysburg college. Muhlenberg is test optional if test scores aren’t good but grades, rigor, and activities /school involvement / job are there. Those two colleges meet 100% need for most admitted students.
Would PASSHE schools outside of commuting range be affordable? You probably want to check the net price calculators now.
If not, then she may have to build a merit-seeking list. What kind of GPA will she have, and what kind of SAT and ACT scores is she likely to get?
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/
In western PA, Greater Allegheny has a dorm and is pretty much open enrollment. They’re a psu branch so after 1-2years you can move to university park… The issue, of course, is costs. I believe Greater Allegheny doesn’t cost as much as regular psu but you’d need to investigate .
There are no PASSHE schools within commuting range (both Shippensburg and Millersville are more than a 45-minute drive on I81/83/283, even longer with rush hour traffic). And she doesn’t have a car or even a driver’s license yet. She had a 90+ (low A in our school district) unweighted average through sophomore year but unfortunately her grades have fallen this year, due to her unwillingness to give up her job (was working 23 hours a week until recently, when she finally decided to cut down to 11). She also dropped one AP course and is doing rather poorly in APUSH (78 last marking period). On the positive side, she has a B average in pre-calculus and Honors chemistry. She also did fairly well in Honors Physics last year. Her best subject is Honors French 4 (94 last marking period). PSAT was 550 CR, 530 M. IUP would have been very affordable for my S15 but I’m not sure my daughter will consider that school. Unfortunately, she is kind of a snob, which just adds to the problem. Most of her friends (and most people in our generally well-to-do suburban community) have a lot more disposable income than our family, which makes my kids feel like outsiders at times and certainly alters the general college search parameters.
I have to disagree that WCU is a commuter/suitcase college and I wonder if there are any statistics on this claim. It may have been at one time (unsure as we do not live that close) but we have been in that town a lot in the past 2-4 years and it is filled with college kids. We live relatively nearby and frequent the town for high school events, as well as the college itself for Girl Scout/Boy Scout, music, volunteer events, and sports competitions with our children. There are students around all the time and the town appears vibrant and bustling. My middle child volunteers with scouts and is often in the town of WC volunteering alongside of many college students from all over (not just locals commuting or from nearby towns). Our church joined with a WC church for some outreach and we were so impressed with the number of college students working/helping and we learned that they are coming from all over. There seem to be tons of student events and kids everywhere on the weekends - really the only times that we are in WC.
I have encouraged my oldest (HS junior) to strongly consider WC but she feels that it may be “too close” since she has been on that campus for so many events in the past few years. She does have a few friends from HS and church who have/are attending and they love it. As a casual observer I can understand why WCU is doing so well on those enrollment and financial projections.
I’d agree that West Chester isn’t really a commuter school. 92% of freshmen live on campus. As with most public universities, many students move to off campus apartments after freshman or sophomore year. However, at many PASSHE schools, as at other “directionals”, a fair number of students go home on weekends.
@kidzncatz : We have visited Clarion, Millersville, Bloomsburg and Shippensburg. By far, her favorite was Shippensburg. She liked the campus, the upgraded facilities, the academic offerings and the swim coach. Her least favorite of the PASSHE school visits was Millersville. It was difficult to navigate and needed upgrades of many of their facilities. I liked Clarion…great campus, variety of programs and strong swim program. I am concerned about the financial stability and the decrease in enrollment. I think they will need to consolidate some of the schools in the western PA. I would think that CalU of PA and Clarion will be the first to go. Slippery Rock is really growing and their quality has improved drastically since I was there in the 1980’s. Btw, I forgot to mention Bloomsburg. That would be my 1st choice for her if it was solely my decision. 10,000 students, beautiful campus, many programs and strong sports teams (particularly swimming for her).
We are in an afluent well educated community as well here in western Pa. # 6 rated High School in the state. You are kind of looked at as lower level if you are looking at PASSHE schools. I think it is very unfortunate. She also enjoyed looking at York College of PA. She really liked that. I was not fond of the city. She will look at Gannon, Penn State Erie, Niagara, Baldwin Wallace, John Carroll, IUP, West Chester and Canisius.
She has improved her unweighted gpa to 3.2 something(weighted is 3.8). She is Junior captain of the swim team. Great young woman that I think is coming into her own and will improve significantly in college.
Thanks to all of your input. It is really helpful and great insight.
I really meant to say thank you to all of you for your input. It is a very interesting process.
@bester1 My daughter may end up at Shippensburg, though she’d probably deny the possibility right now. Her best friend is a senior who is going to Shippensburg next year. The friend’s mother is a Shippensburg graduate and has encouraged my daughter (as well as hers) to attend there. This family took my daughter with them to Ship’s Homecoming weekend this past fall. I think Shippensburg’s STEM offerings as well as their business school are relatively good. My adult son’s good friend went on from Ship to Princeton for his PhD in Chemistry. Bloomsburg and Slippery Rock may be others for us to consider. I’d like my daughter to consider some LACs, too, but right now she’s arguing that they’re too small. I’ll probably take her to visit Allegheny, where my adult daughter teaches, early next fall, just to see the differences between the state schools and private LACs. Thanks for your comments and insight.
West Chester, Bloomsburg, and Slippery Rock are the three PASSHE schools that are decent, and they have scholarships for students who took some AP’s and/or have certain test scores (1200+, often), and/or have a certain GPA (3.0 unweighted, 3.25 unweighted, etc).
So, for a kid with 1080, the small extra effort it’d take to get to 1200 would be well worth it financially. (Edited because I miscalculated the current range/score.)
A perk of the PASSHE schools’ Honors college is that, each year, they organize a trip abroad, and 2 students from each college travel for FREE.
West Chester is more “suitcase” than “commuter”, in that a lot of kids go home on weekends but live around campus during the week.
John Carroll is terrific. 
1200 SAT, 3.8 weighted, with one AP each year (even if the grade is C+/B- range) and 2-3 honors classes + all 5 core classes each year would really keep a lot of colleges in play with possibility of merit.
If you/she can stand a wider radius, then there are even more options.
I guess you never know. I work with a man that graduated from Allegheny. Loved it there. He does talk about the expense and how it was worth it to him. Having said that, our salaries are about the same. I also read somewhere that Allegheny College may soon have to close their doors as they are at a financial crisis level.
I don’t think Allegheny’s financial status is quite that bad, but I do know they didn’t meet enrollment goals last year. I guess most kids these days aren’t that interested in a small school in rural northwest PA, even one with very good academics. Also, as the cost of private colleges has skyrocketed in recent years, many families just can’t or don’t want to pay the costs.