Hello,
I was accepted to Penn State as an out of state resident. However, the tuition is extremely high for me personally. Besides scholarships, is there anything I can do to help lower the cost? This is one of my top choices so any help is appreciated. After the first year, could I rent an apartment and be considered an in state resident? Will calling the admissions department asking them to re-evaluate my situation (parent’s medical expenses) help? Does anyone know if my efc from the fafsa means anything? (7,000) If anyone has any tips for other state universities that is welcomed as well.
Thank you!
Nope. Because you’d be living here for academic reasons, and
http://admissions.psu.edu/costs-aid/residency/
You don’t live in-state; Penn State is a public university whose first obligation is to the in-state residents; they don’t really subsidize the education of out-of-state students.
Penn State does not give a lot of scholarships. Have you been awarded one? If you are talking about outside scholarships, only significantly high national ones that are renewable for four years would help you.
With an EFC of 7,000 you will not qualify for Pell grant. You can take a student loan of $5,500 out, that’s it.
If your parents can’t afford $40k for Penn State OOS then you might have to look at more affordable schools.
Every state has good public universities, and the instate options are usually more affordable, unless you get big merit to an OOS school.
COA for Penn State is $47.5K.
https://www.cfo.pitt.edu/policies/policy/09/09-05-04.html
This is Pitt’s policy but Penn State should be similar.
Thank you!
mommdc, I have not received a financial package from Penn State at the moment, I just used the approx. calculator cost on their website. I have received a few outside scholarships but I was just wondering if anyone had any other info. Also, I will be paying for college without any help from my family.
I know you desperately want to attend this school, but if some college grads can’t earn $47K per year, how will you do it? You cannot afford this school. There is no magic account that will make money appear for OOS students.
Public universities are funded by their states and the resident taxpayers. OOS students are not funded at most public universities since OOS students are expected to be full pay.
Even if you were instate Penn State would still be $30 k plus.
With $7k EFC all the aid you might get is work study (maybe) and a $5,500 student loan. Thst is not feasible.
Look to the schools in your own state that you might be able to commute to. Then you could pay tuition with loan and summer work earnings.
Your outside scholarships are most likely only for one year.
Penn State isn’t affordable for many in-state families, either. Most of the kids I went to school with (grew up in PA) ended up going to cheaper satellite campuses of the main Penn State campus.
You need to find full ride scholarships like these:
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/
If your family is poor, then you may also be able to find good financial aid schools (definitely not Penn State, which has poor financial aid even for Pennsylvania residents).
If you are too late for the deadlines for applications for the above schools, then you may have to see if low cost in-state public options (e.g. community college followed by transfer to a state university) could be affordable. If even that is not affordable, you may have to skip college for a year and work to earn some money, then reapply to a list aimed at big scholarships (and need-based financial aid if your family is poor).
Penn State costs a ton. And awards very little aid. There will not likely be any financial package coming. And the tuition goes up once you are a junior. That being said, it is a stellar university, but not for the faint of financial heart! If $35-45K a year doesn’t sound like debt you feel like taking on, I urge you to cross it off your list and find your college dream elsewhere. The Nittany Nation is great, but it will drown you in debt unless you are blessed with many and plentiful private scholarships. No degree is worth decades of debt.
There are ways to reduce the price, work study or campus jobs, or being an RA after sophomore year, but the price is still alarmingly high.
CourtneyThurston and naptownnittany are correct. Penn State isn’t affordable for in-state families. Even the satellite campuses are not that affordable compared with other flagship state U’s. Stinks to live in PA for affordable college.
In PA if you have high stats you might have a chance at full tuition at Temple or Pitt.
Or if you qualify for need based aid and get accepted to meet 100% need schools like Bucknell, Dickinson, Haverford, it might be affordable.
There are also LACs that offer merit aid to top students (Allegheny, Lafayette, Juniata).
And some private schools offer merit and need based aid, like Duquesne, St Francis University.
You need to apply where you can make it work financially. Use the net price calculators for estimates on what a school will cost.
FTFY. I’m getting a better deal here than I would if I transferred anywhere else. Schreyer helps, CoE scholarship helps, NM corporate scholarship helps, and now the PA grant I was nominated for will help too.
I don’t know your situation but if you have high grades it could help.
Contrary to all we had heard, our D who is OOS, got enough scholarships through PSU to lower the cost to half price. There are many grants n scholarships for high achieving students that are not listed online.
We were schocked but very grateful!!
Don’t loose hope. Check with FA first!
Also check your areas PSU Alumni Association.
They almost always have a great scholarship for local students accepted to PSU.
Add to that any private scholarships in your area
( Rotary Club, Lions Club, etc) and you could end up paying less than in state tuition.
If you have an EFC of 7000 you should have applied to meets full needs schools. If your stats are high enough to get into those schools consider a gap year to reapply but only if you are at the 75th% for those schools.
Re post #15, just make sure to ascertain whether outside private scholarships such as those provided by your local area alumni association are for just the first year or all 4 years. Many of these are one year only scholarships so although they may make the first year affordable, you have to have a plan for how to pay for years 2-4 without that scholarship.
True about the one and four year scholarships.
I guess I was looking at it through my D’s situation.
After taking into consideration the PSU FA package, PSU is going to cost us almost like going to a state school in our state so the extra Alumni and private scholarships are just icing on the cake.
My main point was that PSU Does have great FA for OOS if you have high stats and if you do the work there are lots of other scholarships out there to help bring costs down.
I’m not sure I’d classify PSU as having “great” FA for OOS for kids with high stats when compared to schools like OSU and Alabama in terms of the number of kids who end up receiving significant aid given OSUs and Alabama’s stats driven “automatic” scholarships. My sense for PSU is that you have to be a SUPER high stats OOS kid to get meaningful aid whereas schools like OSU and Alabama offer meaningful aid to the more typical high stats kids.