Hello. I am an out-of-state student, and I just got an email from Penn State that my financial aid was ready to view. I only recieved money in 5,500 in loans which is essentially nothing. Anyone else have this issue?
I don’t think Penn State offers a lot of aid to OOS students. Did you run their Net Price Calculator before applying? How much aid were you expecting?
@collegegagal , Penn State is notoriously stingy, even for those whose EFC is $0. Unlike some schools, Penn State doesnt meet 100% of financial need. If you need a lot of financial aid, PSU may not be the best place without going into serious debt.
@austinmshauri Penn State offers very little institutional aid even to Pennsylvania residents. Most often it’s just the Direct loan and any Pell and state grants the student would be eligible for. For this reason, I didn’t allow my daughter to apply to Penn State, knowing that with an EFC of $0 there was no way that full Pell and state grants would come close to covering the cost.
My daughter got hers today also. We figured that she wouldn’t get any help. It helps she will be commuting.
So here are the cold hard facts of PSU financial aid according to the last Common Data Set (17-18):
Total freshmen at UP - 8031
Total who applied for aid - 7832
Total determined to have need - 6049
Total who received need-based grants and/or scholarships - 3470, or 42% of total freshmen class
Average amount of need-based grants and/or scholarships - $6,578
This means the remainder comes from loans and work study–and from the family itself.
COA for in-state for 17-18 at $30,024 (tuition, room, board, fees only)
COA for out-of-state for 17-18 at $46,428 (tuition, room, board, fees only)
The above expenses do not account for books, travel to/from campus, miscellaneous living expenses, etc. These expenses can add an additional $4K to $6K per year – bringing total OOS costs above $50K – and yet the average grant/scholarship is $6500. Ouch!
As many veterans have stated, it is really important that prospective students run the net price calculators at these schools and have serious discussions with parents about what they can and cannot afford.
In the next few weeks, the reality of PSU is going to turn families off when financial aid awards come out, especially the common app kids who applied on a whim and likely didn’t research the school. My hope is that our die-hard prospective students on the wait list will fill up those spots as those kids drop off. Most students will find less expensive options out there compared to Penn State.
As a Penn State alumnus and a Pennsylvania resident, it infuriates me the cost of tuition at Penn State. Especially when you look at other states and the cost of their public state funded schools i.e WVU, OSU, UW. PSU is one of the most expensive schools in the Big10. It’s tuition has risen astronomically compared to other school in the past 30 years.
My son was offered $19,500 in scholarships and grants at WVU. In addition he was offered work study and the $5500 in federal loans. At PSU, he was offered $1500 in general scholarship and the $5500 in federal loans. PSU ends up being $10,000 more than WVU and I live in the state!
PSU is not concerned because every year they have enough people who will pay the price…until that changes they will continue to do what they do. Yes, the PA state funding is partially at fault as well. I would encourage anyone who is in-state to contact their state congressman.
Now, the one other thing to consider is the return on investment. The ROI could be a game changer for some…possibly my son.
Pitt is a much better financial option for many PA families. But it lacks “WE ARE” nonsense that makes Penn State popular and expensive.
@TomSrOfBoston Pitt is just as expensive, actually slightly higher tuition. Not sure where you’re seeing that it’s a better financial option for many PA families. Most of my daughter’s friends who go to Pitt are relying on large Parent Plus loans to pay the bulk of the cost. Pitt does offer larger merit awards than Penn State to its very top admitted students (instate and out of state) and sometimes sweetens the pot with need-based aid (Panther Pride awards) for lower income students it really wants, but the majority of students at Pitt are offered only loans and any Pell/state grants they may be entitled to. I just ran a hypothetical net price calculator using my daughter’s stats and family financial info and the estimated net price after grants/scholarships was $24,495 for a $0 EFC!
The “WE ARE” nonsense represents a 700,000 strong alumni network. Hard to put a price on that.
@kidzncatz I said Pitt was more generous than Pen State, not generous to all.
Hmmm, can you quantify the “much better option” and the “more generous”, @TomSrOfBoston? I’m actually very interested. I didn’t see those numbers in the USNWR https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/compare?xwalk_id=214777&xwalk_id=215293# for in-state (can’t quite correlate OOS comparison to your description either), but perhaps your data is more reliable. KInd of interesting to see the average indebtedness
@STEM2017 But Penn State does by having a high net cost.
@frathousemama , I’m just guessing but it’s possible the difference is between it being a public state school (like PASSHE schools) versus the whole “state-related” designation. It’s like PSU floats between being a public school versus semi private.
@frathousemama is your son going to WVU? We saw the same thing, that my son got so much merit aid at WVU that it is considerably less to attend then PSU. He also got accepted to UVA and even with their heftier OOS price they gave enough aid to match PSU as well as similar to what in state would cost.
@frathousemama My son was also accepted to WVU and received the same scholarship amount as your son. Certainly beats out our instate tuition at Rutgers New Brunswick. So far WVU beat out all of the schools he applied to with the next one coming in at $10k from UBuffalo. These amounts don’t include any guaranteed federal loans.
Ironically we just received the PSU financial aid notification. $5500 in federal student loans. That’s it. Nothing more for OOS. As Nancy Pelosi put it, ‘crumbs’. Fortunately my son has better options elsewhere.
I’m reading these posts and it seems not everyone researched the cost of psu and the amt of aid they give. This should have been done PRIOR to applying so you would know if the option was even affordable. They have a cost estimator. They are clear that they don’t meet 100% of need. They don’t offer many scholarships for in or out of state.
This shouldn’t be new news folks…
Some data points from USNWR link I posted
USNWR Rank
PSU - #59 Pitt - #70
Average Alumni Starting Salary
PSU - $56,700 Pitt - $53,200
Total Undergrad
PSU - 40,835 Pitt - 19,326
Fall 2017 Acceptance Rate
PSU - 50% Pitt - 60%
4 Year Graduation Rate
PSU - 67% Pitt - 65%
Tuition and Fees
PSU - $34858 OOS/$18454 IN Pitt - $32052 OOS/$19080 IN
Room and Board
PSU - $11570 Pitt - $11050
Average Indebtedness of 2017 graduating class
PSU - $37307 Pitt - $38322
Applied for Need Base Aid
PSU - 60.6% Pitt - 67.8%
Need was fully Met
PSU - 31.3% Pitt - 12.3%
@spqr70nj – you’re smart to have other options.
@simple0920 – if I could like your post 100X more I would. Invariably, the Decision thread will have Accepted!!! and then Wait, I didn’t get any financial aid posts.
@pilot2012 @simple0920 @jlhpsu
I’ve always known PSU is notoriously stingy with incoming freshmen, but do any of you know if this is also true for upperclassmen? Some schools get more generous as the students progress through the years with departmental scholarships and/or other random institutional scholarships or grants. Any knowledge of this with PSU?
ETA: If S chooses PSU, I will highly encourage him to apply to become an RA in junior and senior year. If he’s lucky enough to get the job it would knock a big chunk off of the bill.