Pennsylvania parents share your strategies

Hello fellow PA parents
If you have a student in hs class of 2019 or 2020 or even 2021 please share your strategies for dealing with the high prices of our in state options. What solutions are you finding for your college applicants? All comments welcome - we are looking for colleges a day’s drive from our western PA home and competitive pricing to our PA options. For our family need based aid is not likely but definitely don’t restrict the conversation… how are you all dealing with our PA and nearby options???

What’s a day’s drive to you? (Hours?)

Two of my lads went further afield - one to GA, the other to FL. One went to NY a mere 6 hours away, less if you don’t stop, but he had very high stats and received decent aid there. Sticking within 3-4 hours away doesn’t usually get students much “geographical diversity” aid from what I’ve seen with students at school. Going further can (but doesn’t always).

For high scoring students, Pitt was a close second to the school he chose in cost to us. U Alabama was third.

My son is going to Ohio State for less than Penn State would have cost us thanks to their Buckeye and Maximus merit scholarships.

Merit hunting, basically. Also applying to at least one PASSHE school.

Our two are attending instate publics. Older one at Pitt got a nice scholarship.
Younger one goes to a PASSHE school, also got some scholarships.

We qualify for the PHEAA grant, so we were only looking instate, and within a few hours’ drive

There are private schools in PA where the net price calculator came close to PASSHE cost for us, with merit and need based aid.

Some examples were Susquehanna, Muhlenberg, Lycoming, Juniata, Allegheny,

If you are in Western PA, Slippery Rock, Geneva, Clarion, Gannon, Edinboro, Westminster are some you can check out.

In addition, there are Pitt and Penn State branches that are a bit less expensive.

Ohio schools might also be an option.

Youngstown State, Kent State, Cleveland State, U Dayton, U Akron, U Toledo, U Cincinnati.

WVU might give good merit aid as well.

Any idea about major?

How is VT? We were in Naviance session at our school college night and DS20 said he might be interested in VT. But honestly I think Pitt is pretty good value for instate though.

D17 is a better student and attends Vandy on full tuition scholarship.

Ohio State gives an automatic scholarship to OOS with reasonable qualification parameters that makes it about the same as Pitt/PSU. Our oldest had similar geographic constraints but stretched it to go to Purdue. Pitt, PSU, VT, OSU and Lehigh rounded off the list. (Lehigh was out for financial reasons but I knew it was way down her list so we let her go through the application process).

Our D22’s initial list is all 8 Ivy’s, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and CMU. It’ll be interesting to see how that evolves.

Pitt/PSU are about the most expensive in-state schools, but they’re still cheaper than OOS costs in other states, or private.

Oh boy. It’s going to be a bit difficult for me to answer this because we have a unique divorced situation that makes us eligible for need-based aid in fafsa only schools and not eligible for any assistance in CSS profile schools. But if your child is high stats or even somewhat high stats, look into the SUNY schools. My son was accepted to SUNY Binghamton honors with merit aid that basically brought us closer to an in-state tuition. (NY OOS tuition is about the same as PA in-state tuition). So look into the different schools and what numbers you need to be awarded merit. I know Albany also gives merit aid.

What dos your child want to study? My friend’s son applied to a number of schools for engineering and ended up with offers from private schools that were much less than Penn State. Clarkson was one of them. I could try to find out more if you’re interested. Some 2nd or 3rd tier private LACs give great merit aid. Look for the really rural schools in places nobody wants to go - lol.

The reasons Pit and Penn State are more expensive is because that they are good schools.

@trixy34, hope your son got off Vandy WL. D has a friend who came from divorced family. His primary costodian is his M who doesn’t make much money. Vandy gave him a lot of aid, in spite of the fact that his D makes a lot.

Just curious what is the full pay price for instate public in PA? Here in TX it is about $25,000.

My daughter got a lot of aid at Susquehanna, and she was more of a B student in high school. She’s had a wonderful experience there.

We’re paying about $24,000/year, total.

I think just approximate in-state tuition, for main campus (general liberal arts) of the “state-related” schools:
Penn State - $18.5K
Pitt -18K
Temple - 16.5K

add around $13K+ for room & board etc

there are also the PASSHE schools, which are actual state schools. West Chester is probably the most expensive, and tuition & fees is around $10K, add the same or more for housing & food, so around $23K total.

Edit: Engineering and Nursing are several thousands more in tuition and fees though

For a true state school (one of 14 PASSHE schools) the total cost is about 22K. Here’s Kutztown’s page:

https://www.kutztown.edu/costs-and-financial-aid/tuition-and-fees-(undergraduate).htm

Here’s a list of the schools:

http://www.passhe.edu/university/Pages/Our-Universities.aspx

For our “name” schools like Penn St the cost is about 34K.

https://admissions.psu.edu/costs-aid/tuition/

Penn St is notoriously known for being poor with aid. Pitt and Temple are our other two name schools. Both of those are better with aid, but not always great and you need high stats. Pitt and Penn St also have satellite campuses that are less expensive for the first couple of years that many students choose. (I’m not sure if Temple does.)

The PASSHE schools are where many choose to go, esp if they are quite average in stats/GPA, but ranking and name recognition outside the area is horrid if that matters in a student’s future. Here’s PA school rankings:

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/pa

None of the PASSHE schools make the list until West Chester at #68 in Regional Universities North. Then too, if a student wants to study engineering the PASSHE schools don’t have it except for a small program Shippensburg literally just started.

Many students look to see if private schools will come down to our public school cost to get better name recognition/ranking. It often happens. We have several nice private schools in/near the state. Students don’t always get better costs, but getting similar costs - esp if they are a little above average in stats - is fairly common. High stat students often do better elsewhere (as with my lad). High need kids with semi-decent stats can usually do better elsewhere too.

@scholarme Actually, West Chester, arguably one of the best of the PASSHE schools, is also one of the more affordable, as it still has some older dorms with much lower prices than the newer dorms. Many of the PASSHE schools tore down their vintage dorms to build suite-style housing, eliminating lower-cost options.

thanks @kidsncatz

For merit and lower costs, I suggest turning your eyes southward as well. Depending on major and stats there are some attractive schools in that direction.

I don’t know why I didn’t mention this earlier - my son has friends who were offered full or almost full rides at Temple and University of Scranton. OP, it might help to know your child’s stats and preferred area of study. And, as others have mentioned, West Chester is a very good school, especially for education and music.

We didn’t even consider PA in state options. Oldest went to UMD with a sizable merit award. The next one went to a private research school at about 3x the cost. I think our UMD student is paying less than we would in state at Penn State, Temple or Pitt. However, it was more about the options of educational opportunities than the cost.

@SincererLove - thanks for the well-wishes. We probably should have gone the ED route with Vandy. We’ll see what happens. He just submitted his LOCI. But he has some great options no matter what.

@dallastxmom - cost really depends on the school. I’ve lived in PA for about 20 years and I still haven’t figured out how/why things are done the way they are here. Nothing is easy to figure out, including the traffic signs. Lol! Cost of attendance at University Park (main campus) in our spreadsheet is about $32,000 (not including travel or personal expenses) I think the only financial aid available is Pell Grant and state grant, so that would knock off about $10,000 for the students with the most need. So I would imagine it is still out of reach for a lot of families. There is a little bit of merit aid available for high stats students, but I think it might top out at about $5,000 a year.

My B student got enough merit aid at Xavier U (Cincinnati), Duquesne, and U Dayton to bring the total cost lower than Pitt, Penn State, or Temple. After merit, Ohio U and WVU were about the cost of a PASSHE school. Students with higher stats would likely receive somewhat more generous awards.

My A student’s costs at U South Carolina (after very generous merit) are similar to PASSHE schools. We are 10 hours away and it’s a reasonable 1-day drive. Lots of students from our Philadelphia suburb head to SC, not just for the cost but for the educational opportunities, warm weather, and beautiful campus.