Pennsylvania parents share your strategies

Yes, Pitt branches like Bradford and Johnstown offer some merit for lower stats, and start at about $24,000 for tuition, fees, room and board.

There are many ways to get into architecture. You can get a certificate, an associates degree in Architecture, a bachelors, a masters, a PHD. There are about 20 programs in the state of PA with quite a few of them being public schools.

In your particular situation, since you do not qualify for much, if any financial aid, setting a ceiling price for college is a good first step. Can you, are you willing, to pay for full price Penn State or Pitt? What are the programs that are available in terms of architecture studies there? Are they 4 year programs, are they pre-architechture-- meaning one must follow up in grad school to get what is needed to become an architecht. Run NPCs for a bunch of in state options including the pricey public schools to get a good idea what you are expected to pay at these schools.

if you truly are not going to qualify for financial aid, and if PSU and Pitt main campuses are out of range, understand, that if your student applies to those schools (or any school out of range, a merit scholarship is a MUST for matriculation there. Temple does have an architechture program, and still has more merit possibilities than Pitt and PSU. Two kids with profile’s similar to your student, that I know, instate PA were accepted to PSU with about $5-6K merit money. Pitt has some great awards, but the criteria to get them makes them extraordinarily selective.

You can look at out of state, big state schools that have good architecture programs that have tuition scholarship to make the remaining cost equivalent or equal to what an instater would pay. There are some opportunities in Louisiana and South Caroline, New Mexico, I believe. I don’t know what they offer in the way of architecture.

Then, it’s a matter of looking for schools where your student has a decent chance of getting merit awards large enough to bring down the costs to where they are palatable to you and have the programs that your student wants. Those can be private or public schools.

A lot of kids have eyes way too big for their “stomachs” in terms of college plans. I hear about triple majors and crazy double majors and mixing of programs that are very difficult to do, from 16, 17, 18 year olds. Yes, there are some who carry it off, but really, getting through an engineering program AND an architecture program is rare, and I"m not even sure is possible at most schools. I know at CMU and other colleges, that there are separate schools for these subjects, and getting accepted to both is what is needed to get such a degree. Both disciplines are very difficult ones, that often take 5 years to complete. I would probably look into an engineering program that can be supplemented with prearchitecture courses. Engineering alone is a competitive program at most schools both for entry and completion. Electives can be taken for architecture

As a high reach school, I suggest your student consider Cooper Union. The cost ranges in the low $30K range, from what I remember from last year. That is lower than Pitt costs with average books,supplies, personal and transportation in the equation.

I want to add that there is the distinct possibility of cutting room and board costs at Pitt after freshman year due to so much cheap housing and food availability in the student “ghetto” area. My son lived high on the hog, IMO, when he went off campus there,but still managed to beat the university costs for room and board. He also worked 10-20 hours a week at the university as a lifeguard, and though the pay was not great, it was enough to fully take care of his discretionary costs. We gave him full COA room and board monies all four years, and he did not feel pinched at all, paying what was left to pay.

Op here… just to clarify my students interest was architecture or engineering not both and now down to architecture alone… thanks so much for all of your input

^ Look into Kent State: good merit, great architecture program.

Re: #37, #52, ABET accredited programs at PASSHE schools

However, most of them are CS. The only engineering programs in that list are computer engineering and software engineering at Shippensburg. There are a few others in engineering technology, IT, and occupational health fields.

@Trixy34 I’m going to PM you about what you said about aid.

@cptofthehouse you make a good point about the cost ceiling. For us it’s already decided as = to the cost of PSU architecture which, gulp, is a five year program. We have committed to pay for a five year or 4 plus 1-2, which Pitt sadly does not have in arch. And you are right about the cheaper off campus housing - a lot cheaper depending on the cooking skills of the student (which are ok in our case)
Kent state is on the list unfortunately it suffers from the negative impression that meatheads from our high school go there. Too bad meatheads have a right to go to college too LOL
Cooper Union was more expensive I thought but we can look again I remember when it was “free”. Good suggestion!

Just be careful of the student loan trap. We are ranked #2!

https://ticas.org/posd/map-state-data#overlay=posd/state_data/2018/pa

Most and Least Average Student Loan Debt

The states with the highest average student loan debt:

New Hampshire ($36,367)
Pennsylvania ($35,759)
Connecticut ($35,494)
Delaware ($33,838)
Minnesota ($31,915)
The states with the lowest average student loan debt:

Utah ($19,975)
New Mexico ($21,373)
California ($22,744)
Arizona ($23,447)
Nevada ($24,128)

^^At most of the PASSHE schools on the list, there are more than 30-40 % Pell eligible students.

At PS University Park, only 15%.

Here are the Pa. colleges whose graduates have the highest student debt…
https://www.pennlive.com/news/2017/12/pennsylvania_is_number_one_in.html

Here are the 50 Pa. colleges whose graduates have the lowest student debt…
https://expo.pennlive.com/news/erry-2018/08/70ea1af3eb3539/here-are-the-50-pa-colleges-wh.html

No one has recommended Drexel? Maybe I missed it. One senior I know in our district is going there for 5 year coop program on CS.

Want to caution parents about going to college with merit scholarship with GPA requirement. It can be hard to maintain 3.0 for engineering for non motivating kids, and then you end up paying more than our in state options. My coworker will unfortunately have the experience next year, giving her son’s academic record at U of Dayton.

@bester1 Interesting to read those lists - and see that many colleges are on both of them. Apparently a lot of schools didn’t respond. With the exception of the top of the list for “lowest” there really isn’t much difference in average student debt. Kids with decent stats and/or who qualify for need based aid need to apply and see what might work out for them (in state and out of state).

Only 13 of these 50 have average student debt at or below the federal direct loan limit for dependent undergraduates ($31,000). Only 2 of these 13 are public.

Actually 20 of those on the list of 50 are either state or state related schools. All receive some levels of public funding and support.

Odd to have schools show up on both the most expensive and the least expensive lists. I would think they would pare the lists down to a number where a school would show up on one or the other.

It really shows me that there’s not a whole lot of difference among most schools in PA - public or private. With most of our true public schools not having the name recognition many private schools have, I definitely don’t find it surprising that many opt to look around - esp if they have the stats or higher need to get better deals.

I am not sure that you can gather that conclusion based on the information provided as it doesn’t include average household income, savings and so on. Perhaps people that choose some privates may have more household money to be spent on education thus borrow less? Perhaps some that choose the publics have less income? All of the information provide in the article(s) is interesting but vague.

I found it interesting that many privates, even some that meet full need (Bucknell, Penn) had only about 10% Pell eligible students.

@bester1 True, one can’t get all of that from the links you provided. I also go off of what I see at school among the kids and occasional parents who share with me (definitely not all, but a fair number). Those lists mainly match what I see among our typical students. Very, very few of ours are full pay. Many final decisions are based with finances in mind.

Most of ours won’t have the stats to get into Bucknell or Penn - though we do have one going to U Penn this year.