Pros / Cons of going to a Public university as an out of state student

College Search & Selection
21

<p>There’s a lot of misinformation about the top publics circulating here. Unlike the UC system and the University of Texas, neither the University of Michigan nor the University of Wisconsin-Madison has a quota on out-of-state students in the admissions process or in selection of a major. Michigan is 35% OOS, Wisconsin 32%, some of the highest rates of OOS students in the country.</p>

<p>Nor is it true that student/faculty ratios at these schools are “2 or 3 times as high” as at private schools, as one anti-public propagandist would have it. Michigan’s 15/1 and Wisconsin’s 13/1 ratios are higher than HYPS to be sure, but they are not out of line with such privates as Notre Dame (13/1), Johns Hopkins (11/1), NYU (11/1), Boston College (13/1), RPI (15/1), Syracuse (12/1), University of Miami (13/1), Pepperdine (12/1), George Washington (13/1), Boston University (14/1), Worcester Polytechnic (13/1)., Fordham (12/1), Southern Methodist (12/1), Baylor (16/1), St. Louis U (12/1), Marquette (15/1), or American (14/1). Indeed, if you’re concerned about student/faculty ratios, that might be an additional reason to be concerned about the UCs: after Berkeley (15/1) and UCLA (16/1), the student/faculty ratios are quite high at some of the other UCs: 19/1 at UC San Diego, UC Davis, UC Irvine, and UC Santa Cruz, 18/1 at UC Riverside, and 17/1 at UC Santa Barbara.</p>

<p>Also, if your kid gets into the Honors Program at Michigan, faculty/student ratio is just not an issue: they’ll be taking small honors classes with other honors students whose stats place them easily at the HYPS level, and moving from there into upper-level courses and eventually graduate-level courses in their major. To my way of thinking, this is one of the outstanding hidden gems in the American undergraduate education system: LAC-like small college intimacy with access to all the academic resources of a great university. (Or, as an alternative to the Honors Program, there’s the Residential College option, a similar LAC-type experience though without the need to meet the Honors threshold).</p>

<p>Cost for OOS is an issue. Basically OOS tuition is priced to be competitive with the privates. Michigan offers some very generous merit aid packages, but only a limited number of them. I’m not sure about Wisconsin. But obviously these schools continue to attract very large numbers of highly qualified OOS students, so they must be doing something right.</p>

22

<p>Thanks for all suggestions along with lots of data.</p>

<p>One question about the faculty to student ratio published by the schools. While a large school might have a 13/1 ratio, isn’t it still possible that some of the classes (especially freshmen) have basic courses with several hundred students in one class? I know from the Berkeley tour, that it is true there. How many such large classes does one have to endure before class sizes come down to a level where interaction is feasible?</p>

23

<p>If a student is comfortable with large classes and a large representation of students local to Michigan/Wisconsin/etc, then it’s worth it. State schools don’t offer sub-par educations! They will be working with state legislation though, so the curriculum may be different than a private.</p>

24

<p>

</p>

<p>This is not true for many of the top privates which give need based FA only and no merit scholarships.</p>

<p>About class size, the intro classes will be large at just about any school, and every school will supplement the large lectures with smaller sections run by TAs. There are definitely opportunities for undergrads to have small classes in the large publics. For instance, my D was a freshman at UMichigan last year and took a freshman seminar, every year they offer several of these seminars on very diverse and interesting topics.</p>

<p>I agree that unless a student can get substantial merit scholarships, it doesn’t make much sense to pass up the UCs and pay OOS tuition at another public university.</p>

25

<p>

</p>

<p>I live in Delaware now but I grew up in and went to college in Virginia (W&M) and now send my son to college in Virginia (W&M) so I can respond for the Commonwealth. State schools in Virginia have a cap on OOS enrollments - I believe it is 30% - which does make admission for OOS more competitive than for IS.</p>

<p>While it is true that the OOS cost is eye-popping at some of the top publics (Michigan, for one) there are too many variables based on personal situations, preferences, and dumb luck to go with a blanket “one is better than the other.” Apply where you have an interest – whether it’s private, public IS, or public OOS – and see what offers you get. My son chose OOS public over several privates, another OOS public, and our pretty darn good in-state public. My daughter is in the process now and is leaning OOS public or value-priced private. My kids are lucky in that we can swing it financially if we have to, but absent some pretty significant aid, we wouldn’t go for a big-ticket ($50K/year) private.</p>

26

<p>One of the issues that we considered when deciding whether son should attend a private school versus OOS public, was the student body.</p>

<p>We were concerned that the public U would have the majority of their students from that state, kids that mostly knew each other from High School, lived close to home and already had their friends (at least in the beginning) and that might make it harder to meet people initially as an OOS student who didn’t know anyone. I thought it might also impact on being able to continue school relationships when you are the one flying home and having no college friends that live nearby.</p>

<p>On the other hand, a private university gets students from all over the country and they all pretty much don’t know anyone when starting and all travel home only on holidays. There is a diversity that just can’t compare to the state U’s.</p>

27

<p>Every situation is unique. The State Flagship U. of our neighboring state is much closer to us than our own. Quite a few kids from our area cross the state line to go there. S2 will attend one of our state u’s this year that is on the other side of the state (4 hr. drive) from us where a very few from his h.s attend. On the other hand, there a several small privates within an hours drive of us that are largely populated by instate kids.</p>

28

<p>About privates and merit scholarships…unless a school offers full tuition or better scholarships, the cost is still pretty astronomical. Think about it…a $15K/year scholarship doesn’t go very far when you’re talking about a $50K/year price tag. So yes, privates to tend to give a lot of merit aid, but many, if not most, still leave a hefty chunk of change left over.</p>

29

<p>

</p>

<p>I think you are overstating things regarding both state schools and privates. </p>

<p>While it is true most state schools will have a majority of students from within their own states, those students come from all over the state and in most states bring quite a bit of diversity. Nor will they “all” know each other from high school - they may know a few kids from their HS or scout troop or church or swim league, but out of a population of thousands or tens of thousands knowing a few is not siginificant enough to alter the dynamics of establishing relationships. I was from the Washington, DC, suburbs in Northern Virginia, went to school in Virginia (William & Mary) and initially had more in common with the kids from the Long Island, north Jersey, and Connicticut suburbs than I did with the kids from rural parts of Virginia. But guess what? The day we moved into the dorms, we were all pretty much in the same boat so where someone came from mattered not at all in extablishing relationships.</p>

<p>Also, while privates are not under any legal mandate to have a certain percentage of their enrollment from within their state, you will still find that most draw most of their students from their own geographic region/state. While the geographic diversity may be a bit greater in terms of regions or states, the socioeconomic and demographic diversity in many privates is significantly less than at state schools.</p>

30

<p>

I also wanted to add, I’m going to be a sophomore in college. I have friends at my college who are from near by (shocking isn’t it) and most of these kids went home every few weeks for a night, or during a Sunday. One girl went home every Monday to do laundry. Luckily, my school is a top private with kids from all over the country, so the vast majority of students did not live that close to my college. The college I was talking about in my earlier posts is Maryland-College Park. One college that comes to mind where lots of students live very close to it and might be commuters or go home frequently is George Mason, at least from my experiences and the people that I know there.</p>

31

<p>A lot can depend upon how well your state is represented and how your daughter compares academically to the student body at the OOS public under consideration. Often, if the academic stats of a prospective OOS student place them in the top 5-10% of the applicant pool and if admitting the student will increase the georgraphic diversity of the student body, many public universities will be very generous with merit aid for an OOS student. That’s exactly what happened to my daughter. She is from Connecticut and applied to publics in Colorado, Kansas and Missouri. All were very generous with merit aid offers in an effort to recruit her. She ended up in Kansas, and pays far less there than she would have at our in-state public flagship. In addition, a top student will normally also be admitted to the honors program, with smaller classes, top professors, opportunities for research, etc.</p>

32

<p>Another possibility is to look into whether your state has exchange agreements with neighboring states. This can bring the price of out of state tuition down considerably, and some schools have special scholarships available for students who apply via the exchange programs. California is a member of the Western Undergraduate Exchange, google for the link.</p>

<p>I worked with a student from California last year who wanted to major in film. She did not get into UCLA, but did get into UCSB. She also applied to Montana State’s well-respected film school under the WUE. She was given a scholarship in addition to her WUE tuition, and ended up paying less than she would at UCSB. After visiting both schools and talking to students and faculty in the film programs, she opted for Montana State, as she felt she’d get better opportunities for hands on production there.</p>

<p>There are also some states that recognize the difficulties that the UC system has (getting more competitive, budget issues, etc.) and are actively recruiting California students to their state flagship universities, often offering attractive incentives. A student who has an open mind to considering different possibilities can end up paying less than a UC if they shop all possibilities to compare what is available.</p>

<p>Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way. So, as someone wisely said above, apply where you want, and wait to compare offers before deciding if your state U or an out of state U is less expensive, or worth any extra cost.</p>

33

<p>

</p>

<p>I think this concerned is misplaced at a top public with a diverse student body like Michigan or Wisconsin. In the first place, a third of the students are OOS at these schools, so an OOS student is hardly alone in that category. At Michigan, for example, there will be some in excess of 8,000 other OOS undergrads on campus. Second, the states themselves are big and diverse, and the schools are not located in the major population centers. Sure, in-state kids may know a few people from their HS, but frankly so so a lot of OOS kids, and so do kids at the privates. Going to the same HS doesn’t necessarily mean they’re close friends, and residence halls, classes, and extracurriculars are great randomizers; you make friends with the people you live with and share academic and extracurricular interests with, same as at any school. Some HS friendships may survive, but they’re hardly dominant. </p>

<p>As for in-state kids going home all the time, I just don’t think it happens much at places like Michigan or Wisconsin; campus is the center of your life in college, and there’s too much going on there to be leaving all the time. When I was an (in-state) undergrad at Michigan, I went home for Thanksgiving and at the semester break, that’s it. Most of my friends who came from metro Detroit, less than an hour away, went home maybe once a semester on average. Also , Michigan’s a big state. Due to the peculiarities of geography I actually lived farther from Ann Arbor than OOS kids from Chicago, Indianapolis, Louisville, anywhere in Ohio, Pittsburgh, upstate New York, or even parts of the DC metro area. (Yes, it’s true; you can look it up).</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>This is just completely wrong. Certainly at the top publics, the state legislatures don’t presume to prescribe curriculum. Each school has its own curricular requirements, but these are set by the school, not by the legislature, and I don’t think you’ll find much difference at all between the top publics and their private peers.</p>

34

<p>Don’t some small states have mandates where if their state colleges do not offer a program they will offer you instate tuition at another state school if you enrol in one of those programs? I was told by a Delaware resident that one of her friends was getting instate tuition at another state school because Delaware did not have an architecture program. I’ve also heard from my friend’s roommate who is a Jewish Studies major at Maryland that he gets instate tuition at UMD while being a Georgia resident because Georgia state schools do not offer the major.</p>

35

<p>What I meant in regards to curriculum was that, for example, you won’t see an open public curriculum like Brown’s/Amherst’s (correct me if I’m wrong) and that at least in my state, all the publics require a physical education credit.</p>

36

<p>

</p>

<p>That’s kind of a sweeping generalization with little basis … some states are big, some are small; some state universities are located in / near the major population areas of that state, others are nowhere near the major population areas of that state.</p>

37

<p>^I never said it was true of state schools. I just said it was a problem at some schools with a very large local population.</p>

38

<p>Ah, I see, sorry, I must have misread.</p>

39

<p>A number of publics have an open option for majors.</p>

40

<p>One of the issues I would really look at is the four year graduation rate. At many of the California public schools it is becoming more difficult to graduate in four years.</p>