<p>For my daughter, PSU and UPitt were always on her radar, and she was happy to have been accepted into both. </p>
<p>More as an afterthought, she also applied to Ohio State University in Columbus, and was accepted with the National Buckeye Scholarship for out-of-state applicants (available to students with a 28 or better composite ACT or a 1260 combined math and reading SAT score), worth $12,000 off each year. This brought the annual OSU tuition/room/board bill to about $3000 less than PSU and UPitt. She also received other scholarships not offered to her by either PSU or UPitt, bringing her bill far lower.</p>
<p>I don't raise this to start a comparison of the merits of PSU, UPitt and OSU. Only to bring to your attention that there are other nearby state flagship universities that might be good to consider, and which surprisingly might be less expensive.</p>
<p>But then you have to live in Ohio…</p>
<p>Joking aside - experience shows me that the student body is, in general, very well off. I’d never recommend PSU to anyone whos being very budget conscious on their college decision unless youre well off and/or have a big outside grant/scholarship, etc. Many people forget PSU isn’t even a full fledged public school anyway.</p>
<p>Something to consider is that your scholarships remain frozen for four years. The BOT at Ohio State elected to increase out of state student tuition 5% this year (a very large increase on a $26,000 tuition), while electing no increase for in state students. This increase takes a large bite out of your scholarship. As an out of state student and parent, you have little choice but to go along. If the BOT had tried to increase in state tuition by that amount, they would have been met with all kinds of political opposition.</p>
<p>Didn’t she have to decided on schools by now?</p>
<p>invader71 - Yes, she’s going to Ohio State. With all of the merit awards OSU offered, the price will be about 40% of Penn State (plus priorities for early class registration and special housing, and a highly respected major program) .</p>
<p>Owiguin - rates just went up for Penn State’s tuition next year for in-state students by 3%. But I agree with your basic point: state officials are more likely to increase tuition for out of state students than in state, at least so long as they can without killing the golden goose and driving away those out of state students. </p>
<p>Congratulations to your daughter, Baywood. </p>
<p>I was just curious why you didn’t share this information with the folks on the Pitt forum? I believe that Pitt’s main campus was the most expensive public university in 2012-13, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s statistics – Onward State. </p>
<p>Congratulations to your daughter, Baywood!</p>
<p>Ohio State is an excellent university, it was a financially sound decision to chose Ohio St. at 40% of the cost of Penn State. These two schools are fairly comparable in the quality of education and the social atmosphere.</p>
<p>@Etuck don’t you mean Pitt is semi-private? Penn State is a full-fledged state institution.</p>
<p>I agree with the thinking that led you to sending your daughter to Ohio State over Penn State. At the end of the day all of these massive state schools are so similar you have to think on the margins, what specific things are you going to want? Take it from someone who transferred from a private school to Ohio State: figure out what the school has that you are going to place a high value on. Of all the schools I looked at, I chose Ohio State because the I will have the opportunity to engage in multiple independent studies under a professor I respect a lot and would be able to forge a close relationship with, which was not available to the same degree at the other schools I was considering.</p>
<p>Also, your daughter probably received the scholarship because Ohio State desperately wants to increase the out of state population, so they are probably thrilled she accepted!</p>
<p>Penn State, Pitt, and Temple are all state-related universities (meaning they get some state funding but they are independently controlled)</p>
<p>It would be nice if Penn State was a full-fledged state institution, but as scholarme said, PSU along with Pitt and Temple are state-related, which means they get very, very little money from the state - about 7% of their budget. In 1971, they received 62% from the state.</p>