Hello fellow CC’ers. I have been trying to gather info on schools for my daughter who is a rising senior and hell-bent on a BFA in MT come 2019. We live on Long Island in NY, and all of our state schools are 4+ hours away. We are considering many schools in the New England area but due to sticker shock of some of the private and conservatory programs I am also open to programs that may not be as geographically convenient to us. My daughter already goes to a PA boarding school that is 4 hours away so I know she will be fine wherever she lands. I saw that Texas State and Montclair are two schools with offer in-state tuition to all BFA’s and am hoping to curate a list of others that are out there. Please share any knowledge with regard to this. I’m also having a hard time figuring out what type of financial aid we may be eligible for, and she is my first kid going to college. Is there any resource online that helps families determine what their estimated contribution may be taking into account family-specific stats? Thanks in advance to all of the wonderful members who contribute to this forum, I’ve learned so much since discovering it last year and look forward to sharing our journey with the community as things progress through my D’s senior year.
Yikes I somehow wrote that my daughter is a rising senior when in fact she is a rising junior. Need. More. Coffee.
lol…
Florida State offers in-state tuition for students with high stats and half of the out-of-state tuition if you are admitted to the MT program (very competitive for MT admission, along with Texas State and Montclair).
Utah offers in-state after your freshman year if you stay over the summer and meet some other critieria.
Western Michigan now offers out of state tuition at only 25% above in-state.
Wright State has fairly low out of state tuition rates.
Most colleges offer an online “Net Price Calculator” that takes into account various student-specific factors and generates estimates for merit-based and financial-based aid. Just Google “[school name] net price calculator” or “[school name] estimated cost of attendance.” Make sure you get the one for this coming year (some schools will not have these ready until early fall).
This thread may be of some help:
Note that many private schools with excellent MT programs, particularly those in the Midwest, have tuition rates that are competitive with out-of-state rates at public schools. Many of these private schools also offer merit-based and talent-based scholarships that make them very competitive with public schools on a cost basis. Schools in this category include Oklahoma City U, Viterbo, Millikin, Baldwin-Wallace, Otterbein, Webster, Illinois Wesleyan etc.
Western Carolina, and Missouri State both offer very affordable tuition, the out of state tuition is often cheaper than many in-state schools. Both are lesser known but solid BFA programs.
Missouri State is super affordable, and headed by Robert Westenberg whose Broadway credits (and likely his connections) are solid.
And Terrance Mann is the head of Western Carolina.
Wow @KTVoice -I had no idea Terrence Mann headed up Western Carolina’s program. Amazing. He is a UNCSA alum. Very cool.
@bfahopeful He is directing Spring Awakening Spring 2018. I hope we can get there to see it. I didn’t know he graduated from UNCSA
Yep. UNCSA has a surprising number of grads who work in musical theater. Although Terrence Mann does a lot of directing and straight acting too. 
And that would be so great to see Spring Awakening!
When we were considering western Carolina we got the impression T Mann is only there once or twice a year? I don’t believe he is there on a regular basis. I know he directs the spring show but not sure how he is involved in classes and so forth.