I’m looking at universities with my daughter, a high school junior. She is smart but “not an egghead” she would say–much more invested in service, new experiences, travel, and friendships. Signed up for SAT but hasn’t taken it yet, GPA at a 3.4 after a disastrous 2020 (thanks, Covid)–may improve to a 3.5 or 3.6 by senior year. Dual enrollment this semester at a local college.
We’re in MN, and she would love to go away from Minnesota (someplace warm). Open to many different types of schools but leans toward comprehensive universities, medium sized or large. Maybe an education major but not sure. We need huge scholarships and grant aid to make that happen. Our children need to pay their own way through college.
I stumbled onto University of Southern Mississippi and they tout full tuition scholarships for admitted students with a 30 ACT/equivalent on up. (I wouldn’t be surprised if she made that score.) And full room and board the first year for ACT 33 or equivalent on up.
Anybody know of other opportunities like this? Not everyone is going to Princeton, right?
With no offense to the military (my Dad was Dept of Defense), I doubt it. Really not her.
If she has to she could attend our local state college and commute. But it would be good to know if there are other colleges out there with similar generous scholarships.
Maybe check out Tennessee Tech. Their out of state tuition is quite low, and they have generous scholarships based on SAT/ACT scores, plus an honors program with scholarship opportunity (must have at least a 3.5 GPA). Details are on their website.
The student can only borrow $5500 for their first year ($6500/$7500/$7500 for the rest) by themselves, without needing a co-signer. Even getting a full tuition scholarship has the potential to cost more than that for room and board.
What are you looking to set as your budget? Are you eligible for Pell grants, too?
Yes to Pell grants and our kids work part time to save for college. We can help with clothing, transportation, etc…just not much at all. We’re aware of the loan limits.
Our two older kids have managed this (low loans for one at an Elite school and community college and then commuting for the other). It’s tough but that is why we’re looking ahead to see what could be possible. OOS is tough.
Does she happen to have a grandparent living in Florida. There is a new ‘grandparent waiver’ which gets kids the instate rate. There are sometimes other scholarships available after that from the school. Look at West Florida and North Florida.
U. of Louisiana at Lafayette has very generous scholarships. Incoming Freshmen Scholarships - Fall 2022 | Office of Scholarships . With a 3.0 GPA your daughter would be eligible for an out-of-state waiver. Depending on how high her test scores go, she could get room & board, an on-campus job, and a semester stipend. As many Louisiana residents who would qualify for these scholarships receive a tuition waiver from the state, the university might also provide one for OOS students with high stats.
AustenNut beat me to it With good grades and test scores a number of Louisiana (and probably other Southern) state directionals could get you close to a full ride, also check out Southeastern Louisiana University, Northwestern State University and Nicholls State University.
But then you have to factor in travel costs. And, something else to consider, these schools draw mainly from the surrounding regions. Would your child be ok with being the (almost) lone Midwesterner? ULL will be ok, I think they have more of a national presence (and they are probably the only college with an alligator pond right next to the student union ) But the others are very regional and small town.
If she can get the GPA up to 3.5 by the end of 11th grade, that may open up more or better stats-scholarships that have 3.5 cutoffs (but note that the colleges may have specific calculation that differ from that of your high school). Many of these scholarships also require high test scores. For example, this full ride requires a 3.5 HS GPA and 1260 SAT or 26 ACT.
Look at Western Carolina University and University of North Carolina Pembroke (very low out-of-state tuition).
Also, have you considered Target’s debt-free education benefits for part-time employees? It will cover tuition at University of Arizona and Oregon State University, among many others:
Doubling down on Flagler. Flagler provided this PG family with a great FinAid package a couple of years ago. S20 ended up elsewhere. Stetson, also in FL, also provided a great FinAid package.
Allegheny and Ursinus in PA might also be worth a shot.
U New Mexico will also go a long way to being affordable for PG families, even for out of state. In the end, our UNM FinAid package made UNM cost less than in-state public options, not including transportation. To clarify, the Out Of Pocket expense (after accounting for DS Loans of $5500, and PG) was less than $5K/yr, not including transportation.
Also seconding UNC-Pembroke, Western Carolina and Elizabeth City State University, all in NC. With the NC Promise low-tuition guarantee at those three universities, the COA might be affordable even for many OOS PG-eligible families, if they can handle the transportation costs.
Unless the parents can chip in at least $15K-$25K/yr I wouldn’t invest too much time in applying to the AZ public universities. They are good options for upper-middle class families looking for OOS universities, but the AZ schools don’t come remotely close to being affordable for Out Of State PG families, regardless of the student’s stats.
Completely agree that this should be taken into consideration. Each state has different requirements for certification and it is much easier to teach in the state where you get your degree. I have a family member who went to school in PA and had a decade of experience teaching in PA/DE but NY treated her like she was brand new and her salary reflected that.
Caveat: This information is from D’19’s OOS search and may have changed since then. She had a 3.95/4.013 and a 27. The below listed ranged from $6500-$12,000/year for her.
Southeast Missouri State- merit covering most of tuition with a 27 ACT
University of Nebraska Kearney- full tuition with a 29 ACT
University of Central Arkansas- full tuition and more with ACTs in that same range
Missouri State- don’t remember the details but my DD could have gone for about $11K
Also University of Central Missouri was on the cheap side too.
As you can see, directionals that are looking to better their stats and are not the easiest to get to are where it’s at…what I did was look at lists of colleges by state for ideas and then go to their websites to look for auto merit.
DD ended up at a directional closer to home with a COA of about $15K after merit. With one-time local scholarships, moving off campus, working, savings, graduating early, a little help from us etc. she is making it without loans. I pay $2500 per semester for her but get $2500 a year back on taxes. It can be done without a huge cost to the parents.
Oh, since you’re Pell, you can look into Northwest Missouri State- they do full tuition grant for Pell recipients. Just ran a NPC with $0 EFC and the price was $10K (after Pell). Books and a laptop are included.
You may want to look at the Washington Monthly rankings which place a lot of emphasis on social mobility. The rankings are fine, but what I find particularly helpful is that you can sort through the data. One category that I think might prove very helpful is Pell/non-Pell grad rate gap. If you sort it from high to low, it will show you how Pell students are graduating compared with their non-PG peers. That can give an indication about the type of supports students are receiving (academic, financial, etc). I would then look at that data in conjunction with what the graduation rate actually is (in the column next to it) to see if those numbers look good to you overall. It also shows the net price of attendance for families with an income below $75,000, and other interesting data points. Here is a view of southeastern schools “Best Bang for the Buck” category sorted by the Pell/non-Pell grad rate gap.
Based off a quick glance I’d take a closer look at these which generally all have a graduation rate of at least 50%, a net price of $12k or less, and where PG recipients are graduating at no more than 1% behind their non-PG peers.
U. of South Florida at Sarasota -Manatee
Florida Atlantic U.
U. of South Florida at St. Petersburg
U. of South Florida
Tuskegee (AL, HBCU) which also has some very generous merit aid
North American University (TX)
U. of Texas - Permian Basin
U. of Texas - Arlington
U. of Texas - Tyler
U. of Houston
U. of Texas - Rio Grande Valley
Utah State
U. of Washington - Tacoma
U. of Antelope Valley (CA)
U. of Washington - Bothell
I know that there’s an OOS fee for U. of California schools, and I believe there is one from the Cal State schools. If there is NOT one for the Cal State schools, then there are some possibilities there as well.
Another option to remember is NSE (National Student Exchange.) It’s a group of 200+ colleges across N. America, mainly in the U.S. but a few in Canada and the Caribbean too. You can do up to a year at one of the participating schools and your credits transfer automatically, and best of all you only pay instate tuition and your scholarships and aid come with you. My younger kid is seriously considering this, because she wants to “go away” for college yet also wants to be a teacher and it is such a benefit to get your degree from the state you plan to teach in (her home state.) My kid may even end up living at home, except the year with NSE. https://www.nse.org/ex-rp-alpha-location.php
With good grades and test scores a number of Louisiana (and probably other Southern) state directionals could get you close to a full ride, also check out Southeastern Louisiana University, Northwestern State University and Nicholls State University.
) But the others are very regional and small town.