<p>I think in PA there are two kinds of public schools… The schools in the PA State System of Higher Education (State Owned) and the schools in the Commonwealth System (State Related). Generally the State Owned institutions are less expensive than the State related for both in-state and OOS students. The Penn State System is State Related… a discount for in-state, but not as inexpensive as the State Owned institutions.</p>
<p>You are correct cpt… there is no way to monitor “the situation of those whose parents can afford to send their kids to college, but won’t spend the money which is their choice, or can’t because they’ve had setbacks or mishandled their money.”</p>
<p>I agree with M2K as well… that an undergraduate should be able to use the Stafford totals for the junior and senior years if they do not borrow much for freshman and sophomore. This would help many students!</p>
<p>The system is Georgia is a great model for the rest of the country. Thanks to HOPE and Zell Miller scholarships, typical cost at Georgia Tech (tuition/fees/room/board/books) will be $13,400 this year and a little less than that at UGA. (That’s for students with a B average in high school who qualify for HOPE or Zell Miller scholarships).</p>
<p>C students are steered to community colleges, where they can qualify for the scholarships if they get a B average there and show they can handle college work.</p>
<p>We live in Pa., and although there are less expensive state schools, Penn State is the most sought after of the group. Many students opt for Temple or Pitt, but others cannot afford these either. </p>
<p>Penn State continues to raise their tuition, and offers minimal need-based fin. aid. What was striking and somewhat controversial this year was that they apparently gave out a lot of seemingly random $6000.00 scholarship offers to mostly OOS applicants. When questioned about what criteria were used, they were vague and would not come up with anything definite. This is in contrast to their very clear policy of offering a set amount of merit aid for Schreyers honors students. These criteria are clear and understandable. But the $6000.00 offered to OOS students, when so many in-state students cannot afford to attend the school, was met with a lot of criticism.</p>
<p>I’ll still have to pay 7k/year for UTD if I end up going there (can’t afford other places), even with the full tuition scholarship (I’m ranked either 1 or 2)"</p>
<p>if you can go to UTD and have the sleep away experience for only $7k per year, then why complain? You can take out a student loan and work during the summer to cover that.</p>
<p>Your goal is to become self-supporting with a decent income. Why should you have to pay for some of what it takes to get that goal?</p>
<p>Though it seems to make sense that all that anyone is entitled to get is the state local school, when one applies that rule, only those with the money can afford to go the Flagship U</p>
<p>But local schools would get better if more “good students” attended the local schools. I think many of the CSUs in Calif have gained good reps over the last few decades because many good students commuted to them because that’s what their families could afford. When I was growing up in Calif, many kids commuted to the local CSU or UC.</p>
<p>In my state, the school district that gets the biggest per pupil expenditure is the worst performing school district, with the highest teacher attrition rate. The problem in that school district is that there were cases even in elementary schools when the teachers were threatened with knives and bitten up. So the problem is not the funding, it is the families in the district.</p>
<p>UT Austin did away with national merit in order to move to need based model. However, I suspect EFC shows upto to be in 20k range for families making over 80k and living in Texas.</p>
<p>Pensions, health insurance, and Medicaid keep eating up a larger and larger percentage of state budgets, leaving less and less for public universities. If you look at it from a percentage of total state spending, Medicaid has swallowed all of the funding that used to go to public universities.</p>
<p>Most states had huge decreases in tax revenues during the Great Recession. </p>
<p>Let’s see if the states can at least keep up with inflation at public universities while their tax revenues come back to life. So far in PA, state funds for education continue to be frozen without any inflation funding, after drastic cuts a couple years ago.</p>
<p>There are schools (via their prinicipals and staff) that know how to educate students from difficult family situations. To say that the families are the problem is to consign yet another generation of kids to the underclass. The chances are that the parents of these kids also went to crappy schools.</p>
<p>Of course it’s not an easy problem to solve but I don’t think it’s fair to say that the 5-year-olds starting Kindergarten are destined to be losers.</p>
<p>Children who are not taught to behave at home and not used to following instructions and respecting authority are very challenging to educate and very disruptive to the other students. </p>
<p>This can just as easily be the case for upper or lower class kids. Regardless of socioeconomic status, without proper parenting the school faces a major challenge.</p>
<p>Pennsylvanians don’t want to pay taxes, and the governor doesn’t like Penn State, so this was a recipe for cutting the funds to Penn State by more than 50 percent.</p>
<p>Michigan COA is over 25k for underclassmen, 27k for upperclassmen for instate. No state help for students. So yes, it’s well funded but really not affordable to most instate students. Nor is the other top school, MSU. The directionals are only marginally better and most areas in Michigan do not have an option that you can commute to.</p>
<p>^Sounds like Wisconsin. We have an educating-hating governor and a group of state legislators who have been trying to decimate the public schools and state university system for years. Now they have unfettered power and are acting on their plans.</p>
<p>Also, I think it’s terrible how they advertise tuition and show numbers in the 9k-10k realm where that’s usually just for 12 credit semesters. Most people I know take 16 or even 17 or 18, so that easily leaves freshman and people relying on that 1.5-2k short of what they think they’re going to pay. </p>
<p>That just really bothers me. Even though it says “for full-time semesters of 12 credits” at the bottom, I still feel like they mislead people, even if it is their fault for not reading carefully.</p>
<p>Michigan COA is over 25k for underclassmen, 27k for upperclassmen for instate. No state help for students</p>
<p>I thought that UMich promises to meet need to instate. But, I can see that it’s probably more of a problem at the other Mich publics if the state has no aid.</p>
<p>U of M Dearborn - nearing 12k
U of M Flint - nearing 12k
Oakland University - nearing 13k
Wayne State University - nearing 11k</p>
<p>And, the IL state schools also have high tuitions.</p>
<p>m2ck, sure- it makes that promise. But the need is determined by them (CSS profile) and as is often repeated on here- most can’t even meet their EFC.</p>
It’s the “half a loaf is better than none” theory.</p>
<p>By offering a partial discount on the OOS surcharge (you can call it a “scholarship” if you like, but it really isn’t), the school has a better chance of getting these OOS students to attend, and that way at least the school gets something extra.</p>
<p>It’s not random at all, I’m sure the kids getting these coupons are very carefully targeted.</p>
<p>My state flagship does the same thing. It has a public goal of increasing OOS attendance so they get more money.</p>
<p>m2ck, sure- it makes that promise. But the need is determined by them (CSS profile) and as is often repeated on here- most can’t even meet their EFC.</p>
<p>I can see that. Even if the school just used FAFSA EFC to determine need, many can’t pay that as you mention. I agree. But, even state aid offers wouldn’t help because they wouldn’t reduce EFC. The Mich schools (and the PA and IL schools) need to have lower tuition.</p>