<p>I can't believe this garbage, We pay over 11,000.00 per year in property tax in this God forsaken state and my son has to go out of state to get an education.</p>
<p>a 28 ACT
3.69 gpa
144/533 rank at a very high academic school, HE GOT NOTHING</p>
<p>LSU-$5000
Kentucky- $3500
Grand Valley State-$6000
Ole Miss-$6000
Alabama-$3500</p>
<p>SIU- $0</p>
<p>SIU must have unbelievably high academic standards when they don't even want a student with a 28 ACT.
THE STATE OF ILLINOIS HAS GOT TO BE THE WORST STATE IN THE COUNTRY TO LIVE.</p>
<p>Hi agree with your pain. I dont think college admin people always care about state residency status. They do what they have to do to meet the letter of the law and that is it. So as you can see, they may offer OOS aid, to make tuition more palatable to OOS, but may feel that Instates have enough of a bargain. They may moan and groan, oh our state aid is decreasing, but it still irks me that they dont favor IS. I think that is one reason why in some states, people are hesitant to give control of schools to unis instead of politicos. IMHO.</p>
<p>My D has higher stats than that, and I doubt she’ll get a penny from any Illinois schools. Heck, there are kids at her HS (competitive suburban public) this year with 31 ACT and 3.8 GPAs who didn’t even get into UIUC. Not to mention that IL schools have some of the highest in-state tuitions, especially when you take the engineering and business surcharge at UIUC into account. I definitely feel your pain. On the other hand, it’ll be a great experience for your son to experience life in another state.</p>
<p>I have friends with college age students in IL and I can well believe that some of the schools, especialy the southern schools, will have a lower cost of attendance after the scholarships offered than the instate school. I doubt U Kentucky would be less though.</p>
<p>Sorry you were so disappointed with SIU’s offer. Fortunately for us, a friend of our son with 36 ACT, 4.0 GPA UW, Eagle Scout, 4 year varsity track was accepted at UIUC last year and they gave him a total of $1500 for Illinois State Scholar status. He attends Purdue under the Beering Scholarship. Our son has similar stats and will be attending out of state for quite a bit less than he could attend UIUC. UIUC COA for in-state engineering is $32K last year rates. There are many OOS schools that are less expensive than in-state Illinois rates. It is quite frustrating to see the state drive so many residents away due to its mismanagement of our tax dollars.</p>
<p>Thumper1,That’s not the point I am trying to make. The schools in other states instate tuition is alot lower than Illinois to begin with.</p>
<p>I am not lashing out at you, I’m just sick of Illinois. </p>
<p>SIU, Really now, since when is a 28 ACT at SIU the norm. This is ridiculous, When we in this state are paying an exorbitant amount of property tax, we get nothing back from these thieves.
I was just hoping to Get a little more affordable education. It doesn’t have to be this way.</p>
<p>I can only hope Wisconsin succeeds with I’ts goal of clobering the school system, They have pulled the wool over our eyes long enough. By the way Ohio pulled it off this morning:</p>
<p>A Senate panel and then the full chamber approved the Ohio measure Wednesday amid jeers from onlookers. The bill would restrict the collective bargaining rights of roughly 350,000 teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public employees, while Wisconsin’s would affect about 175,000 workers and exempt police and firefighters.</p>
<p>Are you saying that your son wasn’t accepted by SIU, or that he wasn’t offered any scholarships by SIU? Those are two very different things. Which means that the remedies for the situations are different.</p>
<p>Perhaps SIU doesn’t award merit scholarships, period. Or perhaps the cut-offs are higher than your child’s exam score/GPA/class rank. In either case, that information should be right on the SIU website. If you don’t like their overall policy, that is something to take up with the university’s governing board.</p>
<p>If the sticker price of SIU is unaffordable for your family, there is no merit aid forthcoming, and your family doesn’t qualify for need-based aid, then your child can’t go there. If your complaint is about the relatively higher cost of higher education at the public universities in Illinois, then you should take that up with your state government.</p>
<p>If you really are just ticked off because you didn’t understand the whole issue of paying for college, well join the club. All of us were in that situation at some time in the past, and more parents will be in that situation in the future. In my personal case, I was lucky enough to find out what our FAFSA EFC was when Happykid was in about 9th grade. By the time she hit her senior year in high school, I was over the shock, and could look her straight in the eye and tell her that her options were our local community college, or scraping up enough scholarship money to make a 4-year place cost as little as the community college. She chose the community college for her first two years.</p>
<p>And of course, if your child wasn’t admitted to SIU at all, and you disagree with their admission standards, that also is something to take to their board of governors.</p>
<p>Usually property taxes fund K-12 education and not much (if any) public colleges.</p>
<p>Also, often merit scholarships are not funded by taxpayers at all. They’re often funded by donors/alumni. so, perhaps this state school doesn’t have such donors and can only give 1 or 2 scholarships (or none). flagships often have more donors.</p>
<p>You might try showing Bama those other scholarships. It may offer you more money.</p>
<p>(It sounds like his son was accepted, but wasn’t given any merit. Actually, many publics don’t give merit…many non-flagship publics have little money to give.)</p>
<p>Scholarship money is a finite pool. You can argue the size of the pool, but it is a fact. </p>
<p>Awards depend on the quality of the applicant pool also. If there are X dollars to be distributed they will go to the 36 ACT first, then 35, and so on until the money is exhausted. It may have run out at a level above a 28 ACT.</p>
<p>I don’t see how this would solve the problem you are facing right now, or even would solve the problem in the future. </p>
<p>Neither university faculty, nor K-12 faculty, decide what tuition will be, nor do they decide what particular scholarships are offered (though they may serve on committees in deciding amongst candidates), nor the particular cut-offs for scholarships, etc.</p>
<p>Look at the level of funding provided to the state universities over the past ten years or longer–it has declined. Your tax dollars are going less and less to universities.</p>
<p>College Board reports that the amount per student that states provide is about 12% less than a decade ago. One independent higher education policy research group-- reports that since 1980, state investments in higher education has declined by 46%.</p>
<p>I’m glad your son has other options and I understand your being upset.
Some schools (many, actually) look at class rank…that may have been what hurt your son in the scholarship awards at your in-state school.</p>
<p>Obviously, he’s a very good student, and obviously, he went to a very competitive school–but many scholarships require a higher class rank. I have friends whose kids went to one of the top high schools in the country who were somewhat disadvantaged because their rank was lower than it might have been at a less competitive school.</p>
<p>If it is any consolation, for an in-state student at Ohio University w/ your son’s stats, they’d only get $1,000/year. At Ohio State, in-state students aren’t even considered for merit awards if they are below top 10% in class rank, and must have 29 or higher ACT as well.</p>
<p>The competition is fierce! Everyone told us our 4.0 Daughter would have limitless scholarship possibilities & would be a shoo-in for Ivy’s etc. She did get many good options, and got in to many fine schools, but I didn’t recognize until we got into the process how very competitive it all is!</p>
<p>The good news is she is in a great school now, and thriving. Your son will be too.</p>
<p>My son is not that interested in SIU anyway. The problem is that the school administration from grade school all the way to college is crippling our economy and hurting the future for our kids. There are to many kids who graduated with way to much debt and cant even find work to pay for it. In the mean time the president of our flagship makes 3 million per year and has a limosine and jet. Is this right?</p>
<p>And as far as iron maiden, </p>
<p>If my son had a 36 act he wouldn’t be going to SIU. and I doubt there are to many that do.</p>
<p>For the Carbondale campus, the main campus of SIU, your son’s ACT score is well into the top quartile of scores. (Mid 50 range for composite is 19-24) I can see why you would expect IL to have established some sort of incentive structure to appeal to students like your son. BUT you live in Illinois, and mismanagement, corruption and Chicago-centric politics have been the order of the day for a long time, and now the chickens have come home to roost.</p>
<p>To tell you the truth, I don’t know why more IL residents aren’t moving to neighboring states. The property taxes are far lower than that (you’d have to live in a mansion to pay that in MO), and the universities are far less expensive.</p>
<p>OP, I’m a bit confused. Isn’t the value of in-state schools the discounted prices for in-state residents? Should we expect merit aid from in-state schools as well as the in-state tuition prices? Congrats to your son for getting a lot of great offers!</p>
<p>All the schools that I mentioned have merit aid for in and out of state students, Not Illinois though. Discounted prices for Illinois in-state students? you can go out of state for less. UIUC 31,000.00 Illinois State University 26,000, SIU 23,000 have you seen SIU?</p>