<p>This is going to be a hard one. Many are raising tuition considerably (14% in NY!) but of course privates are more expensive to begin with. But some have better aid. What's your strategy?</p>
<p>My kids are already too old for it to matter, but I think that state systems have an advantage over private in that many of them are set up to facilitate transfers within the system.</p>
<p>Thus, a student could save money by commuting to a nearby college within the state system for the first year or two and then finish out a four-year degree at the flagship school. </p>
<p>There is no equivalent of this in private colleges, as far as I know.</p>
<p>In our case, DD is already accepted to in-state public school but has another offer with substantial aid from a private school across country. In state school is telling freshman that they should plan on a 6 year plan to get through due to state budget probs and impacted programs. Not too hard to decide on this one, private university at under $20K a year for 4 years (with the aid), or public state u at $15K per year for 6 years. Pretty close in cost until you figure DD will be in the workforce 2 years before her friends at state u.</p>
<p>It made a ton of sense for me to go to a CSU, for one because in-state tuition is so cheap (SSU uses fancy marketing by crowing about the fact that in-staters have no "tuition", just fees), and for another because I'm a Psych major, which means basically mandatory grad school. Why pay $40k a year when I have to consider grad school at some point?</p>
<p>Depends by what you mean by "attractive". At the University of Washington currently, the majority of students can't graduate in four years, and, because of lack of places in required courses, that is about to get worse. So one has to figure costs based on five years (at least) rather than four.</p>
<p>For those with family incomes under $100K, private schools offering to meet full financial need WITH GRANTS ONLY (and this is a very small number of schools) will often (but not always) be a better deal financially. For those with family incomes over $100K or $120K the publics will generally be cheaper because at that level most privates phase out need-based financial aid. But there are lots of caveats and exceptions. Many privates don't meet 100% of need, and of those that do, some include a lot of loans and work/study---essentially forms of self-help, not true "aid"---in the package. It can also be cheaper to go to a school, public or private, if that school offers you merit aid---but these are often schools that do not commit to meeting 100% of financial need, so if you don't get the merit aid the net cost of attendance may be considerably higher.</p>
<p>Here's a helpful chart put together by the Project on Student Debt:</p>
<p>Just as a representative example, here's a comparison of their estimates of net cost of attendance (total COA less need-based grant aid) for two leading privates, Stanford and Northwestern, versus two publics, the University of Florida and the University of California system (at in-state rates) at various family income levels:</p>
<p>$20,000 family income:
Northwestern $4,500
Stanford $4,200
U California system $9,160
U Florida $20</p>
<p>$40,000 family income:
Northwestern $6,311
Stanford $4,200
U California $10,306
U Florida $1,510</p>
<p>$60,000:
Northwestern $12,570
Stanford $4,200
U California $$13,815
U Florida n/a </p>
<p>$80,000:
Northwestern $26,120
Stanford $13,292
U California $19,828
U Florida n/a (but < or = $14,437) </p>
<p>$120,000:
Northwestern $44,146
Stanford $37,683
U California $25,039
U Florida n/a (but < or = $14,437)</p>
<p>$160,000:
Northwestern $49,779
Stanford $49,227
U California $25,039
U Florida n/a (but < or = $14,437)</p>
<p>Mini, you're points are spot on, in framing this thread I should have included worries about services to students being cut back at state schools vs. privates.</p>
<p>And years of lost income among students who would have graduated.</p>
<p>
[quote]
private university at under $20K a year for 4 years (with the aid), or public state u at $15K per year for 6 years. Pretty close in cost until you figure DD will be in the workforce 2 years before her friends at state u.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This really is an interesting calculation, which is going to vary with family circumstances. Another wrinkle: what if your child spends the first year or two floundering around at school, only finding their direction later?</p>
<p>"Another wrinkle: what if your child spends the first year or two floundering around at school, only finding their direction later?"</p>
<p>Then they attend Community College at $1,000 to $3,500 per year.</p>
<p>I just had a look at the latest MA FY2009 budget. I'm not sure whether it includes the cuts in the second half of CY2008. First, I was amazed at all of the line items in the budget and the wide variety of things that MA spends significant money on. Something that I'd never see in a NH budget. Then I looked at the public school and higher education cuts. It looks like 2% to 5% cuts depending on the institution. UMass will be relocating their headquarters from Boston to Shrewsbury (suburb near Worcester) and subletting out their Boston space for a net savings.</p>
<p>We're going with the flow with our son. This is his sophomore year but he can finish in 3, 3.5 or 4 if he just wants to do undergrad. He can go for 4.5 if he wants to do his masters. One of the earlier posters was right about public universities being more generous in accepting AP/IB/transfer credits - at least this is my experience. So the student may be able to finish in 3. That might be attractive depending on the economy heading into the future.</p>
<p>Our daughter isn't as focused as our son is and dual-enrollment is working out well. She's almost at full-time for the spring semester and we're hoping that she's full-time in the Fall when she would be a senior in high school. This would be a much more expensive proposition at a university.</p>
<p>Really depends on the state frankly.</p>
<p>Not all states are cutting back on education drastically. In my area students have no problem graduating in 4 years in the public universities and tuition increases aren't forecast to be huge. The legislature in still in session so no final numbers yet, but no big cuts in spending are planned over the next two years.</p>
<p>I worry about the small privates in my area. The publics are doing OK but more expensive small privates are seeing a decrease in apps and they may be cutting programs and leaving kids high and dry.</p>
<p>Point being this question has different answers depending on where you are and the schools involved.</p>
<p>My strategy was save like crazy when my son was born and buy season tickets to Navy football games. Before he knew it, the only place my kid wanted to go was to the US Naval Academy and become an Officer in the US Navy. He only applied to two schools -- the Naval Academy and the US Merchant Marine Academy and got nominations and appointments to both. He decided to go to USMMA at Kings Point and in four years, I've had to fork over around $6,000 in student fees and that's it. Of course, I sent him a little spending money.</p>
<p>Now, he's graduating this spring and has a job he's thrilled about when he gets out and I have money for a beach house.</p>
<p>LFWB Dad--good thing you didn't get season tickets to the Trojans...</p>
<p>:) .</p>
<p>D1 will graduate in 4 years with dual major and minor(due to AP Acceptance) at OOS private with minimal costs due to merit aid. Had no merit offers at pubics. Private was way less expensive for us!</p>
<p>We are going to apply to at least one in-state public, but when my son applied 2 years ago, publics gave us nothing but loans and some privates gave close to the public amount or less. I'm sure it varies, but in our state, it seemed like only the very high SAT/ACT scores received very much merit money and you had to make under 40.000 to get need-based. Some of my son's classmates ended up commuting the second year of college that went to local state schools because after having the "college experience" in dorms, did the calculations and realized they could graduate without any substantial loans.
I believe in spreading the applications as wide as possible, because you never know what will happen.</p>