Typically, this would not be due to admission selectivity, since states generally do have moderate-to-low selectivity four year state universities and sometimes suitable open admission community colleges. However, some states’ schools are relatively expensive with poor in-state financial aid (e.g. PA, IL), so middle to lower income students may find them difficult to afford.
Student preferences may also eliminate what would otherwise be suitable safeties. For example, many NJ resident students do not want to go to Rutgers, much less any other NJ state university or community college. But that is more of a student choice to forego possible in-state public safety candidates, rather than a situation of finding that your state of residency offers no affordable options with suitable academic programs and majors that you can be admitted to.
How affordable a states’ University system is depends in large part on how well it is funded by the state legislature. Many state university systems have become less affordable over the years, especially after the recessions that significantly impacted state funds and legislatures have cut funding to schools at all levels.
The CC definition of “Safety School” is one which is affordable and which the student would be happy to attend, in which the student is guaranteed (or has a high likelihood of) acceptance. In many states, the flagship school doesn’t cut it. One of those three criterea are not met. In California, for example, there are options that meet one or two of these points, but for many students not all three points can be met by a single option; and the third point (guaranteed acceptance) is not met for any student at UC Berkeley or UCLA, which are arguably the state flagships (and also “Top 20 Schools”).
I’m not so impressed by the third requirement, which is “happy to attend”. It sounds reasonable, but you can see here a certain portion of the applicants who are burdened with some sort of complex about going to a state school.
We have them locally, too. State schools would be a good fit, based on their academic record, but they are fixated on prestige. Ultimately the prestige is bought by going to a private school that is actually worse for their major, is far away and costs twice as much.
Prestige seekers may not find any safety that they like, since they equate safety with lack of prestige because it is not exclusive enough. Their problem of their own making…
Concur that I can’t think of a state in which all the publics are so selective that no public can serve as a safety because they can’t get in (DE, maybe?)
There are more states where the publics are so expensive with poor fin aid that they can’t serve as financial safeties. For example, maybe PA, where the PASSHE schools offer limited majors. However, in PA, PSU, Pitt, and Temple have been state-aided (instead of state-supported) for decades now. So only a small part of their budget (in the low single-digits, in the case of PSU) have been funded by the state for decades now. It’s hard to argue that PSU has an obligation to serve the students of PA when the state of PA doesn’t feel obligated to hardly fund PSU at all.
However, in most cases where kids are using an OOS school as a safety, it’s due to preference. They could have an in-state school as a safety but prefer an OOS one instead.
@JustOneDad - just because kids don’t want to attend their state school doesn’t necessarily make them prestige whores. Many of the kids I know who are choosing St. Joes or Fordham over PA’s state subsidized offerings are doing so because they prefer the vibe of a comparatively smaller school with a real campus. Fit isn’t everything but it isn’t nothing either. Most folks here would acknowledge that PSU offers more opportunities, is more difficult to get into, and is all around a more prestigious school than St. Joes.
The difference in cost between SJU and Penn State is usually not much after merit. The same is true for top students with Fordham. In other words, for some kids they’re more appropriate safeties.
University of Delaware is not that highly selective, and Delaware State is only minimally selective, so admission selectivity would not be a barrier to going to a state university in Delaware.
However, Delaware joins Pennsylvania as a state where students graduating from the public universities tend to have high average debt levels.
I don’t believe I ever said that.
However I am seeing a number of students this year with fairly strong emotional reactions to the notion that they would ever go to the state school with everyone else and since their portfolios are not competitive they are searching far and wide for something appropriate to their station. Next comes the whining about not enough financial aid. Assuming there is an admission offer, of course.
@JustOneDad, that’s every year. In fact, every generation.
Kids want to feel like they’re special and unique, want a choice, and want to impress their friends, so don’t want to go to the same school as “everyone else”.
Epecially if they are from the well-off suburbs of big metropolitan areas, where “going out of state” for college may be seen as a status symbol or more exotic. Especially if the in-state options aren’t perceived to be that special.
Remember that most HS kids can’t think outside their HS bubble.
So if they attend a HS where only 20% of the kids go to any 4-year college, attending the in-state flagship would feel pretty special even if that school is fairly nondescript because they would stand out compared to their peers.
But if they are in a HS where 80% of the kids go to a 4-year college and half of them go to the in-state flagship or flagship system, then suddenly, the state flagship just doesn’t feel all that special. They wouldn’t be standing out. And even the kids who are 75 percentile and have no shot at any Ivy/equivalent want to stand out in some way and may not want to go to a college that the 40/50-percentile kids are going to.
It sounds like a pretty expensive way to “feel special”.
@JustOneDad: Depends a lot on the specific circumstances: family means, scholarships, etc. An OOS safety could cost about the same or less than the state flagship. A family may have so much that $30K/year (or whatever) just isn’t considered expensive.
You can’t generalize.
“happy to attend” is a very important criterion and I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it out of hand. We didn’t force the state flagship, or any state public institution, onto D’s final list. She had one instate college on her list but when she was accepted to several colleges with reasonable costs, we agreed that she could take the school off her list. Costwise, the instate option would have saved us $3000-$5000 a year, maybe. I’d rather have a happy daughter than a few thousand dollars more a year. Of course, YMMV.
FWIW, all the schools, including the instate school, were about the same in terms of prestige, or at least college acceptance rates.
We had a similar experience to @SlackerMomMD. With merit that was awarded, the LACs became pretty competitive. Additionally, our state flagship has become more difficult to get into in recent years. If you can live without the big time sports (and admittedly, some students can’t), there are excellent private “safeties” out there.
I can’t think of one state where there isn’t some public university a resident could go to. No, the student can’t use UW Madison as a safety, but there are 20 other schools in the system, and there are other community colleges too. In California the UCs might not be anyone’s safety, but there are all the CSUs and community colleges too.
The only place that doesn’t really have a good ‘state’ school is DC, and residents get a TAP to use at any other public school. Now a student may not like the options, but the public option is always there. Not all publics are big. Florida has everything from UCF to New College of Florida. Some very big, some tiny. Lots to pick from.
A safety doesn’t have to be an instate public either. Many OOS schools have guaranteed enrollment, guaranteed merit, agreements with neighboring state. A safety just has to be the one school you know you can go to if all they others fall through. It can even be your first choice. My daughter is at her first choice/early rolling admission/guaranteed merit aid/low tuition school. It’s the one she wanted, they wanted her, I could afford it. Done.
DC does have a local public school (UDC), though some might not consider it “good”.
American Samoa does not have any 4 year school, although residents there can attend the University of Hawaii at 1.5 times in-state tuition: http://manoa.hawaii.edu/admissions/undergrad/financing/residency.html#7