I’m looking for some options for out of state,direct entry nursing programs that have lowers COAs or offer significant automatic merit aid. Many of the schools I have been considering are in the Northeast but I wouldn’t mind applying to other regions of the country besides the Deep South,
Here are some of my stats:
4.3 W GPA / 3.9 UW GPA
1460 SAT
Biracial (if that makes a difference)
Thank you!
York College of PA (which will soon be York University) has very reasonably priced tuition, housing and food costs and offers substantial merit based aid. It is about an hour north of Baltimore off of I-83. My daughter graduated from there, and was very happy with the nursing classes, science classes and the clinicals. The college is right across the street from a very large hospital complex, and there is a second major hospital (UPMC) under construction a couple miles away.
Housing and food costs can vary greatly from place to place, particularly if you need to live off-campus in your upper class years in an expensive location.
There are some PA. publics that have very good nursing programs and reasonably priced out of state tution, including Bloomsburg U and West Chester U. Bloomsburg is near a very large hospital complex with a major trauma center.
Hiram College a CTCL http://ctcl.org/category/college-profiles/ in Ohio
https://www.hiram.edu/academics/majors-minors/nursing/
https://www.hiram.edu/academics/undergraduate/scholarship-grants/
Do you have more details on affordable? Are you full pay and need a lower sticker price with generous merit aid or are you Pell grant eligible, so needing schools that meet need? Do you know the net price range of CoA/year you are looking for?
Check out SUNY Plattsburgh. The current COA for OOS students is about $31K and, frankly, I found that many of the soft costs (books, supplies and transportation, as examples) were over-estimated and never cost me as much as was predicted, for either of my kids who attended the school.
My D’s best friend, who she met there, was a nursing major and was OOS. I believe she got scholarships. The nursing program is very well thought of and its graduates have no trouble finding work. The school’s website has a scholarship calculator for merit aid, which your stats should garner there. In addition, the school has a robust program of scholarships for returning students. My D, an education major and music minor, earned departmental scholarships every year. The nursing department also offers departmental scholarships and you can check the criterion on the website. You would probably also be eligible for the Honors program. My D never completed the program because she was unable to find time to build in all of the required courses, but she took several honors classes and says that they were amongst her favorite classes at college. My son, a NM Commended student who took tons of AP’s in HS, also loved his honors classes.
Good luck.
@BuckeyeMWDSG I am looking for a net COA of about 20,000 a year or less. Schools that meet need or offer automatic merit would be great.
@moonlightash You may want to look into the University of Cincinnati - it’s a direct admit program that looks for geographic diversity. My daughter goes there.
Case Western Reserve, closer to Cleveland, is also an excellent direct admit program.
I can’t speak for out of state costs, but both are worth looking into. I could also help with other smaller Ohio programs that are direct admit.
Miami University
http://miamioh.edu/academics/majors-minors/majors/nursing.html
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=miami&s=all&pg=2&id=204024#netprc Avg net price by income level, you have very good stats and Miami has honors program and good merit aid
https://miamioh.edu/admission/merit-guarantee/index.html
^btw, that is in Oxford, OH not FL It has a very pretty campus.
You might start with the list of direct entry colleges that is posted on this site, and then run the estimated cost calculator that each college is required to provide. Some colleges do post automatic merit aid for certain scores on their website, while others have a competitive process.
Depending upon your family’s financial situation, you might look at colleges with excellent need-based aid. However, they tend to be the most competitive colleges for admission. Each college reports an average percent of need met in financial aid.
As noted above, the SUNYs in NY historically had some of the most affordable out of state tuition. However, I haven’t looked at their costs lately.
Not sure what price point you are looking for but SUNY schools have pretty reasonable OOS rates.
UMass Boston, the OOS tuition is about 34k a year but you’d automatically qualify for the merit scholarship with your GPA and SAT and you would get about 25k for your scholarship so your tuition would be about 9k a year but be sure to apply early action here for merit scholarship consideration. We just had dorms this year so for freshman year, you will be able to live in the dorms here but then in the later years, you would need to find off-campus housing near the school. You would be paying about 24k a year with tuition and room & board together. We do have a direct-entry nursing program here and we have a bunch of great hospitals around the city to do clinicals at just by taking public transportation in Boston right from the school.
I would suggest Illinois State. They are direct entry and you would qualify for significant merit aid. Academically high achieving students qualify for in state tuition, plus you would be eligible to apply for their presidential scholarship for $11K per year.
I second York - my daughter is a nursing freshman there and got a nice aid package.