“With National Decision Day rapidly approaching on May 1, high school students across the country are in the final hours of the college admissions process. As students weigh their options, factors such as location, educational quality, and reputation will influence their decisions. But according to the education research firm EAB, price is the main reason why many students ultimately don’t choose their top-choice school.” …
Makes sense that the very best of the publics are more expensive than states with lousy state systems. Those that are not as strong have a difficult time attracting OOS students. And the weakest of the publics can be cheaper for OOS than for in state. They don’t promote that fact of course, because it would anger in state parents and it makes those school look like they can’t attract OOS without practically paying student to attend but it’s true. It is often accomplished by offsetting the “OOS tuition” with significant "merit: (aka: begging for OOS students) thereby obscuring the fact that the tuition (and usually the scores and grades) for OOS are lower than instate for those schools. But there is a reason those schools don’t attract OOS without paying students to attend. On the other hand, parents of strong OOS students are willing to pay for excellence that comes with flagships, for example, of California schools, Virginia, Michigan, Wisc, Delaware, Tx, Florida, N. Carolina, Georgia, Colorado, etc. The OOS tuition does seem to provide an index of generally how strong the state system is.
“The OOS tuition does seem to provide an index of generally how strong the state system is.”
Though this isn’t always the case. In particular Colorado and Oregon don’t have very challenging admissions or significant OOS merit scholarships to “buy” high stats students. What they do have is PAC-12 sports and a great social reputation for wealthy Californian kids who can’t get into the better UCs. Arizona is similar for most students, albeit with somewhat better merit for strong stats. So those non-academic factors are key in allowing them to raise a lot of money from OOS tuition fees.
There are a few highly ranked large-sized public universities that are not included on the above list. Their out-of-state tuition is between $28,000 to $32,000 and thus slightly below the tuition listed. They offer excellent programs, numerous schools and majors and provide good value/ROI. And they offer merit aid to out-of-state students as an attraction to attend. They are Ohio State University, Purdue University, University of Pittsburgh and University of Minnesota.
Interesting that the most expensive large sized public university for out-of-state students also has the winningest college football program in history.
Really surprised to see the stats for Univ of Colorado - 43% OOS. Do these OOS students normally pay full fare ($36k)? Why so? What are the popular majors?
Skiing in powdery snow.
@i012575 Yes, those Boulder OOS students pay the full fare. CU-Boulder has traditionally attracted A LOT of well-to-do out of state students, many of them drawn to the skiing/outdoors activities. In the past 20 years, it’s especially attracted a lot of Californians who don’t have the stats for Berkeley/UCLA/Davis. At one point 30% of the entire student body was from California. That said, it’s also an excellent university, with strong sciences, engineering and a respected business school.
And a very active skiing community.
“thereby obscuring the fact that the tuition (and usually the scores and grades) for OOS are lower than instate for those schools”
Uh, those OOS who pay lower tuition than in-state aren’t coming in with lower stats. Those coming in with lower stats aren’t paying lower tuition.
There are some amazing values out there for those who look. Even if you don’t want a gigantic school.
NCF is the public honors LAC of FL (it’s essentially the Reed of FL) and with their automatic OOS scholarship, total OOS direct costs come to $25K/year (tuition around $15K/year).
Truman St. is the public honors liberal arts university of MO. It’s mid-sized and its student body ACT scores are better than most public flagships. Total OOS direct costs come to less than $25/year.
I think @lostaccount may have been referencing the SUNY system (?), which is trying to attract OOS students. This results in some OOS students receiving merit aid despite their grades and scores being similar…or lower…than those from NY.
One of my kids attended a smaller, lesser known SUNY school and received a fabulous education in her major. My other child is at at an OOS public flagship.
While I agree that there are amazing values out there, New College of Florida (NCF) isn’t a great example due to its poor fit for many students indicated by its approximate 20% attrition rate, lack of diversity, lack of course offerings & majors, & very small size (about 835 students). Too small, too limiting, too much pot smoking.
The values are in the honors colleges found on the main campuses of large public universities.
Pitt, PSU and UI are very expensive for their in staters. Actually the OOS premium is not that much more
Some of those OOS schools have great merit scholarships available putting them on the list for those looking for money
@Publisher, I never said NCF is a good fit for everyone (just like Reed isn’t). Just like Reed, both have a relatively low graduation rate (in part due to the thesis requirement for graduation), are super-liberal, have few majors, and are filled with pot-smokers.
So I still stand by my assertion that NCF is the Reed of FL.
@twogirls, I don’t think it’s just true of SUNY schools. I have not reviewed all the systems but I’d think it true for every system that does not attract many OOS students. There are benefits for schools of having a national student body. Systems which don’t attract OOS students look for ways to do so.
@PurpleTitan, yes in many cases they are-they are given merit of various sorts for grades and scores that might not have gotten an instate student accepted. Obviously not everywhere or in every case. But true for some state schools eager to attract OOS and with a history of failing to do so.
I agree. My daughter was accepted to the Scholars Program at Binghamton, without merit. My friend’s son…OOS…with lower scores and gpa, not accepted to scholars…received merit
This is a list of large (defined as over 20,000 students) so schools like U of Vermont aren’t on it, and it is always on the list of most expensive flagships.
And what is with the pictures? That is not a picture of CU, it’s a picture of downtown Boulder. CU’s buildings are very distinctive with stone buildings and red roofs. For UC-Davis there is a picture of a tree by a river. Does Davis not have an ‘Old Main’ or cool library?
Re UC Davis photo there are a lot of cool buildings and lots of college life to capture. That photo doesn’t do the close knit, beautiful, friendly campus justice. The article used Alamy Stock Photos. I could pick better photos for most of the colleges we have visited from that list