The pros and cons of applying OOS public

Parents Forum
1

<p>We had discussion about college this AM and OOS public state schools were suggested.</p>

<p>Many of these schools are wonderful schools. My position is, however, that these schools' focus is on IS students and they are just about as expensive as private schools for OOS student. The acceptance and merit $$ might be even harder to get than private schools. For families that need aids, OOS public state schools are not very attractive.</p>

<p>Did I miss any thing? </p>

<p>BTW, this is a general discussion. Please hold your horse on giving me a lecture.</p>

2

<p>I seem to recall that the tuition plus room and board at a school like the University of Michigan or Berkeley for an OOS student was around $30K, and that there wasn’t any significant FA unless you got one of a very few special scholarships. (For example, I think that one OOS student who is the child of a poster here got a “full ride” scholarship at Michigan reserved for students with a particular ethnic background.) On the other hand, I have the impression that Pitt gives scholarship money to some OOS kids who get into their honors college. So perhaps it varies from school to school.</p>

<p>We didn’t look seriously at merit $$ schools because it just wouldn’t have been enough $$. And my S refused to apply to Pitt or Michigan or any other large public U, honors college or not, so I only looked into it to a limited degree.</p>

3

<p>No necessarily. There are many fine State Universities that LOVE OOS students.
They even offer Merit scholarships to OOS students! </p>

<p>Look to the South. My daughter was offered a merit scholarship at U of South Carolina. This would have brought her tuition down below the IS tuition for Penn State.
The Northeast has some of the most expensive state U’s in the country - the south the cheapest.</p>

<p>I have one kid at a small private in MD and one at a OOS - their tuitions are very close in price.</p>

4

<p>Some public colleges are as expensive as private ones and offer equivalent or better educational resources. Straight up, I would rather pay for Michigan or Berkeley than, say, Wake Forest, USC, or even WUSTL.</p>

<p>I don’t know this for sure, but my strong impression is that the state universities that see themselves as world class – as well as the ones that want to move in that direction – devote a fair amount of resources to merit-scholarship inducement for desirable out-of-state students to come. Need-based financial aid is certainly worse (although not necessarily a lot worse) than at the top privates, but merit scholarships can be very significant. For example, I know non-Michigander students in real life (and have seen other examples on CC) for whom Michigan was by far their most attractive financial alternative. And less fashionable state universities seem to spend a lot to recruit nonresident National Merit Scholars and the like.</p>

5

<p>The University of Alabama also offers amazing merit aid to top students from any state. The University of Minnesota charges a fairly minimal increment more for out of state student tuition.</p>

6

<p>Pros:
Not in-state (read, farther away from home)
Not quite as expensive as most privates
Wider variety of majors/programs than smaller schools
Similarly – potentially greater availability of classes
Diversity of student body
Wide variety of athletics, as participant and fan</p>

<p>Cons:
Not much chance of merit money
Not much chance of need-based aid</p>

7

<p>

</p>

<p>Yes, you did.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Looks like plenty of merit aid to me.</p>

8

<p>My son was accepted OOS at Michigan - but there was no way for us to afford the $44,000 price tag for freshman year. The finaid pkg was ridiculous. He was a straight A student, with a 34 ACT and was a National Merit semi-finalist - did not receive any merit aid. He received a much better finaid pkg from a smaller private college and is very happy there. He also has a very good friend who ended up at our state university rather than Michigan - again due to affordability. I think Michigan is a great school in many ways - but they clearly expect OOS students to pay full freight or close to it, which is not doable for many families.</p>

9

<p>There are regional consortiums that that may provide in-state rates for degrees not offered in-state to other members or discounted rates for being in the consortium.</p>

10

<p>Michigan would have been ridiculously expensive for us. Kid who received excellent need-based FA at an Ivy, full-tuition merit scholarship at Vanderbilt, very nice merit aid at Emory and Oberlin, National Merit finalist, excellent SAT’s, excellent GPA, excellent musician, received nothin’ but loans from Michigan. She got her application in by mid-November. Maybe pushing it up a month would have made a difference.</p>

<p>I do agree that Michigan is a fabulous school. Apply EARLY!</p>

11

<p>If we are talking about flagship Universities, I think the question of whether to consider applying to an OOS public is largely dependent on what state you are in. The critical factor, I think, is the quality of your in state public flagship/s. We live in Wisconsin, for example. Essentially this makes the idea of our son applying to any OOS public financially nonsensical, because there is no other public University that is enough better (if better at all) than the University of Wisconsin to justify a three or four-fold increase in the cost of attendance. I think people in Michigan, Illinois, California, Texas, Virginia and North Carolina would reach the same conclusion. And the residents of a number of other states might reasonably do so. Now obviously other factors could come into play, such as the availability of a particular program somewhere, or the difficulty of being admitted to your home state flagship. And of course some kids just want to get away from home. </p>

<p>I really don’t think, however, that any public flagship “focuses” on its in-state students to the detriment of its out of state students. Obviously, admissions are tilted to in-state students. But the educational experience will be the same.</p>

12

<p>Regarding OOS merit: D just got accepted to Alabama and with her GPA and SAT scores will get (at least) full OOS tuition paid. I know Auburn and South Carolina have similar packages. While not free its $8K less than instate with no $merit.</p>

13

<p>Regarding Michigan (it seems to be coming up a lot lately) they do offer about sixty half tuition scholarships in LSA, and a smaller amount of full tuition ones. My D was offered nothing, but her younger brother, with a very slightly lower GPA but a very slightly higher SAT was offered a half tuition scholarship, OOS. So they exist, but the line between getting one or not seems like a moving target.</p>

14

<p>It’s my impression that U of Cal’s COA, out of state is about 50k ( at least Cal and UCLA).</p>

<p><a href=“http://students.berkeley.edu/finaid/home/cost.htm[/url]”>http://students.berkeley.edu/finaid/home/cost.htm&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://www.fao.ucla.edu/Forms/pdfs/Student%20Budgets%2009-10.pdf[/url]”>http://www.fao.ucla.edu/Forms/pdfs/Student%20Budgets%2009-10.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I can’t imagine paying that much for a public, knowing we have a great public that would cost me half that. On the other hand, I think I would have paid OOS for UNC-CH, if I thought D’s odds of getting in where worth yet another application. Not as much $$$ as a private, a…different kind of diversity…than the UC’s, and a chance to see another part of the country.</p>

15

<p>Some of the OOS public schools have the same tuition rate for OOS students as for in-state students. Off the top of my head, a couple of the Minnesota colleges and at least one of the Oregon state colleges fall in this category, so don’t be afraid to check around if your kid is interested in going OOS. :slight_smile: Of course, these aren’t the state flagship schools.</p>

<p>Also, if your kid is in the western US, please note that a lot of state schools participate in the [Western</a> Undergraduate Exchange](<a href=“http://wue.wiche.edu/search_results.jsp?searchType=all]Western”>http://wue.wiche.edu/search_results.jsp?searchType=all) program, which lets OOS students attend for 150% of the in-state rate. Everything from the Pacific coast over to the Dakotas, Wyoming, and New Mexico is considered a western state. (Also Hawaii. And Alaska, of course.)</p>

16

<p>Oh yeah! I forgot about that! Thanks!</p>

17

<p>This is an interesting topic that covers a lot of area. </p>

<p>For example, getting into UT-Austin for an out of state student is tremendously difficult. Like Michigan, because the school is so popular, there is very little, if any, merit money for those students.</p>

<p>My S is applying to UMASS Amherst because of one specific merit aid award that is open to OOS students. He also looked at Rutgers, which offers OOS students merit aid based on their class rank. </p>

<p>In otherwords, it really pays off to look at not only each state differently, but each campus as the aid available can vary by that as well.</p>

18

<p>

My impression was that at most publics, need-based aid for OOS students is essentially nonexistent. Is this not correct?</p>

19

<p>Clearly, cost is a major factor in evaluating the OOS State U option. For use in this discussion, here is the OOS Tuition & Fees cost for publics ranked in the USNWR Top 75:</p>

<p>OOS Tuition & Fees , State University</p>

<p>$34,230 , U MICHIGAN
$31,870 , U VIRGINIA
$31,559 , UC S CRUZ
$31,385 , UC DAVIS
$30,819 , UC SAN DIEGO
$30,724 , UC S BARBARA
$30,600 , U TEXAS
$30,592 , WILLIAM & MARY
$30,022 , UC BERKELEY
$29,897 , UCLA
$28,796 , UC IRVINE
$28,270 , MICHIGAN ST
$26,160 , INDIANA U
$25,946 , PENN STATE
$25,756 , U ILLINOIS
$25,716 , GEORGIA TECH
$25,486 , U CONNECTICUT
$25,118 , PURDUE
$24,998 , CLEMSON
$24,367 , U WASHINGTON
$23,990 , U MARYLAND
$23,852 , U PITTSBURGH
$23,744 , U FLORIDA
$23,186 , U DELAWARE
$22,886 , TEXAS A&M
$22,518 , RUTGERS
$22,342 , U GEORGIA
$22,294 , U N CAROLINA
$22,278 , OHIO STATE
$22,270 , U WISCONSIN
$22,198 , U IOWA
$21,488 , VIRGINIA TECH
$15,542 , U MINNESOTA</p>

20

<p>

</p>

<p>I just realized I phrased that a little ambiguously. To qualify for the WUE the student has to be from a western state and also going to college in a public school in a different western state. A kid from Montana can’t go to a public school in New York and qualify. ;)</p>

<p>I think there are also some grade requirements, but not super stringent ones. Other good things to know: not ALL public colleges participate in WUE. Among the ones who do, some let incoming freshmen participate but not transfers. Other colleges are fine with transfers. So be sure to check ahead of time!</p>