<p>My kid goes to our pricey in-state state flagship. The cable TV, swank rec center (year round indoor skating rink and outdoor “leisure” swimming pool in the shape of the school mascot) and swank dining hall are all included/mandatory tuition/fees. No options on those other than being able to designate slightly cheaper room and meal plan options.</p>
<p>Publics who are trying to lure many out-of-state students (like Alabama, Indiana, Colorado, Miami/Ohio) are competing primarily with private colleges. Accordingly, they do the same things that privates do – spend money on facilities and amenities and also give out lots of merit aid. Even after offering merit aid, the school is angling to get an increase in the average aggregate net revenue per student it receives. If your OOS sticker is $50k and you give a $20k scholarship/discount, the school gets $30k. Which is more than it would get if it sold that seat to an in-stater at $20k…</p>
<p>Alabama’s in state sticker is $25k, which is on the high side. Their OOS sticker is $40k, which is not that high. Even less after discounts/scholarships. That’s an attractive price point as compared to private colleges or other OOS publics.</p>
<p>Their incoming freshman classes are now 60% OOS. So Alabama is filling all its seats (just like an airline wants to do) which might be tough to do if you are just drawing from the home state. And UA is presumably getting more revenue per student (after discounts) than it would by selling primarily to in-staters. </p>
<p>^^^Alabama is also raising its student profile with all those out of staters. Two thirds of the kids I know who go there are going for the full tuition merit scholarships. In my opinion, its ranking is only going one way (up, up, up). </p>
<p>There’s a big market out there for colleges willing to give merit aid and/or OOS tuition waivers to upper middle class income, excellent students. Many of the SEC schools are going after those students. I think Alabama and UGA are the most successful at attracting those students but there are many OOS looking hard at the scholarship opportunities at Kentucky, Ole Miss, TAMU, South Carolina, etc… My D is one. She could go to our flagship for free but she wants to go OOS, and some of these schools are better than our flagship anyway. Win-win.</p>
<p>The merit aid business model was pioneered by private Boston College decades ago when it was facing bankruptcy. Privates like Miami (FL), Tulane, USC and Case Western are note-able schools who use this playbook. Some state Us are now playing this game too. They start with the higher OOS sticker price and then give a lot of discounts. They end up with more revenue and better students. </p>
<p>Other schools use different playbooks. No harm in schools using different models. No harm in parents shopping around to figure out where their kid will/won’t get a better deal. It’s a market.</p>
<p>Alabama has also increased its tuition 35% over the past five years. Over the past ten years, the tuition at Alabama has increased 106%. And it gives no need based aid, other than what a student can get from the federal government. </p>
I repeat again, when did it become an entitlement to “go away” to college. Back when I was a student, only a small handful of students in my middle class/ working class public school “went away”, and they were clearly the brightest regardless of family income. They were the kids in honors english, calculus 2 & organic chemistry. The more academically middling college-bound students commuted to local schools, and half the student body did vocational training.</p>
<p>Now ALL kids are being herded into “going away” to college regardless of aptitude. </p>
<p>@GMTplus7 Well, we aren’t “back in your day” anymore. Would you prefer if we just stayed in the 70s forever? We are in 2014. Things change. Life changes. Expectations change. College isn’t an entitlement. But it is a necessity.</p>
<p>Most top privates are in the Northeast and Southwest. So what are students who live in Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, or the Dakotas supposed to do? Settle? There is a reason why social mobility is higher in the Northeast and Southwest. Because there is access to better colleges. So yes, going away isn’t an entitlement, but kids should have the best chance to succeed. A lot of middle class kids are getting shut out of that opportunity because of the high price. Even if they don’t go away, in state privates are expensive too. So you can’t just address half of my argument.</p>
<p>I have no issue with helping kids who have no local viable options . But I do have a problem w subsidizing kids who do have reasonable local options but want to go away to “discover themselves”. How many threads on CC about kids who want to go OOS just because they want to?</p>
<p>@GMTplus7 Well like I said earlier, outside of California, Michigan, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia (I’m iffy on this) that confidence isn’t really strong when it comes to sending your child to a public college. For students in those states, yes, the have viable options. Some of the public schools there are better than top privates. But that still leave a majority of students who should have the right to find a great education. </p>
<p>Also, in some states the options are on opposite sides of the spectrum. Look at New York for example. If a student were to be a resident of NY and not go away for school, to get a great education, they would have to be at the very top of applicants. They would either have to be good enough for Cornell, Columbia, Barnard (for women), or NYU in order to get a top education. NYS keeps cutting back on the funding for education. So tuition is rising, while the quality of education at the public colleges is decreasing. That’s another reason why I feel so strongly about cutting tuition. I can just imagine the envy rising seniors have for California students. 1/2 of the top 10 public colleges are part of the UC system.</p>
<p>"ell like I said earlier, outside of California, Michigan, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia (I’m iffy on this) that confidence isn’t really strong when it comes to sending your child to a public college. "</p>
<p>And what about Maryland, Delaware, Vermont? </p>
<p>Annie, you obviously believe really strongly that most public universities are inferior. But many people just as strongly disagree with you. Whenever someone disses a school like Rutgers or a SUNY, a group of CC parents immediately sing the praises of those state schools. Most motivated, hardworking, intelligent kids can get a great education at their state flagship, especially if there is an honors college.</p>
<p>From a public policy standpoint, I’m not worried about smart upper middle class kids who go to state schools. They will do just fine. I’m more worried about low income students who can’t afford their state flagships, because of schools like Alabama that give no financial aid other than federal assistance.</p>
<p>In the state of Iowa, from the students scoring 30 and above on the ACT (which most Iowa students take)… more go to Iowa State than any other university. U Iowa is second, the rest are not even close.</p>
<p>@Pizzagirl Well everyone can’t go to UIUC, UW- Wisconsin, UI- Bloomington, UT Austin, and Iowa State(though I would hardly put Iowa in the same breath as California).
I’m really referring to schools with multiple top publics (in that case, I should remove NC).</p>
<p>@fireandrain I believe that motivated students can get a great education anywhere. And I hate rankings, but when you leave the top 20 public schools, there is a huge drop in quality in my opinion. At privates, you can leave the top 40, and still be confident you are getting a great education there.</p>
<p>With respect to ‘subsidizing’ going away to college</p>
<p>The federal loan program is classified as a ‘negative subsidy’ because the government actually makes money on the program.</p>
<p>With respect to the other federal subsidy for higher education–Pell Grants–I point out here that the entire federal budget for education spending is less than 3% of the entire federal budget. And the entire federal budget for education spending is not just higher education spending–it includes money for Head Start, etc. So the Pell Grant program is considerably less than 3% of the entire budget.</p>
<p>Now, of those Pell Grant recipients, I don’t think that there are any statistics on how many students use those for out of state colleges, etc. But it surely can’t be all of them–I suspect a considerable number use them to attend local community colleges. And it is well-known that a considerable percentage of federal money goes to for-profit colleges, and I think most of them do not have dorms. I just found that 3/4 of Pell Grant recipients attend community colleges, vocational schools and for profit institutions. I bet a good deal of those students commute.</p>
<p>So it’s very unlikely that there is this huge subsidy for going away to college. </p>
<p>And I’m sure there’s many students who go away to college to get educated and get a degree so they can get a good job, especially among the low income group that Pell serves. I doubt that many of them are trying to only ‘discover themselves’. Whatever that means. </p>
<p>Stop thinking so simplistically and stereotypically.</p>
<p>Well, in my calculations, roughly half the people in the country live in a state that has a public school that is very well-respected in a good chunk of fields: CA, MI, VA, NC (outside of engineering&CS), TX (mostly engineering, CS, & business), FL (LAC), GA (engineering&CS), IL (engineering, CS, & accounting), IN (engineering & business), WI & MN (both through UW-Madison in several fields & UM-TC through a couple more). And that’s not counting NYS with Cornell’s contract colleges (which, granted, are still expensive, though cheaper).</p>
<p>To be fair, if you want an in-state option that is top 10 in engineering AND well-respected in the liberal arts AND has a b-school that is a Street target, you’re down to CA & MI.</p>
<p>Though New College of Florida, NM Tech, & SD Mines are well respected by the people in their fields, have OOS costs that are comparable to in-state costs in many states, aren’t that hard to get in to, and between them, cover most areas of interest (all but the business subjects, really).</p>
<p>Back to something else… Bama is now 60% OOS?! Yowza. I thought Michigan’s 40-45/55-60 split was bad. I couldn’t imagine a state school having significantly more OOS students than IS students! </p>
<p>Vermont has only 35% instate students, and appears in the top 10 list for most expensive OOS (although California schools took over a lot of those spots this year).</p>
<p>NC has NCSU, which is respectable in engineering and CS (UNC-CH is respectable in CS).</p>
<p>NY has Stony Brook, which is respectable in math, physics, CS, and engineering.</p>
<p>MA has UMass - Amherst, which is respectable in CS.</p>
<p>NJ has Rutgers, which is respectable in math, CS, philosophy, and other subjects, although you wouldn’t know it from the NJ high school seniors posting here.</p>
<p>WA has Washington, which is respectable in many subjects.</p>
<p>MD has Maryland, which is respectable in many subjects.</p>