<p>I’m not willing to pay IN-STATE for UNC. The scholarship money 'bama has is essentially Keynesian economics in practice.</p>
<p>Plenty of students are willing to pay OOS tuition at UCLA, Berkeley, and Michigan. I’m not sure about UNC or UVA. Don’t underestimate the power of a good brand name in attracting full paying students.</p>
<p>I realize that, and many int’ls also crave to go there because their families are ranking-crazy. </p>
<p>That said, Cal, UCLA, and UMich all give a lot of OOS aid to OOS domestic students. The UC’s cost over $50k OOS, and will give aid up to the OOS portion (about $22k), so it’s hard to know exactly how many of those OOS students are full pay. </p>
<p>However, only a tiny 7% of UCLA’s students are from OOS, so the number of possible full pay OOS students is low anyway. (Cal’s numbers are probably similar)</p>
<p>Bama likely has more full pay OOS students than Cal or UCLA do.</p>
<p>A look at UA’s net price calculator indicates that need-based financial aid is not particularly good for in-state students who do not qualify for the merit scholarships*. So it is entirely possible that the big out-of-state merit is being paid for by academically average college bound financially needy Alabama students who get less financial aid than they would if the big out-of-state merit money were allocated to in-state need-based financial aid.</p>
<p>*For a family of 3 with 1 in college (2.9 HS GPA and SAT CR+M 1000) and $15,000 income, [UA’s</a> net price calculator](<a href=“Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) – Financial Aid | The University of Alabama”>Net Price Calculator – Financial Aid | The University of Alabama) gave a net price of $20,917 ($27,467 list price minus $6,550 grants, which were all federal (Pell $5,550, SEOG $1,000) rather than institutional), despite an EFC = $0.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Very true. </p>
<p>But, keep in mind that altho Bama is a lowish populated state (less than 5 million people), it has 14 public universities that grant at least Bachelors degrees. That is a HIGH number of Bachelor-granting public college/universities for the population.</p>
<p>So, the philosophy has long been to provide lots of local public bachelors-granting schools, scattered across the state, so that the costs of Room and Board can be avoided. </p>
<p>That may not be the philosophy of all states, but it’s a good philosophy. It actually more reflects how K-12 education is handled. We don’t typically provide R&B for kids to go away to high school, so we provide high schools in each area for students to commute to.</p>
<p>Contrast the 14 public Bachelor-granting colleges that Alabama (pop less than 5M) has with only THREE public institutions that the state of Arizona has (pop over 6.5M). lol</p>
<p>30% of UVA OOS students receive any financial aid at all-- far fewer anything approaching full tuition. Call it merit if it fits your narrative – the same way other highly competitive schools that meet full need are throwing “merit money” at students. 50% OOS students receive any aid at Michigan. That leaves a lot of “ranking-crazy” people paying full frieight because nothing else could explain why one would choose such a school? Really, your credibility M2CK is diminished with such defensive generalizations. There are lots of reasons why one would choose to attend UA-- just as there are lots of reasons people choose other schools. Even for more money. </p>
<p>To the original question, many schools offer very nice merit to very high stats kids. There seem to be more southern schools going with the automatic qualifying variety, and a score and GPA range that appeal to a wider audience. With a short additional application my kids had full tuition at 2 other schools, north and midwest. One child chose UVa over Alabama CBHP, and I can assure you we receive no merit money, nor are we ranking crazy, as evidenced by my other daughter’s choice to attend UA.</p>
<p>i dont buy that argument m2ck… it’s not the philosophy of a lot of people i know that wish their kids could go to ua or auburn. but as ucbalumnus says, the financial need for the non merit in state kids is not great. add the pact fiasco and it is now impossible for them, the plan defaulted and they have no time now to find alternative funding…is it nice that there are other schools…sure…but that wasnt their goal necessarily. is there some upset with a state university publicly stating their goal is to attract oos kids with merit money rather than in state kids…yes… for those people there is. i dont begrudge any student that works hard any merit money they can get ( in fact that is how we put together my S2’s college app list…what schools would offer him great merit), and i think it helps a university to have diversity… but dont carry it so far as to say that those who cant afford it should be happy with the idea that there are other schools. </p>
<p>the rural kids cant compete with the gpa’s and act scores of some of these oos students… they have no ap classes, no act prep, many dont even have text books (my son had a classroom text book but not one he could take home… so how do they study?)</p>
<p>. it’s not the philosophy of a lot of people i know that wish their kids could go to ua or auburn.</p>
<p>??</p>
<p>I wasn’t talking about the philosophy of individuals who might want tax-payers to provide room and board money so that their kids can skip over the local schools and go elsewhere. Expecting tax-payers to provide room and board money is akin to expecting welfare. Do these folks expect Alabama tax-payers to provide them a home and well-stocked pantry as well?</p>
<p>Those who decided to sprinkle bachelor-granting schools across the state are the ones who had the philosophy…and it is a financially sound philosophy. It may not make everyone happy (no policy does), but it puts a public bachelors degree granting institution within nearly everyone’s commute.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, states like Calif changed from their original notions of having kids go to their local CC, CSU, or UC to bankrupting the state by providing ridiculous aid so that a kid can say…hmmm, I don’t want to go to UCSD (or even UCLA) because I want to go away (on tax-payer money).</p>
<p>is there some upset with a state university publicly stating their goal is to attract oos kids with merit money rather than in state kids…yes… for those people there is</p>
<p>Many of these folks may be wrongly thinking that taxpayers are funding those merit scholarships. If they knew that the money was coming from entities funded w/o public funds, then they should understand that it’s really none of their business.</p>
<p>That said, Bama has purposely increased enrollment just so the instate students wouldn’t get rejected in lieu of OOS students. It would be different if Bama kept its undergrad enrollment to 16,000 that it was just a short time ago…then they could complain. But, there aren’t 28k instate students who would attend Bama.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The CCs and CSUs are explicitly designed to provide local access. Indeed, the CSU net price calculators indicate generally good financial aid, but the net price is significantly lower for commuter students (local students also get admission preference at CSUs). However, there are still students, particularly in rural areas, who are not within reasonable commuting range of a CSU (or their local CSU is impacted so they need to go elsewhere to find a CSU that they can be admitted to, or they have an uncommon major that is only offered at a non-local CSU).</p>
<p>The UCs, as the “flagships”, meet in-state need for commuters and resident students. Since there are fewer of them (compared to CSUs and CCs), there are fewer students in reasonable commuting range of them.</p>
<p>I do not see why it is “ridiculous” for the state to provide good need-based financial aid for students from poor families who are admitted to the public universities. The idea is that if such students have the opportunity to become more educated, they will later contribute more to the state economy than they would if they were shut out of higher education because they came from poor families.</p>
<p>say what?.. we were talking about IN state alabama students, ie tax payers of this state wanting to attend a state public school… they arent asking for a hand out!!, financial (need based) aid is not good… regardless of where the merit money comes from i was talking about PERCEPTION. UA systems, auburn etc were asked if they could help the pact situation, they refused (other smaller colleges agreed at one time) … and no need to be snarky imo…“well stocked pantry” was not what i was saying at all</p>
<p>*we were talking about IN state alabama students, ie tax payers of this state wanting to attend a state public school… they arent asking for a hand out!!, *</p>
<p>??</p>
<p>I know you’re talking about instate students. </p>
<p>Then what are they asking for? You’re talking about people who want to go to Bama or Auburn, rather than commute to their local public (that was the point of my post…the state provides local universities). . </p>
<p>If the folks you’re talking about aren’t willing or able to pay, for the room and board portion, and they don’t qualify for merit, then aren’t they asking for tax-payers to pay for them? If not, who are they asking to pay for them? </p>
<p>As for the snarky comment, it was to put their “wants” into perspective. people who want tax-payers to pay for their college room and board need to think about what it is that they’re expecting (especially when there is a local public to attend).</p>
<p>UA’s fairly high cost for low SES students is, I believe, done to limit the amount of incoming low SES students (who, as a rule, are lower performing students), just as increase merit aid is an effort to increase the number of higher performing students (who tend to be high SES students). Either way you look at it, UA has decided to spend funding on OOS students over in-state low SES students. And it’s working…as UA continues to improve it’s rankings/standing.</p>
<p>Average Net Price by Income (0 to $30,000)
UA =$16,685</p>
<p>Auburn =$11,380
Troy U = $11,235
UA-Birmingham = $12,457
UA-Huntsville = $9,325
U of South Alabama = $8,972</p>
<p>OOS Schools
Miss State = $13,182
Ole Miss = $9,512
LSU = $3,852
UGa = $8,122
UF= $7,061</p>
<p>I would expect, as UA increases it’s requirements/selectivity for incoming freshmen, a smaller group of low SES students will be able to qualify. At that point, they will start shifting merit to need aid.
(Data from College Navigator)</p>
<p>bama probably already has a good number of SES students attending/commuting because it’s in a good-sized metropolitan area…and many in the population are modest income people. </p>
<p>Somewhere on the Bama website (I’ll try to find it) there is something that indicates that there is some preferential pkging going on for needy students with better stats. </p>
<p>While some may not like that, Bama could just do what other some other Flagships do, and that’s make entrance so difficult that it eliminates many needy kids from even getting an acceptance.</p>
<p>There is no doubt in my mind that UA gets a lot of donations to its scholarship funds because it has great athletic teams. The money doesn’t directly come from the athletic department, but the athletic department does have an influence on how much is donated.</p>
<p>As Alabama doesn’t have the reputation of many top public universities, but wants to increase its reputation, it decided to recruit top students from other states via financial incentives.</p>
<p>It is worth noting that one of the reasons why Alabama has a large number of public bachelor’s degree granting universities is the state’s segregationist past. Alabama also gives bachelor’s degree granting universities separate names based on location rather than listing them as branches of a larger university. Arizona has more than three public universities if one counts branch campuses and considers that the state’s population is less spread out. My home state of Washington is doing something similar by adding branch campuses and extension centers in under-served parts of the state instead of having more than 7 universities.</p>
<p>Echoing the thoughts of another poster, there is a perception in the US that if one works hard enough, they should have the opportunity to attend their state flagship at a somewhat affordable cost tuition-wise. such students will often work part time and live with a bunch of other college students in a rented house or apartment. Unfortunately, many states are moving away from this model by increasing tuition costs to the point where it’s often difficult to pay for school and housing with some savings, federal loans and a part time job.</p>
<p>Many of UA’s OOS students are full pay and attend UA because of overcrowding at the flagship and larger universities in their home states, even if their home states provide lottery-funded scholarships, as the students want a big university experience.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Suppose a student from a poor family lives in Tuscaloosa and can commute to UA.</p>
<p>If we subtract the $11,956 room and board from the $20,917 net price after federal Pell and SEOG (since there are no need-based grants from the school), we get $8,961. However, a commuter student living at home will eat some food and use some utilities at his/her parents’ house (these do cost money, even if the family does not budget the student’s share as a separate line item as it would when writing a check to the dorm or off-campus housing), so that must be added back. So do commuting costs. At schools which list commuter budgets (UA does not), the estimates are usually between $5,000 and $8,000. So the cost for the commuter student from a poor family attending UA will be around $13,961 to $16,961, which is generally higher than what schools that meet full need expect the student to come up with (typically $4,000 to $10,000 from student loans and work earnings).</p>
<p>lol…I’m too ADD to follow the above, which is why I don’t write those things in para form. I use list format.</p>
<p>Are you including a Stafford loan anywhere? How about summer earnings and work study? </p>
<p>From what I know, seeing low income local kids attending Bama…a pell grant, SEOG, stafford loan, work study, and some summer earnings more than covers their direct school costs, books, trans, and personal expenses.</p>
<p>5600 Pell
1000 (or so) SEOG
5500 student loan
2000 work study</p>
<h2>2000 from summer earnings</h2>
<p>about $16k to pay for tuition, fees, books, transportation and various personal expenses.</p>
<p>Money spent from the endowment and unristricted donations – or from athletics-- on OOS merit comes at a cost to any other spending choice, including funding need -based aid to in-state students or reducing in-state tuition generally. If taxpayers are mollified by accounting columns, that would be surprising. The tide turned in Virginia in 1993, when the state mandated that OOS tuition must cover the full cost of providing the education-- no endowment or taxpayer subsidy – and this was in a no merit aid situation, just setting tuition rates. Tuition soared for OOS students so that now they subsidize in-state students by paying more than the cost of their own education. Virginia delegates, especially from northern Virginia, regularly debate sharply capping OOS enrollment because too many of their constituents cannot get in. And this with a measly 10% operating budget coming from the state. It’s hard to believe there isn’t a significant Alabama taxpayer voice that wants to know the long-term strategy for ending the huge merit subsidies for OOS students – unless these local state schools offer the exact same opportunities as Tuscaloosa. </p>
<p>“Bama could just do what some other Flagships do and that’s make entrance so difficult that it eliminates many needy kids from even getting an acceptance.”</p>
<p>I wonder how other state flagships make their entrance more difficult? I thought there was a market at work, otherwise, Alabama should just be able to flip that switch and save some money. If the needy kids can’t afford a school they’re accepted to (especially if room and board are considered welfare) than being able to be accepted is irrelevant. I’d bank on more socio-economic diversity at a meets-full-need competitive school.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus: tuscaloosa is actually a great example: median household income is 34K per year. with 29.6% living below the poverty level (it is also 41% AA). if your numbers apply, many would have an EFC of 0, but be expected to pay 14-16 thousand per year. where is their “commuter school”? </p>
<p>[Tuscaloosa</a> (city) QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau](<a href=“http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/01/0177256.html]Tuscaloosa”>http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/01/0177256.html)</p>
<p>what i was trying to explain, is not that they expect room and board to be paid or for the taxpayers to foot their bill…but if they MEET the requirements for admission, it would be good if the financial need based aid was better. the other issue (and you can agree or not with the reasons why ie rankings) is that the state university has gone out of its way to announce each year and continue promote and encourage out of state students and has found ways to fund that (but not its lower income in state students)…that is where there is a perception problem for some.</p>
<p>again i will reiterate, i dont begrudge a single student, instate or oos …their merit aid… i just have no idea how you find a balance</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The $13,961 to $16,961 referred to in post #34 is the estimated net price for a commuter student at UA after applying the Pell grant and SEOG.</p>
<p>So if the student can realistically come up with $9,500 in Direct/Stafford student loans and work earnings, that still leaves him/her $4,461 to $7,461 short (private student loans? parent loans?).</p>
<p>this is how I look at it: </p>
<p>$10k tuition & fees
$1k books (could be less if buy used or rents)
$1k misc & transportation</p>
<h2>$4k personal, food, what have you.</h2>
<p>$16k cost for a local student to go to Bama.</p>
<p>5600 Pell
1000 (or so) SEOG
5500 student loan
2000 work study</p>
<h2>2000 from summer earnings</h2>
<p>about $16k to pay for tuition, fees, books, transportation and various personal expenses.</p>
<p>So, what are you saying still isn’t covered?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Finance</a> - The University of Alabama](<a href=“http://cost.ua.edu/undergraduate-budget.html]Finance”>http://cost.ua.edu/undergraduate-budget.html) lists $24,606 per year, though it does not include typical misc or personal expenses that the net price calculator lists at $2,861 for a total of $27,467.</p>
<p>Subtract $11,956 of room and board to get $15,511. Add back $5,000 to $8,000 in food, utilities, and transportation costs for the commuter student to get $20,511 to $23,511. Note that while such costs won’t show up as an obvious line item on the student and family budget, they are real costs that must be considered. Your $4,000 for that plus personal and misc costs is likely a severe underestimate based on other schools’ commuter budgets.</p>
<p>In table form:
24,606 billed costs</p>
<h2>+ 2,861 personal/misc costs listed in the NPC</h2>
<p>27,467 total cost of attendance</p>
<h2>-11,956 on campus room and board</h2>
<p>15,511</p>
<h2>+ 5,000 to 8,000 food, utilities, and commuting costs</h2>
<p>20,511 to 23,511 total list price for a commuter student
</p>