Univ. of Colo.- Boulder - Out of State Tuition

Does anyone know if Univ. of Colo.might offer in state tuition for an out of state applicant? My son was accepted there but also has offers at UC Santa Cruz, UC San Diego (wait listed) and San Diego State - much cheaper since we live in California.
Out of State would cost $54K per year for Colorado…a $200k education (more than twice as much as SDSU and still much higher than UC’s…?
(*We’re borderline on financial aid due to asset ceiling, but under income cap…also a second son is also still in college, which helps on est. fam contribution…)

State residents pay taxes to help support their state universities. That’s why in state tuition is reasonable for residents and not so reasonable for out of state students. Unless there’s some WUE or merit happening, it probably won’t be affordable.

He is accepted because he IS full pay. Was there any reason you applied?

We read about their astrophysics program. Plus, love it there.
But unless their program is so far better than our offerings here, we may stay in our state. ?

Yes, no WUE, I’m afraid.

CA doesn’t offer aid to OOS students. I don’t believe CO is any different. I’d stick with the CA universities.

Colorado is a very desirable go to place for OOS college students. They have absolutely NO need to provide instate tuition.

Think about it…if they did this, why would they bother with OOS costs at all. OOS higher costs are counted on…and help support their college.

Did you apply for need based aid? Is your kid a tippy tippy top applicant?

If finances are a consideration, stay instate.

Colorado does offer instate rates to a few OOS students on a much more generous basis than California. If one parent lives in Colorado, even if that parent doesn’t claim the student as a dependent, the student gets the instate rate. It is a little bit easier for a student to move to Colorado, live here for 2 years, and get instate tuition. I think some of the military people get instate rates. There are WUE benefits at some schools (not at Boulder)

There are some scholarships for OOS students, usually about $6250 per year.

But basically there is nothing for a pure OOS who just wants to live in paradise.

Go instate CA for two years then transfer to CU Boulder. That is only way to cut costs, other than you move
to CO.

To clarify, CO residence voted not to support their Institutes of Higher Learning many years ago. Therefore
the State only provides buildings and not student funding. To get a building approved can take more than a
decade. Thus the higher costs for out of state students.

The only other funding is the College Opportunity Fund. If you are instate you only need to apply once it currently
provides a stipend of $85.00 per RI credit.

CU Boulder has Merit for OOS it is the top 1 to 3% of students.

Any other need base funding you must apply for such as 1st Generation College Student, FSFSA, Grants, etc.

“CU Boulder has Merit for OOS it is the top 1 to 3% of students”

We are out of state (live in the northeast). Somewhere around about 5 years ago one daughter was offered a merit scholarship that would have brought the total cost of attendance at CU Boulder to about $40,000 per year. This of course is still quite a bit more than the in-state price, but it would have been less than full cost. My vague recollection is that we heard about the merit scholarship at the same time as the original offer of acceptance.

I agree with OP that given in-state prices at the universities in California, it is very difficult to justify paying full price, or even $40,000 per year, at CU Boulder. Of course you should also include travel costs in the extra expense that you would pay to attend CU Boulder.

Their Financial aid offering is not very good at all. OOS DS accepted with a $6250/yr. scholarship, our EFC is $24375 as his sister is also in college, yet all they ‘offered’ beyond the scholarship was the $5500 student loan. Yet, another school (lower COA) where we are also OOS gave him a scholarship plus some grant money, the loan and work-study? We are only considering it because he has AFROTC scholarship that will kick in his 2nd year…

2019 out-of-state tuition:

$38,383 CU Boulder
$43,890 UC Santa Cruz

CU isn’t giving in-state tuition to a kid from California and UC Santa Cruz isn’t giving in-state tuition to a kid from Colorado. Not sure where the idea that it would be any other way came from.

There are a few state where scholarship recipients are given instate tuition too. Colorado (CU) isn’t one of them

The state of Colorado doesn’t support CU Boulder, so CU accepts 80% of the OOS applicants to pay for the school. Also, it’s not very affordable for instate kids either.

They may accept 80% of applicants but only 45-50% of the students at CU are OOS. I’m sure many accepted cannot attend because they can’t afford it.

When my kids were in high school in California (small, private with about 225 graduates each year) I thought it interesting that only 3 went to UCLA, 3 to Cal, and 6 to CU=Boulder. Another 6 went to Colorado Mesa. For many at this school, money wasn’t an issue so they went where they wanted to go, and for many that was in Colorado.

2019 In-state tuition:

$12,532 CU Boulder
$13,900 UC Santa Cruz

2018 CU Boulder acceptance data from Common Data Set:

In-State 89%
Out of state 79%
Total 82%

Freshman yield:
In State 42%
Out of State 15%

Not all CO schools are stingy with merit aid for OOS applicants. My son (from San Diego, CA) got into both CU Boulder (university studies only/rejected engineering, no aid) and CSU (civil engineering, with standard WUE scholarship - ~$10K/year). His stats: GPA 3.6uw/3.7w, SAT 1330 - so nothing extraordinary.

We are visiting CSU next week to compare with Clemson and finalize. Cost-wise CSU is pretty reasonable (~$36K/year all-in, after WUE). Clemson, on the other hand, is not ($52K/year, no aid).

Colorado State in Fort Collins is overlooked, and offers great deals to OOS students. Its the land grant university with the top agricultural and soil science, vet school, smaller business school, and the engineering college. Civil is a great program at Colorado State, probably better there than the more environmentally focused program in Boulder.
For physics, CU Boulder is the better program, but Colorado State still strong. Chemistry is strong at both.

The two schools overlap in some areas. I would say CU Boulder by far has the better instrumental and vocal music program over Colorado State.

Colorado State is more health science focused, with many different health science majors in physical and occupational therapy, and vet sciences, that may help premedical students. So undergraduates can dissect a cow
at Colorado State, no big animal anatomy and surgery classes available in Boulder !

CU Boulder is trying to make up for a deficiency in the health sciences, by offering some neuroscience, sleep science and integrated physiology majors now, up in boulder, as all our big medical related programs
are far south in Aurora on the Anschutz Medical campus. Thats were the PhD, MD, Dental, PA, and nurses study.
Some Boulder undergraduate students work at Ancshutz in the summers at our fine cancer, Children’s and big research hospitals.

Our medical programs are really very good for a small state. Vet school in Fort Collins ranked top ten in the country.

@Coloradomama Great comparison, thanks! As it turned out, son changed his major preference from Civil Engineering to Construction Management after he already applied - similar, but not as math-intense. CU Boulder does not offer this major, which made our choice easy. CSU changed his major very quickly, no problem at all. I just hope he likes the area when we visit later this week (despite the 20degree drop in temperature expected in the next few days - what’s up with that?! lol)