@purpletitan I disagree - this is a low income student and even looking at the average need-based aid is helpful for him to see the proportion of how expensive U of MI will be and what a big hole financially he will get into very quickly.
I would not consider UIUC ‘the worst’. I will allow this student his little pity party, because he is young and ambitious.However the sooner he can look at the glass half full and participate with all the positive things at UIUC, the better off he will be. UIUC is rated #36 in the list of the top 100 public colleges by the measures Kiplinger used. It is not a shabby school.
My DD is getting an excellent engineering education at UA (rated #44) - UA admits lower stat kids and has a lower 4 year graduation rate among the ‘quality’ indicators. It doesn’t affect her abilities at the school nor the faculty teaching the material; ABET accredited - all good. University of Wisconsin-Madison is ranked #8 (my home town is 50 mi from this school); would I spend OOS costs versus giving up the full tuition scholarship at UA plus additional $10,000 in engineering scholarship money at UA for DD to attend UW-Madison? Heck no. Oh, and DD is in a STEM MBA program and honors program at UA. Also all good.
One only has to look at some very bright international students who would long for the opportunities our students have to attend a very good college and receive a very good college education.
@SOSConcern, yep, UIUC is actually a powerhouse in engineering. The OP may have to get over her Chambana issues, but everyone has to grow up some time. Don’t know which of UIC or UIUC would be cheaper, though.
okay everyone … I AM A GIRL!!! and I really really have always wanted to go to UMich which is why i am still trying. I will try for UIUC but I really do not want to go there to be very honest.
Michigan is great. I went there. Lived in Ann Arbor. Has everything. Big school, nice greek system if you want it, exciting sports, four seasons, great profs. Article actually just came out (Kiplinger) and rated U-Mich as the “best value public university.” You won’t regret it.
One more personal anecdote for the OP in light of booksmart’s post: I enrolled at Michigan State in the Spring of 1990. Both my parents were alumni and my grandfather grew up on campus. My cousin was a senior RA in Shaw Hall at the time. MSU was my dream school. I didn’t really have a plan. My mother had a few thousand dollars in savings and she paid cash for my tuition, books, room and board. We assumed that we wouldn’t get any financial aid and never applied. I ran out of money at the end of Fall term in 1991. I dropped out. I am 3 credits short of finishing an AA degree as I type this. My 18 year old son will be starting college in the fall. As previously mentioned, my 21 year old daughter is working full time and struggling to support herself despite living in her grandmother’s vacant Florida home and driving a car paid for by me. This is anecdotal, I know, but I will highlight a couple of lessons I’ve learned:
1.) You very well could regret it. I was a NMSF with terrible grades in HS. Despite my underachievement, there were several directional schools in Michigan that would have been very affordable for me. With the money my mother spent on MSU, I probably could have earned a bachelor’s degree.
2.) “Going back to school” gets harder as you get older and life’s responsibilities start to take up your time and resources. If you start at UofM and have to take time off, it will be very hard to finish later -even on a part time basis.
I am 44 and have worked my rear end off for 20 years to get from making $9/hr to earning enough to provide a modest, middle class living for my family: and I couldn’t have done it without a little luck along the way.
My son, fortunately, has the stats for some incredible merit scholarships and a chance at some highly selective schools that would meet 100% of his demonstrated need. If the demonstrated need leaves a balance of $7-10,000/yr, however, he will be happily enrolling at Kentucky instead of Notre Dame, Northwestern or Amherst.
For Engineering, UIUC may be even better than UM, and that’s saying a lot.
If you don’t have the money to pay for UM, you shouldn’t go there. Plain and simple.
I live in Maryland, and am currently applying to colleges. Every state school that I’ve looked at (Purdue, UMDCC, UMBC, UCB - which I ended up not applying to, and a couple others) was very clear in that OOS students would have to pay a premium. None of them made a guarantee of need being met, and that’s with loans being considered as meeting need.
Read that again. Finaid is so shaky that they may not even allow you to take out enough LOANS to pay for your education. Seriously. Unless UM starts giving students free Teslas and/or Rolls-Royces, the $50,000 to $60,000 extra is in absolutely NO way worth it.
OP cannot afford to turn down any financial aid she would qualify for in Illinois to lower her cost of attending. She has to start with a lower total cost before need-based aid to have an affordable COA.
The Kiplinger article talks about a lot of variables, but their definition of value is a quality education at a affordable price. U of MI as an OOS school for this student is un-affordable.
@1booksmart Univ of N Carolina at Chapel Hill had the #1 ranking in the top 100 public colleges in this Kiplinger report; 81% 4 year graduation rate; SAT 73% high scorers and ACT 80% high scorers, low student per faculty (13), instate cost of $20,412. Univ of VA is #2, U of FL #3, UC Berkley is #4, UCLA is #5, and U of MI is #6.
If she were in-state in N Carolina, I would encourage her to apply/go to that school if they were ABET accredited in ME. If she lived in MI, U of MI. If in WI, Univ of WI-Madison. If in AL, UA or AU or UAH ore even a few others, ABET accredited programs - whichever worked out the best financially.
Kiplinger also said ‘All the schools in our rankings meet our definition of value’. I do agree about finishing in 4 years adds ‘value’ - how much is it in the student decisions on which schools to attend, how much is it that they take a lighter course load due to working or maintaining better grades, or deciding on internship and co-op opportunities which delays graduation. Can’t take into account all those variables in this kind of analysis.
Aid cannot bridge the gap of in-state and OOS costs at these public universities for someone that cannot pay the balance after the need-based aid is applied. As another poster discussed, you have to have the money last for you to finish your degree! Starting somewhere with a really bad financial picture is not a path to successfully completing the college degree.
I hope some good decisions get made so the student with the aptitude to finish this degree gives herself the chance to get the degree.
You cannot value rank a product/service that is dynamically priced!
Outside of full rides and full pays, no one pays the same for a college education.
The Kiplinger rankings are based on averages that apply to essentially no one. Not very useful outside a broad sense of having all the average data in one place.
Luxury products are for those who have the money. Those who spend money they don’t have frequently end up in a financial mess. I realize we don’t like to think of a college education this way (it violates our sense of fairness), but if you don’t have the money and are not getting aid, you are at serious risk of leaving Michigan cash poor, full of debt, and without a degree.
…and this is leaving aside the fact that Michigan is arguably not much of a premium product to your much more affordable alternative. Its utility, for you, seems to stem from an emotional attachment to the school/area. If most else is equal, there is no problem deciding on emotional factors, but all else is not equal.
OP, I understand that AA is more appealing that U-C, but let’s be honest about the quality of UIUC. It is a VERY good school, especially for engineering. US News actually ranks it HIGHER than Michigan for engineering (if you care about that stuff, and I’m guessing you do). They’re essentially equal. Be grateful you live in a state with such a great program.
Nobody was questioning the quality of UIUC for engineering. It is easily one of the best. The OP simply does not care for the campus or location. Can’t we all respect that instead of telling her to go to that school regardless?
David Copperfield’s Wilkins Micawber said it best:
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six (19.75 pounds), result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six (20.25 pounds), result misery.”
In other words, debt is bad. Unless Michigan offers you a sizeable financial aid package/scholarship, I would avoid it. Some debt is ok, but beyond a certain point (I would say $20-$25k), it is not worth it.
Well, the OP said she’d have to “settle for a worse school” if she ended up at UIUC. It is NOT a “worse” school. It may be located it a less appealing town, but that’s not the same thing.
And she’s yet to suggest that she can actually AFFORD Michigan. That’s why folks are reacting as strongly as they are. Her original question:
Attending any school that may be in a “less fun city” for just two years is certainly a LOT better than spending 10 years paying back a bunch of debt incurred because of those 2 years.
I have news for the OP…the last two years of engineering can be very time-consuming and grueling. Likely not enough time to spend “enjoying” a more fun city. It would be silly to spend more money for a “better city” when one will likely spend little time enjoying that city.
I think back to my college years and “free time” was spent with friends…and that can be done anywhere…in a dorm, an apt, a bar, a restaurant, the fitness center, etc.
So I believe it’s been reiterated (ad nauseum) that the engineering programs are equivalents.
The OP has stated a preference for Ann Arbor over U-C - while understandable is not worth OOS tuition by itself.
However, the student environments are different and if the OP can afford the higher cost of OOS then I think it can be rationalized. By student environment I am referring to a collaborative vs. competitive plus a higher percentage of international students at UIUC makes for it more difficult for collaboration. I have worked closely with a college counselor who is intimately knowledgeable about the teaching and student environments and these observations came from him. Nothing wrong with either type of environment but you should really go where you think you will succeed best.
With that being said, if you are not a top notch and competitive student (necessary to some degree for both of these choices) there are other excellent engineering choices that would cost less than either UIUC or Michigan. So if you don’t want to go where many of your high school classmates are attending, there are some excellent alternatives such as Iowa State. They may not rank as high but they have a very high job placement rate. If you visit some more schools you may find you love them as much as UMich. Minnesota schools can also be cheaper than Illinois. And then many others become equivalent with merit scholarships. I believe these schools still have rolling admissions so you could still apply. You really boxed yourself in with only two applications. I understand it may be too late for you but perhaps others reading this thread with the same thought may benefit. Btw, I think UIC would be fine too - not same rep as UIUC but being right in Chicago you would have lots of internship opportunities. It will have a strong commuter element however so you are trading off being in a big city with a more transient student population.