Hi, I just wanted to start a conversation about UMNTC and their National Merit Funding
Now National Merit money isn’t guaranteed , unlike other schools, however, as a competitive applicant I received the 10k Gold Scholar award, 10K National Scholarship, and the 1k National Merit Scholarship. This comes very very close to the 24k OOS tuition cost, and in comparing it to ASU, I’ve found the UMN is actually cheaper thanks to lower room and board costs. For engineering in particular, I believe it is the highest ranked school that offers substantial National Merit money, aside from Texas A&M. Any thoughts from any current or future Finalists?
When did you receive UMN award letter?
Our son is OOS and we are counting on similar awards for it to be an option for us. We should hear on NMF status in the next couple of days. He has 36 ACT, 4.0UW w/9 AP, several sports, solid community service, multiple extra curricular clubs, part time job, etc., so we are hopeful for the max award.
We are starting to get a little uncomfortable that we haven’t heard anything yet.
His brother is a sophomore there and we love the school. No doubt it is an incredible value.
They do offer very generous merit aids to NMF. My D also got multiple scholarships offer from them to bring the cost even lower than the CoA of our in state flagship. However, the in state school also offered significant scholarships that made it even cheaper. If I remember it correctly, the award was offered even before the NMF was confirmed.
DD is visiting UMN next week. If she likes it, she’ll w/d her ASU application. Only financial concern is UMN’s intention to raise OOS tuition - see http://www.twincities.com/2016/03/31/big-tuition-hike-plan-now-official-for-umn-nonresidents
@DadofThree111 exactly the same situation I’m in! I’m pretty sure ASU is actually more expensive at least this year and then it evens out with the tuition hikes.
We were in your shoes 2 years ago and did the same calculations. However, my son received NMF offer from UMN really early on (I think October), so he didn’t even apply to ASU or TAMU. What made our decision easier though was the fact that the national scholarship was full OOS tuition waiver, so it really was a no-brainer for us.
Today, even with $10K scholarship, the calculation is different, and with the plans of increasing OOS tuition to $35K in 2020, I think the value proposition is no longer there.