I am an upcoming high school senior and am applying to direct admit nursing programs. My stats are 1520 sat, 4.0 uw gpa, 7 ap, misc. volunteering, 2 varsity sports. My budget for college per year is at most 30k (this includes room and board). I’d prefer the price to be even lower (20k) if possible! Thanks!
What state do you live in? In-state public Us are often the best price for their residents. Done states have agreements with nearby state public state Us for some merit award discounted tuition rates. What field(s) do you plan to study/major in?
Have you looked at the University of Utah? They have good merit aid (up to full tuition scholarships) and you can get in-state tuition after the first year (which would put the COA at about $20K pa for subsequent years even before any merit aid).
You will probably get a pretty good merit scholarship from Drexel (which has a direct nursing program). Some of my friends were offered a full ride (or pretty close) and had similar stats 
http://drexel.edu/cnhp/academics/undergraduate/BSN-Nursing-CO-OP/
Yes, knowing where you live (and the areas where you would or would not be interested in) would help.
I would not count out private schools, if you are in the top 25 percent of their applicants you have a good chance of merit. But, looking at in-state publics is the place to start. Those publics can be super competitive, however, so it’s good to have a variety of types of schools to investigate.
Do you have any of your state colleges on your list? I don’t know which CA schools have that type of program but @Gumbymom or @“aunt bea” might.
What type of college do you want? Large, medium, or small? Suburban or in/near a city? What region of the country do you prefer?
@HImom @austinmshauri @bearcatfan @Twoin18 Hello! I am in CA, but there are only 4 direct admit nursing programs here. I am looking for school that is safe, has open minded people, is diverse, etc. Preferably in the north as I like cold but I can deal with the hot as well! I am looking into privates as well and am comparing the prices but even when I calculate merit aid, the price is still 40k, which is too high for me. Anyone know any colleges with direct admit that have substantisal merit aid to bring the cost down to around 20-30k? I know there are some of those but I still don’t know. Also keep in mind that I don’t have any leadership title and have not done any hospital volunteer, so I don’t think I would be eligible for those top merit scholarships.
Is this what you mean? https://nursing.utah.edu/programs/bs/early-assurance/
Utah’s merit aid is mainly based on SAT/ACT/UW GPA and would likely be separate from the question of whether you could get admitted. As I mentioned above you’d have a decent shot of getting to about a $20K COA if you were admitted.
Hiram College
https://www.hiram.edu/academics/majors-minors/nursing/
https://www.hiram.edu/academics/undergraduate/scholarship-grants/
Another safety possibility is to attend a CA CC program that offers an associate degree program. You have your degree and license and be able to be accepted directly into a CA BS program. If you needed to work for 1 or 2 years to fund your BS degree, you will be able. I know that is not your first choice, but you may consider it a financial safety.
Coming from CA, you could get the WUE rate as a baseline from U of Utah, U of New Mexico, and UNLV. All three would give you additional merit aid that would lower the cost even further. Non-flagships in WUE like Northern Arizona, Western Oregon, Northern Arizona and Utah State, would offer even more merit. (I haven’t checked on direct entry at all of these, just ran the WUE search for nursing programs.) http://wue.wiche.edu/search1.jsp
St. Olaf is a terrific private LAC with a direct entry nursing program, that would offer merit for your stats; but I’m not sure their max merit would get to your price point.
Check out the Nurse Scholar program at Michigan State http://nursing.msu.edu/bsn%20programs/Nurse%20Scholar%20Program/Nurse%20Scholar%20Program.htm There is some good merit there for top students.
If you find a private college with 30K annual tuition and 11K room and board and 1K books, and you get 50% off of tuition merit aid (which is not uncommon), that is 27K a year. You can get federal loans each year for 5.5 to 7.5 per year. If you work full time during the summers, you can help cover your personal expenses. You should also check whether you are eligible for a grant from your state, and whether they allow those grants to be used at out of state colleges.
A student is more likely to be eligible for federal pell grants if the family has 2 kids in college at the same time. You will find that out when you submit the FAFSA.
However, note that many public and private colleges charge extra tuition and fees for nursing students during the last 2 years.
Your parents should also get a $2,500 federal tax credit for each of 4 years, which should be able to be contributed to your college expenses. A credit means total federal income taxes are reduced by that amount, as opposed to a deduction.
Colleges may also offer you the opportunity to earn some money at an on-campus job, which is called work-study.
You are smart to focus on direct admission. I do not live in California, but I understand nursing is severely impacted/competitive at the public universities.
If you don’t have any particular geographic limitations, there is a list here at the CC nursing forum that has direct admission programs (note: it was recently confirmed that Ohio State is NOT direct admit). That could help you get started.
I think @Banker1 has a daughter who recently went through this process as a California resident.
St Louis University is supposed to have excellent need-based and merit aid, and has a well regarded direct admit nursing program.
USD (University of San Diego), is a private college. It is “sponsored” by the Catholic church like SCU. You don’t have to be Catholic to attend. They don’t have a direct admit nursing but, they have program that leads into the Hahn School of Nursing.
For your stats, you have a strong chance of getting significant funding.
Gonzaga, in Spokane (a Jesuit school like SCU) does have direct-admit to their BSN program. I’m not familiar with how generous their merit aid is.
@hellohello24601 my D who will be a freshman nursing student at SDSU this fall had many similarities as you. CA resident with higher end GPA and test scores but no hospital volunteering experience. Pretty strong ECs and essays otherwise however. Decided late to pursue nursing and she applied to SDSU right before the deadline.
You can read more about the schools she applied to along with all the merit she received at each one in the thread “class of 2022 nursing admissions”.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/nursing-major/2039571-class-of-2022-nursing-admissions-p10.html
Within CA there are more than 4 direct entry schools but only 4 that are public. All have tiny acceptance rates. At orientation she was told SDSU’s nursing program had 3% acceptance this year.
As far as low cost nursing programs - with your credentials you could probably get a full ride offer from Univ of Alabama which is direct entry at Tuscaloosa campus. We didn’t apply there but applied to many schools throughout country to see what we could get. Because we are in local service area for SDSU she received full tuition there. All told she received about $900k for all 4 years across all the schools that offered her merit. We never considered not having hospital volunteering experience a detriment at least at those schools.
Good luck!
@Banker1 Wow that’s so great! I thought for SDSU there was no essay, please correct me if I’m wrong! Also, was the full ride scholarship because of merit or need based? It sounds very appealing!
@Banker1 By the way, I read that she got a full ride on link you sent me!
Alabama will give you the Presidential scholarship, which is excellent but not a total “full ride.”
To get the full-ride Presidential Elite you’d need a perfect 36/1600 in addition to a 4.0+ GPA.
https://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.php
The Presidential would still be a great deal, though, and the Honors College at UA is a great program.