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Pros and Cons of Public Flagship vs Private Colleges
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Replies to: Pros and Cons of Public Flagship vs Private Colleges
Most people will find that OOS publics are too expensive with no or not enough financial aid. Forum posters are not representative of most high school and college students or parents, since forum poster parents tend to be high income and forum poster students tend to be high achieving (i.e. have more possibilities for merit scholarships or admission to good financial aid private colleges than most students).
Yes, the Arizona schools appear expensive at sticker, but they are generous with OOS tuition waiver/scholarships, so the cost is much less than a private and can be on a par with a UC instate. Perhaps Utah is too, but just doesn't have the connections on the Left Coast. Utah offers great skiing, but then so does Colorado, which also offers weed and a great college/party town. Way before CO joined the Pac, it was extremely popular with NorCal skiers.
Colorado, Oregon, and the Arizona schools just have a long pipeline to California high schools. Only CO requires an air flight.
@bluebayou In Nevada where my D lives, she has met more people who've attended college in Utah, but even there more kids go to Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington, and other Western States. And it still tends to be LDS kids who head to Utah. It's interesting because our area of SOCAL is affluent and conservative, but even here no one wants to go to Utah for some reason....
Not too sure why folks are hung on politics. The U is just too far to drive. Simple as that. Add in an officially dry campus, a third-to-half LDS students, and there are plenty of other attractive western publics.
Residence and migration of all first-time degree/certificate-seeking undergraduates in 4-year degree-granting postsecondary institutions who graduated from high school in the previous 12 months, by state or jurisdiction:
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_309.30.asp
For example, a large % of students in the state of Utah are from out of state. Of the 19,318 undergrad students, enrolled in the state (at 4 year colleges), 12,658 are in-state, and 6,660 are OOS. Utah also only exported out 1,406 students, so the net migration was +5,254.
Utah does appeal to OOS students, but it's not a large/populous state.You may not know of any students going to Utah, but, based on it's size, it's getting more than it's share of OOS students.
Compare it to California. CA has a net minus migration with 36,528 students leaving the state, and 22,632 students going into the state (net of -13,896). The total enrollment in CA (undergraduates attending 4 year institutions) is 152,534 (as compared to Utah's 19,318).
31,686 (students starting college)
4,299 (stay instate)
27,387 (LEAVE)
Note: the above numbers are for "first-time degree/certificate-seeking undergraduates in 4-year degree-granting postsecondary institutions who graduated from high school in the previous 12 months", according to the linked page.
https://www.byu.edu/numbers says that 35% of BYU students are from Utah. BYU had 5,440 new frosh, so that means that about 3,500 of new BYU frosh who came from places other than Utah make up more than half of the 6,660 new frosh in Utah colleges from places other than Utah. (Probably about 600 of those new BYU frosh came from California.)
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=utah&s=all&id=230764 indicates that 26% of University of Utah students are from places other than Utah. Since there were about 4,100 new frosh, that about 1,100 of them came from places other than Utah. I.e. less than a third of the number of non-Utah students compared to BYU.
So whether you know any students going to college in Utah may be dependent on how many CJCLDS members you know, since CJCLDS students going to BYU appear to make up most of the college student migration to the state of Utah.
One of the top kids in our SoCal HS cleaned up with several local cash scholarships and made a downpayment on a 'Vette since he took the full ride to BYU (Accounting major).
Free becomes very attractive for OOS! But that is a special kinda free.
I.e. an observant CJCLDS member is likely to find his/her "church flagship" to be price-competitive with or less expensive than his/her state flagship.
“SMU’s acceptance rate is 50%. In a country where top schools accept less than 10%, SMU is not nearly as selective and academic strength of average student is significantly lower than top schools.”
@Data10 posted good information.
It is something I personally try to pass on in different threads regarding using acceptance rates without regard to the quality of the pools and the ultimate admits. Some schools get a lot more candidates outside of the realistically considered set.
Here’s his/her post.
“Acceptance rate is only loosely correlated with selectivity or academic strength of the average student because you are not considering differences in applicant pool. For example, freshman SMU and Tulane have similar GPA/score stats, even though SMU has a >50% acceptance rate and Tulane had a 13% acceptance rate this year. At both schools, the median scores were in the test scores means are in the low 90s percentile, and mean GPA is in the A- range, yet the acceptance rates are completely different. Clearly neither school is as selective HYPSM..., but that was not the claim. The comment that triggered this tangent was, "SMU isn’t really an attractive school for high achievers, neither rank nor rigor of the school is at their desired level and no free full rides either. It’s more for rich or poor average students." The SMU students as a whole are not "average," and SMU does offer merit scholarships for high achievers. The best SMU merit scholarships include full ride + money to study abroad + honors classes.”
I graduated HS in NJ 30 years ago and it was the same then, speaking from my anecdotal experience. Almost everyone I knew went out of state.
I don't see the nominally dry campus making a difference to what kids do in practice, but the OOS kids generally go for either the specialist programs (dance, theater, music, etc.) or because they are really outdoorsy (my D and her friends go camping or backpacking at the drop of a hat, drive 4 hours to a national park to see sunrise, go for a Sunday hike to the hot springs, go skiing, etc. and that's just the last 2 months), not because they are looking for a party.
Spring break at a national park is more of a thing than spring break at the beach (apparently you can't go to college in Utah without hiking to Delicate Arch and getting your photo taken there) - they are already planning which ski resort to drive 12 hours to next spring break to use their Ikon passes. If you don't like the outdoors lifestyle I can imagine it being hard to fit in, whether you moved to Utah for college or for a job.