I have a kid at DePaul. DePaul’s music program does have some money to work with and was good to us. I still suspect 20K all in is a difficult number to hit for a popular instrument without financial need unless you’re pretty unique in the program or they have unusual holes to fill, short on grad students, etc. Housing is expensive at urban schools, so room/board alone is close to that. They aren’t uniformly giving full tuition, there may be a few of those. Probably more common for harder to fill instruments. I would also say, acceptance rate for my kid’s area was 8% this year post pre-screen. So as always, very little is safe when we are talking auditioned programs. (we didn’t look at roosevelt, so I can’t comment on that program)
I agree you will often see students from a range of programs at excellent grad programs. I’ve seen that true at both the schools my kids attend. But I will also say at the 20+ UG schools we looked at (which were all set in a college/university setting, we did not look at standalone conservatories), there were also a range of musicians at a lot of schools. We saw some very high level musicians at low profile schools and were surprised by some less prepared musicians at more competitive schools. And maybe this also somewhat reflects that many schools have a set budget and need to hit a bottom line and they may make a range of financial offers to fill their programs.
I will also say we were sometimes surprised of the quality of music faculty at more off beat schools if there were in/near a major city/metro. And less impressed by some faculty at very popular, competitive programs. So in general, dig deep when you are learning about programs. There can be surprises out there that don’t always reflect the typical “apply to these music programs” lists that circulate.
I, too, have a kid at DePaul. Mine’s a grad student and tuition is cheap to non-existent (very generous scholarship). Undergrad was in another urban metro (Philly) which, like Chicago sports an excellent symphony orchestra with players giving lessons and coaching students. The prof at Temple (principal in the Philly orchestra) loved teaching there but didn’t like teaching at the local conservatory. So YMMV, but looking at potential “second tier” schools in urban areas might yield both scholarship money and excellent teachers.
If you share which state you’re in, posters may be able to share information about schools in states that offer discounted rates for residents of your state. Some states are in consortiums of sorts (like WUE for western states) while other schools will give special rates to the states that border theirs, etc.
UNT is still valid. if you receive $1k in merit (which is fairly easy I believe), you get in state tuition which is $13k. It is highly competitive though for music, so prescreen and audition are your best chance, and hopefully music money to go with that. Cost of living is relatively cheaper in Denton than other big cities as well.
Unfortunately Georgia is one of the harder states in terms of tuition exchange programs. It’s part of the Academic Common Market, a coalition of southeastern states, but you can only study something if it’s not offered at a public college in your state.
The only things even tangentially related to his musical interests are the majors of Bluegrass, Old Time, and Roots Music at East Tennessee State and commercial songwriting at Middle Tennessee State.
One school that would come in right at budget is Western Carolina which has very affordable rates for out-of-state students, with tuition, room & board running around $20k. It also seems to have some popular music offerings.