We are from Texas. What college would you go to for animation in Cali with out of state tuition? Daughter is super smart, so we will get some money, but out of state is so so expensive. Don’t want a bunch of debt and only have 100k for college. Thoights? Ideas?
Cal Arts for animation.
But it’s a private school, but a public. Not sure if that makes a difference for you.
By “only have 100k for college,” do you mean $100k total across 4 yr (so $25k/yr) or budget is $100k/yr?
If your TX student is looking to apply to CA public universities, there will not be any merit scholarships available and cost/year will be way above $25,000/year.
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Cal Arts total COA (cost of attendance) per year is ~$86,000.
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Are you hoping to get money from a California public university as an out of state resident? If so, you need to rethink your list. The CA publics give no need based aid to OOS students, and the merit awards they give are a drop in the bucket for the UCs which cost about $75,000 a year.
I would also suggest you do a Chance Me thread and include things like your daughter’s GPA, SAT or ACT (but not for the CA publics which are test blind), and mostly how much you can spend annually for college.
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100k for the whole 4 years. Anything in Cali that would give good money?
Is your daughter a national merit semifinalist?
Getting to $25,000 a year at a CA private is going to be very hard to do…in my opinion.
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4.1, SAT 1450, 5 AP’s. She is a national merit scholar.
What does this mean? Is she a Semifinalist or was she a commended NM student?
If she becomes a national merit finalist, she will get half tuition at University of Southern California…but even with that, the cost will be above $25,000 a year…by a lot.
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For animation, has she considered Ringling in Florida?
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You can run the Net Price calculators on Loyola Marymount and Chapman University but I do not think they will meet your budget even with merit aid.
Here are the top animation colleges in California: https://www.animationcareerreview.com/articles/top-20-animation-school-programs-california-2023-college-rankings
UCLA and the Cal States listed will not offer any financial aid to an OOS student and very little to none merit aid. I cannot comment on some of the other schools on the list.
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It’s just so pricey. Any other options that aren’t Cali that are affordable out of state?
D23 applied to three California privates as an OOS student.
Loyola Marymount didn’t give her nearly enough merit aid to get to her budget number.
Both St. Mary’s College of California and Whittier did get to her budget number with the highest merit they had to offer (which she got). Unfortunately, both of those numbers were still quite a bit higher than $25k/yr COA.
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Will she have a portfolio of any kind? We know an animation student who just graduated from Ringling in the spring…and that student got some significant merit aid.
California is a very expensive place to attend college.
Does your student have a mentor in this field with any ideas for her studies after college?
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She does have a nice portfolio. Gosh, I wonder if we need to re-think California schools…Its just where it all is!
No mentor–that’s why we though college in California would give her all the direct networks.
@merc81 any lists of schools for animation…
Start at the very beginning.
It’s great to have a location preference- but that’s a luxury at the very end when your D is deciding between two or three affordable options, NOT a good way to launch a search when budget is important.
There are solid programs in lots of non-California locations. So your D can start to research where graduates of those schools end up working; run the Net Price calculators to see what your costs would be (recognizing that most schools, costs go up every year) and then figure out what her realistic options will look like.
California is both big and populous- as you know. So educating its own students is a top priority, so it is tough for out of state students to find a “bargain” education there. Some of the privates do offer merit- but typically off a VERY steep list price. And the publics are focused on educating the children of their taxpayers, not kids from out of state.
You’ll get there- just don’t put the cart (location) before the horse (an affordable program)!
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Also, can you be more specific…what exactly in animation does your daughter want to do…and what drew her to this field.
That might help folks here help you.
Look at the public universities in this list. UT Dallas should be an affordable option.
https://www.animationcareerreview.com/articles/top-5-animation-schools-and-colleges-texas
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Cost of attendance at Ringling College of Art & Design = $76,570
Scholarship info here:
I’d recommend to fill out their Net Price Calculator to get a rough estimate of what you’d be expected to pay per year after scholarships & financial aid.
https://app.enrollmentfacts.com/NetPriceCalculator/NPC/Index/73