@Publisher no, C of C students cannot get instate tuition status after a year.
It’s possible some of their honors college scholarships reduce aid to the instate cost. But that wasn’t the case when my kid applied.
University of South Carolina does reduce to instate tuition for some of their scholarships.
We’re in CH too! 
Davidson! My Kenyon Eng/CW major loved Davidson and the main drag is super cute. As of last year, they didn’t have a CW major but last we heard, they were in the process of adding a concentration. My S found their English and Film Depts to be chock full of interesting classes.
They also have the Patricia Cornwell ('79) Creative Writing Scholarship.
And, it would be very convenient to home!!
UNC-Asheville
St John’s College in Annapolis - I’m not certain they have a good writing program, but it is certainly a school for students who like to read and who want a liberal arts education. Bonus points because she can split her time between the Md and NM campuses.
Elon - The town of Elon is incredibly small, but the little (very little) strip is next to campus and the current Elon students we spoke to said they love it.
Peace College - Raleigh is large, but the neighborhood around Peace can be a self-contained experience if she wants it to be. Very nice shops and such around the campus, and very walkable.
What about Elon? They have a CW minor w/in the Eng Dept and I was VERY pleasantly surprised by the campus. The little downtown area definitely isn’t as big as Franklin St, but it’s quirky and has the main staples every college UG wants (pizza, coffee, ice cream… and the Elon branch of Franklin St’s Med Deli if she likes Greek!)
Queens University in Charlotte has a CW major, and they offer generous merit aid for modest stats. It is a lovely, small campus, in a residential neighborhood near downtown Charlotte.
Thanks for all the suggestions. Y’all are great!
Snorklemom good point about generalizing on merit scholarships. This is all pretty new to me. Can anyone point me to good resources on how to figure out the bottom line costs? Different for every school, of course. Obviously we won’t know until she applies, but no point in getting her hopes up about a school we’re not willing to foot the bill for.
We may be pulling for the in-state schools pretty hard. She likes App State and Boone and likes UNC-G. It’s pretty hard to justify looking too hard at other schools unless we can make the cost come closer to in-state tuition at a UNC system school. I think with merit aid Mary Baldwin is likely to come close to NC in-state tuition, or so I am told by their friend. I should get up with the parents on that, but I know they wouldn’t pay more than they had to.
I think Elon is probably going to be a little too close to home, but we will might give it a look at some point since it’s practically in the neighborhood. I have a feeling that their merit scholarships are not that great, but we should look into that. I don’t think it’s going to be fun and funky enough for her, though. I’ve been there before, but she hasn’t.
Peace and Meredith are probably worth a look in Raleigh. I think she might prefer to get out of the Triangle, though, but not too far.
I will take a look at Agnes Scott. That is actually a family school. Not sure how much weight they give to legacies, but grandma went there. On the surface it looks too spendy for us.
St John’s looks teeny! Google says their enrollment is 432? I’ll toss it out to her, though.
Kinda doubt she’d wanna go to Mississippi, but I wouldn’t be opposed. We have some in-laws and friends down there. I think you’re talking about Ole Miss in Oxford (University of Mississippi).
Davidson is almost certainly going to be out of her league academically and ours monetarily.
She’s a good student (As & Bs), but not Davidson or Duke material. UNC and NC State are reaches academically right now. I think App State is a target school for her. UNC-G and Mary Baldwin might be safeties. She didn’t do honors last year (freshman), but is doing 3 honors classes this year. Current cumulative GPA is 3.42. GPA for just last semester was 3.98, so she is on an upward trend and I think understands what grades mean for having more choices on where she goes to college. She got a 28 on the Pre-ACT, but that was heavily weighted on the English and Reading vs Math (not her strong suit). Science portion was okay. I think with more honors and APs next year she will get the GPA up there.
Run the Net Price Calculator on each school’s web site. If you don’t have complicated financials (divorced parents, self employed) then the NPC should be fairly accurate.
There are net price calculators on each college website. If you aren’t divorced, don’t own a business, aren’t self employed, and don’t own real estate in addition to your primary residence, the net price calculators will give you an estimated net cost.
A couple of things…the net price calculators are set up now for kids starting college fall of 2020. Yours isn’t. Also, you don’t have a junior year GPA or SAT or ACT scores so no estimate of merit aid will be possible.
The 2022-2023 need based aid will be based on your 2020 tax year and income. You don’t know that number either.
So you will be going a lot of estimates and that isn’t always an accurate thing!
Plus between now and your child’s college application time, financial aid policies could very well change, as will the costs to attend college.
I think you also might want to broaden your daughters thinking beyond just a trendy downtown and a creative writing major. Those might be important to her now as a 15 or 16 year old. But they might be less important as college gets closer.
You are so fortunate to be instate for NC. Many wonderful options. People move there for this @katwkittens right?
@thumper1 Yep we sure do. MOVED 3200+ miles in a Uhaul. And still here!! 3 of the 5 kiddos have 6 degrees from the UNC system ( BS and grad degrees)!
Being in-state for NC is such a gift. The 4 year universities are fantastic and the junior colleges provide such a treasure trove of academic opportunities and some of the lowest prices in the US.
Where else can you pay such low tuition for community college and medical school?? And we left CA for NC! Best move we ever made.
Kat
Ok, we just moved here this summer so I need educated, apparently. I know UNC-CH is outstanding, obviously. But I know precisely 0 about any of the other in state NC schools, other than a handful of private.
What about ECU? Greenville has a nice downtown and close to campus like UNC. My husband and I attended UNC, my daughter attends UNC, and my son is going to ECU. App would also be a good fit.
College of Charleston was my first thought. Belmont was second. Maybe James Madison?
I love the Boone area. Haven’t been for a while but I remember the kids at App State being happy.
I would visit most/all the UNC campuses and work from there. I’m not sure UNC Wilmington is close enough to the fun area of Wilmington but our neighbors have a house in Wilmington and love it.
I visited UNC-W while my daughter was on an athletic visit there, and YAWN. It was the most boring school I ever visited. The campus looked like a suburban office park: clean, flat and sterile. My daughter thought the same. It was like the entire campus had been built at the exact same time, rather than being built up over decades. Unless your daughter’s idea of a “cute college town” is a Panera and Starbucks in the parking lot of a Home Depot, I don’t see Wilmington striking a chord. (Really, this is the only school that has ever provoked such a negative reaction from either of us.)
Washington College in Maryland has a strong CW program and gives away one of the largest CW prizes in the world to a graduating senior. (Full disclosure, I went there many many years ago on a CW scholarship but transfered for personal reasons–I always wondered if I could have won it–was worth about 35K then, maybe close to twice that now.)
They give a ton of merit money. I can’t attest to the town; it wasn’t particularly college oriented when I was there, but I think it might be more so now. It’s a pretty setting. But certainly should be on the radar for a CW student, if it’s not too far north for you.
Centre College is right in the middle of downtown Danville, KY, a charming community dating from the 1700’s. There are lots of fun places for students to hang out in its restored historic city center, from coffee shops to bakeries and bars.
Great academics and study abroad programs, also very generous with merit aid. It’s right in the middle of bluegrass country, with Lexington only an hour away. It’s a bargain at full tuition.
Planit, that was exactly our reaction to UNC-W when we went over the summer, plus it was super hot and humid (not a surprise, really). We did love downtown Wilmington down by the riverwalk, but not sure how often UNC-W students get over there. We will probably give it another look when college is in session because it is supposed to have a really good creative writing program and I believe is the only UNC system school with a Creative Writing undergrad degree (not an English degree with a concentration in CW). I don’t think it is going to be the one, though, but I feel like we didn’t really give it a fair shake because we were hot and tired and hungry.
I will check out the others y’all mentioned. Hadn’t heard of Centre College or Washington College before. Thanks for mentioning them.
I’m not feeling ECU for her, but worth a look. She prefers mountains instead of eastern NC unless you are right at the beach. I think CoC seems like it would be in a nice location, but UNC-W’s location was a disappointment. Seriously, though, Cape Fear Community College in Wilmywood has got the best location right on the riverwalk with tons of funky shops nearby. Wish that was where UNC-W was instead.
I’m kinda pulling for App State because it is super affordable and a good school with lots of opportunities for study abroad and other programs, but she may end up wanting something smaller or somewhere that is newer to her. We go up to Boone all the time so it’s very familiar, but that could be good, too.
BTW, for anybody reading this thread who really wants a bargain, check out Western Carolina. Tuition is $500 for in-state students! It’s a program called NC Promise through the NC state legislature. OOS is only $2500. But the Legislature is controlled by a different party from the Governor’s party and they are at an impasse on the budget right now so things are in limbo a bit, but I think it will still be $500 once we get through that. Same deal at UNC-Pembroke and Elizabeth City State, too.
And I agree it really is a gift to be in NC for college. That’s why I can’t see paying much for OOS at a state school somewhere else if I can get $7,710 tuition at App State. If there is a small private LAC with generous aid like MBU I am all ears, though. Their overall tuition is $30k and they apparently give out $22k merit scholarships to most applicants, making it $8k and comparable to NC in-state tuition.
ChaosParent, North Carolina does have some really good public colleges. In addition to UNC, NC State is top-notch for engineering, computer science, design, as well as traditional programs like ag and textiles. I think they have a good writing program, too, but not sure my daughter will have the stats for it. App State I would put third in the NC state schools. ECU is also up there. Then maybe UNC-Charlotte, UNC-Asheville, UNC-Greensboro and UNC-Wilmington, then Western Carolina, NC Central, NC A&T, and then it gets a little murky for me with Pembroke and the other HBCUs like Elizabeth City, and Fayetteville State, Winston-Salem State. UNC School of the Arts is also really fantastic, but it is a performing arts conservatory, so I wasn’t including it in the mix of the others. I think it is often ranked in the top ten nationally.
Thanks for the quick run down! We have a 12 yr old in the CHCCS so I’ll be doing this all over again in a few years. The older S is in Ohio, but the little one is vowing to stay closer to home. We need to get into Raleigh to see NC State… my Raleigh experience so far has been Crabtree and Wegmans. LOL
State is a good school. The campus is not as pretty as UNC (or App), though. Definitely worth checking out if it has programs your student might be interested in. They do a bunch of summer camps for middle and high school students over there too.
Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, FL. Offers a BA or BFA in creative writing. https://www.eckerd.edu/creative-writing/why-creative-writing-at-eckerd/ Generous merit and financial aid and artistic merit awards. They offer the Writers in Paradise workshop every January, https://www.writersinparadise.com/ The college is located on the water, with a beach, waterfront activities. The mentor/student relationship is quite strong, wonderful winter term, semester, summer study abroad programs as well as international spring break service trips with professors and classmates. The school offers a BFA theater and offers several productions/yr, the local community theater company, A Simple Theater is located on campus as well. There are several orchestras and a community/student one too. A new visual arts building was completed last winter. While the school is small, it offers many activities with an active student run organization. The local but comes on campus through security gate and the ride to downtown St. Pete is about 10 min. There are ride share vehicles on campus and bicycles that can be taken off campus.
Is SE a must? When I first read this I immediately thought of Smith and Northampton MA.