I finally found the Ole Miss Cost - it looks like they jacked up tuition OOS - so it might be $23K-ish tuition, room and board. Ugh. But maybe the flagship gives you more? You have to check.
The issue is few schools seem to offer Arabic.
UNM has an Arabic program - not sure if a major. If you get a scholarship, it’s about $23.5K for tuition, room and board - but apply by Feb 1 and they’ll give you the Amigo to bring you under budget. Their study abroad is in Oman.
This is a really tough one - hopefully you’ll find out the Flagships are supported with lots of $$.
I think geography is what I’m willing to sacrifice for attendance, on the conditions that I’m confident I can get a good job or fellowship (Fulbright, Rhodes, etc. doesn’t have to be super prestigious like those first two) or something after college. As long as post-bachelors will still go very well, then I am willing to give up only considering the Northeast.
Very, very coincidentally—I applied to UNM a couple days ago since a friend suggested “we should all apply to one college” and I took part. I don’t know really anything about it at all, but maybe I will seriously consider it if it can pay. I need to do a deep dive on the flagships regardless.
Big endowment - and it’s not just Johnson…they have others that are full tuition, in addition to meeting need.
Per the common data set, 269 of 472 first year got need aid @ W&L. The Johnson isn’t need aid - so it’s got a very different profile than a Colgate or Tufts with only 1/3 getting.
I think a good way to get a sense of any school is to go to niche (google niche + school name). Scroll down to the “Students” section - and while they show 3 words on the cover, click in- and you’ll get a better poll. The top 3 of W&L are:
Classy, Smart, Rich, White
Motivated
Classy, Smart, Rich, White, Entitled
The 4th is Committed to Honor/Integrity
So in regards to rich and white - I mean, any school costing that much will have big wealth. There’s wealth at lots of public schools too - I saw tons of BMWs and MBs visiting my kid at Alabama.
The W&L CDS shows 1279 of 1881 are white (68%). Colgate is 64%. Middlebury is 54%. UVA is 49%. UD is 67%. IU is hard to find - they show 21% from marginalized populations but don’t have a CDS. Ole Miss is 78%.
Will be near impossible to get but these schools have them…you can research for Arabic.
Delaware takes part in the Academic Common Market and UGA is the school for Arabic - you’d get in-state ($24K-ish) but only starting Junior Year…just a thought I had.
Louisiana Lafayette will get you to budget. It’s confusing but you’d get an OOS waiver - so then cost is about $25,500. But then you’d get $6K off a year - so that’s $19,500-ish. And then the first year 12K to cover food/housing - so if you average out over 4 years, about $16.5K. @AustenNut do I have that right? They have a minor.
You’re really in a tough situation…sorry. I hope you get a reach or W&L type. I don’t think you’re in a position given the # of students offering Arabic and the cost to get picky with geography or diversity, etc.
I definitely want diversity at my school (I grew up with diversity, and in high school, there hasn’t been much of it) if possible—but again, if the cost is taken care of, I am begrudgingly willing to look past that.
See previous comment I just updated - and even an 80% white school has diversity - but you’re not in a position, if Arabic and low cost are required, to be picky on diversity and geography.
Yeah, I recognize that I won’t really have a perfect college that will have everything I would like it to have. My original plan was to shoot for many reaches and hope just one would accept me, and now it’s still the same except I’ll have a couple more matches to apply to. Worst case scenario, I go to community college freshman year, work a bunch while doing so, and transfer to another college after.
Hopefully not - there are some affordable - if you’re willing to travel. There’s typically less merit for transfers. $15K is the cost of room & board at most schools so you somehow need full tuition. I imagine a military academy isn’t in your plans?
What you may need to decide is - let’s say you get into UNM at cost (I believe you will) and it’s the only one you do - are you willing to go that far (and there will be transport costs)?
It something to toss around mentally - so you are prepared.
Just a warning. You aren’t paying tuition to the agency. You are paying a fee, that is not a Educational expense when it comes time for taxes. You will not get a T-1098 and if you are using scholarship money for this, it will become income to your child. I fought this for months, spoke to everyone at the agency and at the college. No one would issue a T-1098. Well, the school issued a 1098 showing the scholarship money but not the tuition expense, so a big increase in income. The school issued her scholarship and other FA money to D, and then we had to pay the agency.
That’s very strange – we were told this would be a valid educational expense for which we could use our 529 plan, so I figured that for tax purposes, it counted as tuition. Different agencies might work differently - on our invoice, it the cost was itemized: tuition, room, fees. Maybe it’s different when funded with scholarship money? Or maybe different agencies handle the expenses differently?
It will depend if you pay the school directly (your school) or if you pay an outside agency, as my daughter had to do; the program was sponsored by her university, teachers from her school went with them to London, and the courses had the same course numbers as courses taught on campus so there was nothing to show that the courses were taken off campus, but they used an agency to pay the University in London, the housing, the student fees, insurance, etc. The money was her regular FA and her scholarship money (plus scholarship money for study abroad, thank you Dick Cheney). They gave her (deposited in her bank account) all the FA money in early Jan and we had to pay the agency by the time the program started in late Jan. The agency isn’t a university so therefore can’t issue a 1098 and it is all considered a ‘fee’ and not an QEE, qualified educational expense.
Are there some colleges that don’t use agencies to organize the programs and pay the foreign school? Probably. You can ask the college that, but probably need to ask the study abroad department.
It was a huge shock to me when I was doing the taxes 15 months later. Her T-1098 from the school had the spring semester abroad (scholarships but no offsetting tuition) and the fall semester on campus, so I had to unwind it all. Probably at midnight on tax day.
Your 529 plan may issue the t-1098. The agency would not do it, and as I understood it it was because they aren’t a university so don’t issue those. The university did issue a T-1098 (for the whole year) and it showed all the financial aid because it was issued to my daughter, but only tuition for the fall semester because ‘they’ didn’t charge tuition for the study abroad, the agency just charge a fee. I think the university had a processing fee for $150 or so to record the credits earned on the study abroad, even though it was their own professors teaching the courses.
This is getting a little off topic…but isn’t the 1098T an information piece? You should be keeping good track of your qualified expenses yourself, because they aren’t always accurately reflected on the 1098T.
That is correct. The 1098-T is informational. It doesn’t always match up with what the taxpayer reports; the taxpayer is responsible for keeping information to support taking an education tax credit.
And I would be shocked if any financial aid office would offer tax-related advice. That was a big no-no everywhere I worked.
