@burghdad may have additional insight to reinforce NiceUnparticular’s post.
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Congrats to your daughter on her strong record. She sounds like a real gem, and I would be so proud!
I agree with those above who suggest substituting University of Minnesota for Madison. Like Madison, the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul) is a great place to study poly sci because it is a state capital with lots of internship availability. UMN also has longstanding ties to China. Even during the darkest depths of the Cold War, UMN kept alive a thriving academic exchange program with a couple of Chinese universities. This is reflected even today in the strength of its Chinese program. And unlike Madison, UMN has some merit opportunities. You still might not get the price low enough, but at least you have a chance.
If she keeps up her Chinese studies, don’t forget to encourage your daughter to apply for a critical language fellowship. These are quite prestigious: https://clscholarship.org/
I agree with those who suggest considering the opportunities available through National Student Exchange if she happens to land at Oklahoma State (sadly, University of Oklahoma doesn’t participate.) NSE allows up to a full year of exchange at any of the other participating schools, paying no more tuition than what the student is paying at the home institution. Some fun schools participate including a number that offer poly sci + mandarin including: American University, St. Olaf, UMN, University of New Hampshire, Umass-Amherst, Umass Boston, CUNY Queens (NYC). Between a year doing NSE and perhaps a semester doing study abroad, your daughter would be getting out of Oklahoma a lot, while still saving a lot of money.
https://nse.org/exchange/find-campus/
Best wishes to your terrific daughter and to your whole family!
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University of Oklahoma is a great option. If she completes the essay, it looks as though she meets the requirements for admission to the honors college. Honors classes are limited to 22 students and there are numerous research experiences designed for honors students, too. One of the really neat parts of OU’s honors college is that students can participate in a summer study program at one of Oxford’s colleges. Additionally, if she is interested in potentially doing law school in-state, up to 25 incoming honors students are selected for a 3+3 program (i.e. cutting one year off in the path to a law degree), with the potential to use some of the scholarships from the 4th year towards law school expenses. In addition, the honors college has special networking opportunities for its juniors and seniors to build connections and explore different career paths. There are also some honors college only clubs, like an outdoors club. There’s even a mentor program that sets up every incoming honors college freshman with an upperclassman to help make the transition to college easier.
Additionally, the Carl Albert Center for Congressional research and studies seems promising for a poli sci major as do the OU Center for Studies in Democracy and Culture, the Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, and the Community Engagement and Experiments Lab. OU is a 26m drive (in current conditions, per Google) to the Oklahoma State Capitol, so there are lots of opportunities for political engagement there, too. Plus, OU offers through a major in Chinese, so she should have plenty of course options to complete her minor.
If you would like additional help looking for schools that could end up meeting a comparable price point as OU, just let us know.
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This is great advice. I think 10k over OU is where I’d be comfortable. Her dealbreakers are within an hour of a major metropolitan city, enrollment over 10l, study abroad opportunities with China or the UK, strong poly sci or pre law program
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The net price calculators can be inaccurate for families with a single parent.
I would urge you not to take additional loans above the Direct Loan amounts your student can take per year.
Your overall family financial health needs to be considered as well.
What can you pay per year for her undergrad college education.
She sounds like a great kid.
I really don’t want to pay over 40k a year and I know that’s probably way too low of a number
That is objectively a lot of money! Yes, full pay is a lot more at many colleges, but lots of people are going to go to college with a lot less to spend.
Generally, what that implies in terms of viable colleges will depend on what you can get in terms of need aid. But even if you qualify for little or no need aid, possibly merit aid can get you on budget at a variety of colleges–the question is whether those colleges are attractive or not in comparison to in-state options.
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That isn’t too low of a number at all.
A lot of families can’t even make the cost of their in-state flagship work, and that starts to become a problem in terms of accessing a quality education.
But you’re willing/able to pay the cost of your flagship, plus a differential for a demonstrably-“better” school OOS. That is 100% fair and reasonable. Not everybody can or should pay 70K, 80K, 90K/year and up for college. It’s okay to have a budget, even if it limits the options. Your child can only choose one college, and not every option has to be on the menu.
Soo… when you say in-state plus 10K, does that mean the in-state sticker price (which is surprisingly high - OU’s website estimates almost 38K/year for an in-state student living on campus) plus 10K, or does it mean 10K over a lower anticipated cost for OU? (It appears she would get $4K/year in auto-merit, and I don’t know if there’s anything need-based that would also come off the top?)
Another financial question that occurs to me… if her anticipated first-year aid is well and truly messed up by one-time income associated with the loss of her dad, would she consider planning a gap year to let that blow over, and start college when the FAFSA info is more advantageous? For example, she could do a “super-senior” year abroad with AFS, or an Americorps program like City Year… both of which would also scratch the “change of scene” itch. (ETA: the AFS program in China does accept students who have graduated, for a post-grad year: https://www.afsusa.org/programs/china-high-school/)
Have you run the NPC numbers for the full-need-met schools, based both on 2023 numbers, and also on anticipated 2024 numbers? Do schools like Columbia, Tufts, USC, and BU look affordable at all, even without the extra income that’s on the books for 2023?
Truly, it won’t limit her prospects if OU Honors turns out to be the financially-prudent choice. Debt, on the other hand, could be limiting in ways that she really can’t appreciate from her current perspective.
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Below are some schools that your D may want to consider, some of which would be extremely likely to hit your budget, and others which might hit the budget depending on how much merit aid the school gives your D.
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Arizona State: About 65k undergrads at this school in the Phoenix metro area. Sticker price is around $48k, but it used to give pretty good merit. It’s worth checking out to see if it might meet your price.
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DePaul (IL): About 14k undergrads at this Chicago school that can be generous with merit aid.
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Florida State: About 33k undergrads in Tallahassee (population of about 200k). Sticker price is about $32k/year.
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Ohio State: About 46k undergrads in Columbus (population of over 900k). Sticker price is about $53k, but sufficient merit aid is possible (though not guaranteed) to get the price within budget (source).
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Temple (PA ): About 24k undergrads in Philadelphia. Sticker price is about $55k, but merit aid is offered here.
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U. of Delaware: About 19k undergrads with a sticker price of about $55k. About 1h from Philadelphia and 1h16m from Baltimore. Merit aid is available here.
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U. of Houston (TX): About 38k undergrads with a sticker price of about $33k. I suspect your D would receive merit aid here and would likely qualify for a waiver of out-of-state costs here as well, dropping the sticker price to about $21k.
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U. of Kansas: Lawrence gets great reviews as a college town and is about 45m from Kansas City (metro population of more than 2 million people). Sticker price is about $41k but it appears that your D would receive $14k/year in merit, dropping the price to around $27k (source).
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U. of Kentucky: About 23k undergrads with a sticker price of about $49k/year. Lexington has a population of over 300k (and a metro of over 500k). She would receive at least $12,500 in merit aid but would be eligible to compete for a full tuition scholarship (source). If her test scores increase slightly (33 ACT or 1450 SAT) she could compete for the full ride.
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U. of Minnesota – Twin Cities: About 39k undergrads at this school that @fiftyfifty1 mentioned earlier with a sticker price of about $50k. If you run the Net Price Calculator it will estimate the amount of merit aid your D would receive. I’m guessing it would probably be about $14k or maybe more, which would drop this school’s price to around $36k. Additionally, I’ve heard anecdotes of the school continuing to stack additional scholarships.
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U. of Pittsburgh (PA ): About 24k undergrads at this school with a sticker of a little over $53k. Lots of people at CC love this school. Applications are open now and are rolling admissions. Your D’s best shot for merit aid here would be to get that application in ASAP.
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U. of South Carolina: About 27k undergrads at this school with a sticker closing in on $48k. It has a very well-reputed honors college here as well. Merit aid is possible. The Columbia metro area has over 850k people.
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U. of Utah: About 26k undergrads at this school in Salt Lake City. It also has a well-reputed honors college. Its sticker price is about $42k/year, but if your D stays in UT over the first summer, she can then qualify as a resident of UT which would then drop the price to about $22k/year from her remaining years.
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Speaking of Arizona State and U of Minnesota, those are two of the eight colleges that participate in the Language Flagship Program for Chinese. (Link already posted by MYOS.) If she wants east coast, URI is on this list as well; they give merit and are very strong in foreign languages and international programs. In addition to the Chinese Flagship program with a capstone year in Taiwan, they also offer a dual-degree International Studies & Diplomacy program for which Chinese is one of the available languages. URI is in a lovely coastal location, about an hour from Providence (with easy transit options to get to the city).
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URI sounds like a really nice option Amy idea how hard it is to get merit based aid there?
Better, if she’s excited about both, apply to both. Barnard’s acceptance rate is still in the single digits. It’s not a back door into Columbia.
It isn’t a back door, but it does have a significant ED “bump” - 33% acceptance rate for the ED cycle, vs. 9% RD. I don’t think anyone is trying to say it’s a back door, just that it could be a more fruitful use of that one ED spot, and therefore it deserves a look.
I understand the impulse to rule out women’s colleges without looking more closely. But schools like Barnard and Scripps, that have such close ties to co-ed institutions that basically everything is coed except the dorms, are worth looking at with an open mind before ruling them out. (Although in this case, it’s unclear whether there’s an affordability differential between Barnard and Columbia, and it’s not really confirmed that either one works financially.)
Re: the URI and merit aid question, I have seen a number of kids on here get enough merit from URI to get to cost-parity with their in-state flagships. (There are a few full-ride scholarships too, but I haven’t seen anyone post about getting one.) The few that I remember well enough to look back at had similar grades but more like 1500-ish SAT scores. So I wouldn’t necessarily count on in-state level costs, but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to hope for “in-state plus 10K.” But my impressions come from a pretty small sample size; hopefully there are others with more experience who can chime in.
ETA: Never mind about the test scores - I don’t know if this is a recent change, but standardized test scores aren’t considered for merit: https://web.uri.edu/admission/scholarships/ It’s based on weighted GPA as recalculated by them, and course selection. So, I would think a full-IB student with a 3.9UW would be pretty well-positioned.
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Another suggestion - St Anselm in NH… great for poli sci, in the NE, and MAY have merit to get to budget. You would have to check.
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