Help me w/ROI analysis: in-state free college [commute to flagship, ME major] vs paying for out-of-state [can afford up to $25k/yr without debt]

UNLV as well- the difference to Reno being they have non-stop flights to ABQ - but that’s the main advantage. UNR a more flagship type campus.

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Yay!! My son feels this team has what it takes to really go places. They have more faculty and university support than many of these teams, and a new, dedicated workshop facility that looks awesome. Everyone says that these teams are an amazing experience for MechEs so I’m really happy to hear your kid is interested! I hope you go tour and check it out!

It is something to think about as you look at other schools, too. My kid contacted and visited the car teams at each school that he toured, and this turned out to be the best way to learn more about each school from actual MechE students.

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@AustenNut great list…but will the total costs come in at $25,000 a year on any of these?

College Navigator was having issues last night and I didn’t go through and double-check every school’s page. But, some quick numbers, using room & board pricing from College Navigator (feds’ website). Actually, Fort Lewis is using College Navigator numbers, but it appears the site is still having issues and I can’t get the info for others’ pages.

Fort Lewis $11,340 for WUE tuition + $12,554 room & board = $23,894 (Eyemgh, I suspect your COA number includes the generous $4016 that Fort Lewis gives for its students. But as schools vary on how generous they want to be with giving allotments for books, transportation, allowance, etc, I typically think the closest apples to apples comparison is just tuition, room & board.)

U. of Houston: Doesn’t have a scholarship chart and its NPC doesn’t ask for academic stats. But considering that the stats for its full ride recipients are, “Based on the criteria used for the Tier One Scholarship, the average awardee for fall 2022 had a score of 1489 on the SAT (Evidence-Based Reading and Writing + Math) or an ACT Composite of 33, with a class rank in the top 3% and an unweighted core GPA of 3.98. (The unweighted GPA is calculated by the University of Houston using English, math, science and social studies grades.)” (Source). But I suspect that it would be likely for OP to get at least $1k in merit aid and even if OP doesn’t get the full ride, I suspect OP would be competitive enough to get an out-of-state waiver. So $12k for in-state tuition & $9962 from the NPC for room & board = $21,962

I don’t have enough time to continue rolling through the various schools, but I think that UT-Dallas would also be highly likely to fall under $25k. U. of Utah’s room & board on College Navigator shows as $11,437 + $14,000 for WUE tuition = $25,437.

For the privates, I don’t know, but I think that OP would at least have a shot. I know that SMU has merit scholarships of at least full tuition. North Central has merit scholarships of $24-29k, and it looks like its honors college (or their Great Books program) comes with an additional $5k in merit, so potentially $34k off of the tuition and fees of about $46k (source). So possibly $12k in tuition plus $14,444 for room & board for $26,444. Whether there are additional departmental scholarships or talent scholarships that OP might qualify for, who knows.

The point of my list was not to guarantee affordability, but to provide schools that I thought had a decent chance of hitting the price point.

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Amazing, thank you so much!

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My kids are out of school and we have no loans and for not a high income family, it makes our immediate life and future very comfortable.

Our kids don’t have loans and it makes their lives much less stressful with more options available to them.

I’ve seen their friends graduate w debt and it just makes it much more stressful on them, limits their options, makes it harder to save, etc.

In general, I would say to anyone, don’t trade off your and your kids’ future for a 4 year experience (that may or may not be better).

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I agree! It sounds like privates might hit the budget numbers:

If the SAT and AP exams go well this spring, there’s no reason not to apply to some reach privates, if the kid is interested in these schools and wants to deal with the apps (much more hassle than UNM’s super easy app, though :wink:). There is nothing wrong with a 4.0 UW, the APs may not be numerous but the choices are good (Calc BC, APUSH, Physics C), and some of these schools may not get a ton of apps from NM, which could help…

There’s nothing wrong with having a short list with a good affordable safety (which could be UNM, if the student is happy with it) + reach schools that meet need or have the potential of hitting your budget number, as many or few of these as you like.

But I would definitely set a firm budget number… and everyone needs to agree that if a school doesn’t hit that number, they are out of the running. That is what we did in our family, and since the numbers were agreed on before the acceptances came in, we had zero qualms about simply crossing out schools that did not meet numbers.

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I agree with this 100%. If you are considering ASU, look at UA for engineering. I cannot tell you how much it pains me to say that because I am an ASU grad, but UA is good value. Engineering is strong, and they give a lot of merit aid as well. (Housing is a bit of a problem, get your housing application and deposit in early … like October.) Those net price calculators are good for estimating aid at private universities, but I found that they lack accuracy on merit for the publics. Google search on UA merit and you will find a rubric they use for OOS merit. My DD19 had full tuition OOS paid at UA. We only paid for housing, food and ‘fees’. They don’t cover quite as much OOS merit now, so my DD24 is not considering them, but they are a decent option.

I’m an ASU grad too - or as my wife says, a Scum Devil (MBA). She did her undergrad at UA. You have Raytheon and other companies in Tucson.

UA is table based merit - so with a 4.0, you get $32K off. We don’t know what that will look like for next year’s class.

Beautiful campus - but like many schools they will cut expense and raise revenues. How much they’ll cut OOS merit remains to be seen…but it’s a good value and at least within range of ABQ (although Phoenix will have direct flights on SW) - but ASU is a bit pricier (at least today). And larger - the U of A campus and area is just nicer, calmer.

I’m not sure what the Navigator methodology is. I just pulled the COA number from the school’s webpage.

Just a personal anecdote. After looking at colleges up and down the east coast it turned out that the acceptance that was strongest in my son’s area of interest and that had the highest merit award was 20 minutes from home. We actually sat down to discuss how to handle his living on campus so close to home. In that conversation we (parents) ageed to never pop by campus and to treat him like he was hours (not minutes) away (not expect him home for every minor thing). In return, S agreed to not use being close to home as a crutch (no dropping laundry off for mom etc.). For us it worked out great. He had a happy and full campus based life. And there were a few times when the closeness helped (ex. he got back for a school break during a snowstorm, when his laptop crashed I drove his old one to use during the repair).

Anyway, a long way of saying that it may work out fine for your S to live on campus at a nearby college. It did for us.

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Sounds like you have your answer already :slight_smile: If you have to take out $150k in loans to afford it, you really can’t. I wouldn’t risk it. It’s not worth the cost for an employable degree like engineering.

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Yeah, I just spent four years travelling back and forth from east coast to Tucson for DD19 visits. I found no savings flying direct to Phoenix over flying to Tucson with a layover. Especially when you pay for a car out of Sky Harbor (sheesh, the fees)! I lived in Phoenix for 25 years, left in 2006. Man, things have changed!

My DD24 was admitted to UA and we saw the expected merit, which was only less (relative) than my DD19 because UA tuition and fees have been raised. So, we declined. I thought the 2024/2025 AZ regents approved and the numbers were final though. No matter.

They’re still showing $39,600 with $32K off for merit - but that’s the upcoming year. I haven’t seen next year’s yet but presumably won’t be as aggressive but you never know. It’s a flagship - and they want to keep their national standing.

Given the hole, I’m surprised the President is still there. Their CFO was the scapegoat.

Cost, Aid & Tuition: First Year Students | University of Arizona Admissions

2024-2025 Terms and Conditions | Office of Scholarships & Financial Aid (arizona.edu)

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Right. My apologies, I forgot we were dealing with the 2025/2026 academic year in this instance.

And I believe you are correct that there are likely big changes coming. Hopefully they can remain competitive for OOS talent.

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I generally don’t use the COA figure because there isn’t some formula that schools use to be comparable. For instance, some schools will show “Books and Supplies” as $600/year others as $1400/year and others some other amount. Same for “Other” expenses under living arrangements. Some schools include generous amounts for transportation and miscellaneous expenses while others don’t. I’ve seen schools list something like $1500 and others $4k or $6k, even in similar cost-of-living areas. Since it’s a bit of the wild west out there in COA-land, I find that using tuition & fees plus room & board as listed in one source (which is provided to College Navigator by the colleges themselves) is an easier apples to apples comparison for costs.

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Isn’t some of that a real difference? I know I have seen some colleges promoting they are going mostly non-textbook.

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This is a good discussion and lots of good thoughts and recommendations here. I was just going to mention that we live in a city in walking range of our state flagship and within an hour of many other campuses. I don’t know how many students we’ve seen from our metro over the years end up at one of these local campuses, live on campus and really thrive and learn to be independant. It doesn’t really matter if a dorm is 15 minutes from home or 15 hours if there are decent expectations and boundaries. And there are lots of advantages to a student being in closer range. I know more than one launching student that requred unexpected support that first year especially. We had a friend that was flying from the midwest out to a coast almost monthly his kid’s freshman year that I know had regrets about that choice. That kid did rally and is thriving in grad school now. But that was an expensive lesson.

If my kid were studying local on the cheap, I’d definitely encourage studying abroad, maybe applying for summer internships in other cities, etc. and try to finance that if possible. If 25k is what you can comfortably pay, that would be my budget. Apply and let the cards fall. Our flagship was high on both my kid’s lists. But then they ended up elsewhere for a similar price point with some luck playing the merit scholarship game. Since you are planning ahead, really digging and seeing where that might be possible could be worthwhile. But if your student were going local, I would at least require dorm life for the first year.

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Having sent two successfully through the system so far, my experience has been that the traditional text books are slightly cheaper in the end than the fees charged for access to the online variety. Net-net, it’s close enough not to quibble over.

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My kid is an engineering student and for most of the lower division math and science they just use PDF textbooks for free (getting these either from other students or downloading them from some shady Internet site…) The only book he’s had to buy was the online physics book, and that’s only because they have to do problem sets through the online system.

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