Hi everyone! I am currently on the college search for the 2019-2020 school year (currently a senior in high school) and I have a goal to be able to go to university in California, specifically in Los Angeles, San diego and San francisco. I live in Arizona so I am out of state, and the tuition (with room and board) will be around 30-35k for state schools and even for private universities (with grants). How do I afford this? Is it possible to be able to find enough scholarship money to pay for this? FASFA will most likely only give me 5-6k, and if it matters I have a 3.5 GPA and I am in the top 25% of my class.
It’ll cost you A LOT more than that. For example, UCLA’s total cost of attendance is $63,000, including tuition, room and board, fees, books, personal expenses, transportation, and health insurance. San Diego State University is about $40,000 all in. UC San Diego is $60,000.
Most students who want to pay $63-$65K per year, to attend a UC, rely on the bank of “Mom and Dad”.
The UC’s are public universities funded by the State of California. Many of those funds come from state taxpayers. They DO NOT fund non-residents.
Since you are OOS, you can attend if you get in AND if you can pay.
UC admission has been quite competitive. 3.5 GPA is not enough to have a meaningful admission chance at any of UC campuses except UC Merced. And they don’t offer any meaningful financial aid to out of state students.
On the other hand, you may be able to find CSU campuses that will admit you with in state tuition through Western Undergraduate Exchange, although there probably won’t be any meaningful financial aid either. http://wue.wiche.edu UC Merced is also the only UC campus for in state tuition through WUE.
I’m assuming OP means SFSU, SDSU, and possibly CSULA which all have COAs in the 30s as opposed to UC 65k+. Those are more reasonable for a 3.5 as well.
However, that doesn’t change much info presented in the thread.
Have you run the NPCs? I would be surprised if you get anything more than Federal loans for state universities in California. Loans have to be repaid with interest and are not a good idea unless you have no more affordable option.
For the vast majority of students, they cannot afford this. My suggestion is that you attend a more affordable university, and then if you want to go to California after graduation. It will still be there.
A) Go to the website of the college of choice and search for Net Price Calculator (NPC). Have your parents fill it out with you to see what needbased financial aid you are eligible for.
B) See if your family can afford that college.
C) If not, you have to find colleges you can afford without massive loans.
Then, consider the following
Look for cheaper schools. In-state school are usually much cheaper than private/out of state schools
Look to get as many college credits as you can in HS.
a)Your state may have a “running start” or “dual enrollment” program where you can take college courses for free in HS
b) Take AP or IB classes and do well on the AP/IB tests so you can get college credit
Look for scholarships
a) Apply to colleges where your stats are significantly above average to get merit scholarshops
b) Look at Net Price Calculators on colleges to see if you would get need based financial aid
c) Look for colleges with auto-scholarship based on gpa/sat http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
Sstudy for SAT on Khan Academy
Go to community college for two years, and then transfer to a state school
If you want to get out of state, remember you also can do internships/co-ops in California, study abroad in other countries and even summer undergraduate research programs at other universities across the country. You will have plenty of opportunities if you seek them out to explore the world. Getting through school without burdensome amounts of debt means you’ll have more freedom for the rest of your life.
“How about private university? Would it be cheaper in the long run?”
You can get some sense of this by running the Net Price Calculator. However, usually no.
A few of the very elite private universities give very good need based aid to low income students. However, they are very selective and would be quite a high reach with a 3.5 unweighted GPA.
Going out of state costs more money than it’s worth, especially in CA. Living costs are the highest in the country. Even if by some miracle, you managed to get financing for it, you’d be looking at a $200k bachelors degree. That kind of debt would squash you like a grape. Private schools are not that much different. You have 2 big flagship schools in AZ where the tuition is reasonable. You’d be far better off going to one of those.
WUE means that the participating university offers residents of the western region states 1.5 times in-state tuition (but living expenses will still exist). However, that does not necessarily mean that other financial aid will be available. WUE is only available at less selective schools, may only be available for some majors, and may be offered only to limited numbers of students.
You need to check each school’s WUE and cost of attendance page to see what it may cost with WUE.
All perspective perhaps but, as an OOS applicant with a 3.5 paying for a UC be a problem because they are really unlikely to accept you. UCM - perhaps and as others note above, they participate in … WUE still, it aint cheap and the WUE program includes some attractive options that will cost a lot less. If you just gotta get out of the heat, NAU is a good option, a smaller school, in state tuition and a reasonable cost of living. Others popular WUE schools to explore include UNR, Humboldt, Sac and Chico State, U of Utah, Western Wash and Boise State.
Post a little more about what you are looking for in your college experience for more specific guidance.
