<p>PADAD14, I agree with all the advice you’re getting here. There’s no doubt, that for most middle class families, the cost of sending a child to college is a shock to the system. Don’t beat yourself up for what you can’t afford–your kids are lucky to have parents who will do whatever they can to help. </p>
<p>As others have pointed out, Penn State and Pitt (along with Temple), are state affiliated, but they are not part of the PASSHE system, which is much more affordable for most families. You don’t say where you live in PA, but check out some of those schools online to see which ones offer engineering. With your son’s stats, he may even attract some merit money. </p>
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<p>Having a few of those as more affordable options might give your son some additional options worth considering. (Just to give you an idea, in our case, the net price calculators we used said it would cost $34,000 for our son to attend Penn State UP and, alternatively, about $24,000 to attend West Chester University, one of the PASSHE schools.)</p>
<p>Penn State and Pitt are notoriously expensive for in-state students who don’t get merit awards, and plenty of families where I live in suburban Philadelphia, even affluent ones, send their kids to PASSHE schools or Temple, which has added some scholarships recently and has a very good engineering school.</p>
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<p>Good luck!</p>