From what I have heard, I think it might not be worth it if you find it too expensive. Penn State is currently considering closing branch campuses, so I’m not sure what that is about, but maybe they can’t give good financial aid. Also, I’m not sure it’s a “real” state college. Pennsylvania has colleges that are actual “state” colleges (see attachment) and in-state students pay a reasonable tuition. Penn State seems to cost an arm and a leg due to no aid for everyone including in-state residents. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_State_System_of_Higher_Education
Even some PA residents don’t find PSU worth it with the lack of merit aid to in-state students. So for sure it is not worth OOS tuition. BTW, Florida’s state schools OOS tuition is cheaper than PSU in-state tuition!
PSU financial aid for Pennsylvania residents is not that good to begin with. The PSU branch campuses appear to be mostly like specialized community colleges for transfer to PSU main, but with higher costs than regular community colleges, though a few offer a significant selection of four year bachelor’s degree programs. Some of them are very small.
Yes, in Pennsylvania, the CSHE schools (PSU Pittsburgh, Temple, Lincoln) are called “state-related”, where they are independently run, but receive a state subsidy in exchange for offering discounted tuition for Pennsylvania residents. This is in contrast to the fully-state-owned-and-run PASSHE schools (though the latter tend not to give good financial aid even to Pennsylvania residents as well) and community colleges.
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