It appears that many schools had larger increases in the 2009-2012 time frame, probably due to state budget cuts at public schools and endowment losses or lower income at private schools.
Economic downturns also increase student demand at many schools, due to unemployed people wanting to retrain for a different type of career that they believe will have better job prospects than the one they can no longer find a job in.
Keep in mind many LACs like to see demonstrated interest. That could a a visit to the school, and interview, or reaching out to your local admissions rep with questions, etc. Look at the College Data Set and see what the school labels as important. Do everything possible to let the schools of interest know you are interested in them and maybe the money will follow. I don’t know, but it can’t hurt. Good luck!
I agree that the costs are insane. That said, one of my kids got half off the sticker price in merit at one of the schools. Be smart about where he’s applying if you want to look at some private schools in addition to your public option.
You seem to be unduly poo-pooing your state’s publics - Oregon has a wide variety of affordable, credible public colleges. The ones I’ve been to, OIT, Southern Or, Portland State, UofO and O State each offer a vastly different student experience - and produce competent graduates. Tour them with an objective eye and I bet you are surprised. Several years ago, i had to take a similar approach to our CSUs and found that my impressions of most of them were outdated and inaccurate.
As a few others have captured above, the WUE program makes for a much broader set of choices than just in state. We live in CA, because of WUE, UNR, Boise State and Ft Lewis (where my son is a Jr) would have been about the same price (tuition) as SDSU… you really should spend some time looking at the list. (Hawaii is included) I am certain you can find an affordable college that you both can be excited about. https://www.wiche.edu/wue/students
@JD7777 in answer to your initial question - not that I know of. We certainly would not. We still have 2 more children to put through and could not start a precedent with our D18 that we then would not/could not fulfill for our S23 and D25. We were not willing to sink ourselves further into debt when she could go to in-state schools tuition free based on her scores.
Thank you NCalRent and by no means did I mean to discount our in-state options and given our financial realities, there is a good chance that both kids will end up attending public schools in Oregon. Just disappointed that the “college experience” that I appreciated so much, where I left home to study not knowing exactly where that would lead or where my career would go, is financially unrealistic (and perhaps irresponsible). Not being able to attend so many schools without looking at 150k in debt led to the original question in this post- are families really taking on that much debt to fund a bachelors degree.
and you can go to college, not knowing where it’ll take you… about anywhere. There are LOTS of colleges that don’t require students to pay full price if the grades and (especially) scores are there.
And with WUE, merit scholarships, etc, there are a lot of options.
Well, you DO have to spend a lot of money to simply have any 4 year college experience… unless 100k out of pocket for 4 years at our state public isn’t a lot of money.
With a 4.0 GPA and 32 ACT there has to be schools that would offer him some good scholarships though. You just have to spread a wider net and be more flexible. My son might even end up going out of state because of scholarship money and his stats aren’t as good as your son’s (31 ACT and 3.7 GPA). We never thought we’d be doing anything but in-state.
Plus, half that 100K is probably room and board. If finances are tight, living at home and going to a local school saves a ton. Or CC first couple years then transfer.
Yes, right now it’s virtually impossible to spend less than 25K a year, and the “low end” budget tends to be closer to 30K for most flagships. For parents in the middle middle class (61K for the family of 4), that’s often impossible - and for working class families it’s even more restrictive and complicated, even in states where public universities may be tuition-free through generous state grants, a “university/state promise”, or through a state-wide system, since there’s also the cost of room&board+books… let alone in states that charge tuition at their public college and/or may not offer financial aid.
Better grades and scores will yield more possibilities, whether from meet need, highly selective colleges (for working class and middle class families) or from colleges with big merit scholarships (for upper middle class families).
All in all, middle and upper middle class families should save some of their income for college costs then switch to spending that amount for college in addition to the savings. Even if you’ve not done it yet, you can start now and set aside as much as you can for your children.
If you run the NPC on OU, SOU, OIT… + Whitman, UPuget Sound, Lewis&Clark, Sonoma State (WUE), do you find any that is affordable (even if, obviously, all are very expensive)? Does the amount change depending on test scores, when you’re able to enter this, and what is the tipping point?
You really don’t. I have one child who went to a private school (~$50k to $58k per year over the 4 years) and in total I think we spent about $10k OOP and she borrowed (used) $7.5 in loans. She had scholarships and FA and some grants, including athletic money. She was happy with the school although I think she would rather have gone to MIT or Yale. My other daughter went to Wyoming and OOP I think it was probably about $15k and she borrowed $20k. That included study abroad, her sorority dues, living on campus all 4 years. Everything. It doesn’t have to cost $20-30k per year. There are cheaper schools or cheaper ways to do scholls. I know students who did co-ops, were RAs to earn r&b, joined ROTC. I really don’t know that many who just borrowed $150k.
There is always going to be a school for a student, but it may not be THE school they originally wanted to go to or dreamed of. Lots of ways to get to the finish line.
I was just talking with a friend at work today. His stepson is starting his senior year and landed an RA position. With his merit scholarship and the RA position, he said his bill was $-71 for fall semester. Yep. They’re paying him $71 to go. This is at a private school. Cost of attendance about 40K/year sticker.
I don’t know anyone that has borrowed 150K for undergrad.
IMHO only a fool would incur that kind of debt/expense for an undergrad education. You really don’t need to spend that kind of dough to get the college experience - your kid can go somewhere like Chico, Sonoma, Reno, or Boise for around $8k in tuition under WUE and have a great ‘away college’ dorm experience. No, they aren’t Brown but, they are credible institutions that put out qualified graduates. Dorm fees vary widely but, UNR and Chico have on-campus room and board packages for around $11k. I am sure Boise and Sonoma are similar. Any of them would be a lot different than where you are now and would present an adventure all their own. All in, it’s $20k/yr or at all of those schools. (In my experience, the cost estimators on most college web sites include things like a cell phone and health insurance - which you are paying even if your kid stays home and plays video games. )
Now, $80k isn’t chump change, here in CA, there’s very generous need based aid for families who need it. I am not sure how generous Oregon is but, your kid can (and IMHO should) work part time and earn some of that - A young adult could easily earn $10k per year - which goes a long way toward covering their annual expenses. If that’s not workable - then a CC while living at home is a better idea than borrowing so your kid can have fun.
I agree with @NCalRent (although the name sounds better as NCalRant). If you don’t have the money to go to a private or even the flagship you need to look hard at the options. Community College to University is a great way to save money. Go to where you can afford it or at least take out loans less the 40K over 4 years.
@Ncalrent “IMHO only a fool would incur that kind of debt/expense for an undergrad education. You really don’t need to spend that kind of dough to get the college experience - your kid can go somewhere like Chico, Sonoma, Reno, or Boise for around $8k in tuition under WUE and have a great ‘away college’ dorm experience. No, they aren’t Brown but, they are credible institutions that put out qualified graduates”
I would hardly think it appropriate to call someone a fool for incurring the expense of sending their kid to an elite college (nor would I be critical of those that opt not to). The reality however is that most kids aren’t choosing between Chico and Columbia. @Ncalrent you are portraying a narrative that rarely if ever exists. The kid going to Boise isnt opting to attend versus Dartmouth, in fact the vast majority of these kids are no where close to being offered Ivy or elite admissions.
It feels good I am sure to call other people foolish for allowing their kids to fulfill their well earned opportunities while justifying their own kids lack of options by suggesting it is merely a financially prudent choice. It is however not a choice when the option to attend the more elite school is nothing more than a theoretical.
Chico has a 65% acceptance rate and an avg act of 21. Ivies have sub 7% acceptance rates and average acts in the 33-35 range. These aren’t the same applicant pools and neither student or parent should be called foolish, just different. While some students are merely seeking “the college experience”, others are seeking an education and some parents are willing to pay for it. Foolish of someone to call them foolish.
Debt is a different discussion but you have conflated paying and going into debt.
Instate tuition at those schools is about $8000, but WUE tuition is 150% of instate, so about 50% more than $8000. WUE is not offered for all majors, and at some schools the number of WUE awards is limited, but most of the WUE schools offer some pretty good deals and scholarships even if you aren’t awarded WUE.
We had done some looking at WUE (a shallow look, not in-depth) and learned that many popular majors were excluded. For example, my son has some interest in statistics and a neighbor attends UofUtah with WUE. You can’t major in statistics at Utah AND use WUE benefits. So while a kid could go and establish in-state residency after a year and pay in-state at Utah and major in anything, the net costs are no different than attending our in state publics.
@jd7777: you can use your personal discovery for the greater good.
You can join groups that want free public community college, or free public college.
You can write your local, state and federal representatives to fund public universities better so that they can afford better financial aid and better scholarships not to mention more WUE places.
You can write the many tech millionaires on the West coast to ask them to donate to public universities not to already-wealthy universities (I mean, it’s cool for Stanford when they get yet another huge donation, but the real way to make a difference is like Lewis and the UO).
@twoinanddone No argument about major selection, not all are open at all campuses, so you have to be aware of that - on the cost - the WUE list shows Chico and Sonoma at $8613 for tuition, Boise $7889 and UNR at $10,080 (looks like that’s up dramatically since my kid was admitted 2 years ago - then it was a little less than a Cal State. Sorry for the less than current info.) Perhaps Reno is no longer the great bargain it was.) look for yourself here:
https://wuesavingsfinder.wiche.edu/search-results.php
My son’s school, Ft Lewis (in Colorado), has a WUE discount that’s tiered by GPA and SAT, so his tuition is about half of the $14,423 listed on the WUE site I know some other schools do that as well so, you really do need to investigate each school.
@nocreativity1 the OP starts off noting that she can’t afford to send he kid off to the same college experience she had - which was at Brown. I am not suggesting many students are choosing between Chico and Brown - rather that her/his kid can have a great college experience - and get a great education for a fraction of the cost of and Ivy. As someone with an MBA in finance, I do think it would be foolish for a family living off a single teacher’s salary (as the OP notes they are) to take on $150k to $200k in non-dischargable student loans to fund one kid’s undergrad education at any school. It would be a decision they’d probably regret for the rest of their lives. There are much more cost effective ways to fill the same need. I encourage OP to have their fairly high stat kid investigate lots of schools, public, private, in-state and out - then apply broadly and see what happens.