For Oregon State, there is a shuttle run by Groome Transportation that runs hourly between PDX airport and Corvallis (pickup / dropoff at Hilton Garden that is just across from the Oregon State stadium).
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Great - so similar- CSU is 1 hour 8 from the airport and OSU 1 hour 24. So both would be similarâŠif right for the student. Both have regular shuttle service.
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Fort Collins is technically a city, but Iâm not sure itâs the kind of major city the OP is hoping for. That may be a criterion to compromise on, but if so, then UC Riverside or Santa Cruz or Merced could work too, so the question becomes whether Colorado State warrants the travel and higher cost. (CSU website estimate total budget with WUE discount at $47,720, which is within OPâs budget, but quite a bit pricier than a UC unless a merit scholarship brings it down.)
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I agree - but they brought up Corvalis - which is barely a town 
Really - they said they want to be in So Cal - so thereâs also Cal State San Bernardino, San Marcos, Northridge - Iâm probably missing some - in addition to Long Beach and SDSU.
Have you visited Corvallis?
It is a nice college town, with the great advantage of being immediately adjacent to campus, similar to the arrangement at UC Davis. Corvallis has shops, restaurants, coffee shops, farmers market, etc. My kids both prefer âurbanâ schools, but they both thought Corvallis would be sufficient because itâs totally walkable / bikeable from campus.
Unlike the city of Berkeley where I live, Corvallis still has actual movie theaters, including Darkside Cinema, which is the sort of local independent movie theater every college town should have. (Berkeley has one movie theater left⊠itâs really small and not adjacent to campus. The others have all closed.)
UC COA is currently listed at $45,234 for residents, although the actual cost will vary by campus.
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Corvallis is a very nice barely-a-town, lol, but that (combined with the competitiveness of WUE at Oregon State) was why I countered by suggesting the Portland State + OHSU public health program, where WUE would be assured and students truly participate in urban public health initiatives.
An aside re: AustenNutâs suggestion of UTDallas - Iâm not sure what the cost/aid picture is like there for non-NMF OOS students, but it certainly checks the major city box (albeit on the outskirts) and it would be a great choice for CogSci - perhaps the most robust multi-track CogSci program outside of UCSD. And thereâs an undergrad public health major too. So, a nice fit in several ways, if the money and geography would work.
Anyhoo, a ton of good suggestions have been made; weâre probably due for some feedback from the OP on which ones do and donât appeal, and why, before we can be of much more help.
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Surprisingly, I have. I was making a joke because of the post saying Ft Collins might not be sufficient enough. Itâs a much bigger city vs Corvallis.
Oof, that jumped recently, didnât it? It seemed to be holding steady in the high 30âs for quite a while, but I guess those days are over. Now that I research it, apparently they now freeze tuition for each incoming cohort for 6 years (this started in 2022) so at least students know they wonât face tuition hikes, but that doesnât mean other costs wonât go up. Wild how much everything has gone up since my kids started college, which doesnât feel like that long ago.
I wasnât comparing to Corvallis; I was comparing to Albuquerque, Tucson, Salt Lake City, Reno, Portland⊠anyway, this is starting to feel like debate for debateâs sake. Letâs see what OPâs thoughts are after reviewing the various suggestions.
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It all depends on what the OPâs child is looking for in terms of âurban.â So for example, my kids like being in / near a big city, but they also think itâs very important to have walkable urban amenities immediately adjacent to campus (such as non-chain restaurants and shops, independent movie theaters, music concerts and live theater, etc). They both crossed off UCSC, for example, because the campus is not adjacent to the town of Santa Cruz. My D is attending a summer program at Stanford, and she hates the way Stanford is physically separated from Palo Alto, so that she canât just get impromptu lunch from someplace in town when she feels like it; she now says that she wouldnât attend a school with that much separation from its city or town, regardless of how nice the city or town is.
Anyway⊠I donât know what the OPâs child is looking for in terms of âurbanâ⊠but they did mention Oregon State in the original list. Weâll just have to see what the OP has to say.
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Thereâs a big difference between UCSC and Stanford, in that UCSC students rarely live on campus for more than 1-2 years. After that they are generally living down in the town, and get the bus to campus for lectures. Whereas Stanford students typically live on campus all four years. Many public colleges are more similar to UCSC than Stanford, with limited on campus accommodation. And then options for eating out at lunch are very different to eating out at dinner time. And the primary consideration with regard to separation may be how far away from campus you are likely to be living.
Yes, my kids didnât like the idea of living in town and then taking a bus to be âstuckâ on the isolated UCSC campus for the day.
My sonâs apartment at UCB is less than one block from campus, and he loves it that way. But on the other hand this summer he is in Berlin and his lodging is 45 min on public transit from the university where heâs studying⊠and he thinks thatâs also fine, because both the housing and the university are located in urban areas themselves with plenty of amenities. He doesnât feel âstuckâ anywhere on an isolated campus or in a not very walkable suburb.
No OP put Corvallis on. So I laughed at the âbig enoughâ?
Yes this seems like a very personal and campus-specific set of considerations that is only going to be clear from visiting (and sometimes not even then because you may not known exactly where people live off-campus or where the best restaurants are).
For example, I donât think anyone would argue UCLA isnât urban, or that it isnât well integrated with the surrounding community, but it still wouldnât be particularly convenient (or common) to walk 20 mins down the hill to Westwood for lunch and back again. However going there in the evening is a different matter.
And that was the point I was making: People donât necessarily have the same things in mind when they say they are looking for âurban.â
Have you considered Loma Linda U? You donât have to be a seventh Day Adventist to attend, though it is faith-based. Otherwise it seems to check many of the boxes (cost, location, major, etc). https://llu.edu/
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It does have a pretty strict (for non 7th day Adventist college students) set of rules such as required chapel, total abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, sex outside of marriage etc (all grounds for expulsion IIRC), and a specific dress code.
Itâs up to OP to assess how seriously she takes her faith, whether she currently attends any church weekly, is part of a Bible study group.. and how central these are to her sense of self.
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What does this reiteration add?
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Thanks. SAT doesnt matter at UC Merced admission. How is your cousin liking UC Merced
When my son was looking at colleges a few years ago, he was also interested in a cognitive science degree and he really liked McGillâs program. With the exchange rate, I think it will come in at just about your price point, although of course who knows if that exchange rate will be maintained. And itâs definitely urban in one of the best cities there is to be a college student!
McGill has different tuitions for the different degrees. If I recall correctly, the cogsci degree was under the âarts and sciencesâ faculty but you should definitely double check. Of course, if your daughter goes there and then changes to a sciences degree, it is likely to cost more so thatâs an issue.
I had heard that room and board costs could go way down when students moved off campus. And that itâs easy to graduate early with AP credit, so also a cost saver.
Caveat: my information is about five years old, and of course lots can change.