Of the schools I mentioned earlier that had an A- or above for athletics, these are the drive times. For those that exceeded a 10-hr drive time, I added the flight time (per Google). I selected Trenton, NJ as the NJ location for timing purposes. The schools in bold are those that meet the distance preferences (with Louisville as a meet-ish school).
Driving time from Trenton, NJ
Flight time
Gonzaga
37h
7+hr
Marshall
8h10m
North Dakota State
21h6m
4h50m+
Ohio U.
7h24m
U. of Dayton
8h34m
U. of Louisville
10h33m
2h15m
U. of Maine
8h30m
U. of St. Thomas
17h40m
2h50m (from Philly) or 3h from Newark
U. of Wyoming
26h
8h40m+
West Virginia U.
5h7m
Of the schools that had less than an A- for athletics, hereâs the same info as in the table above:
Driving time from Trenton, NJ
Flight time
Miami U.
9h20m
Michigan Tech
17h26m
4h40m+
Southern Illinois-Carbondale
14h
5h20m+
SUNY New Paltz
2h19m
The College of New Jersey
10m
U. of Hartford
3h23m
U. of Idaho
38h
8h10m+
Once your son has a chance to look into some of the schools that people have been mentioning, itâd be great if you would give us some of his feedback so that people can better tailor their suggestions for him.
In Texas, and OOS student who gets at least $1000 in competitive scholarships qualifies for in state tuition. Texas sTech has an in-state CoA of 30k, and your son will qualify for at least 7-8k in additional merit aid with the presidential scholarship: Incoming Freshmen Scholarships | Scholarships | TTU
Note the 3.5 GPA renewal requirement - that can be pretty challenging in engineering. I suggest asking what happens to the in state tuition benefit if a student fails to meet that requirement.
My kid goes to Miss State. They wanted warm and sporty. I was a bit worried because they are a quirky kid in a conservative state. Absolutely loves it academically and socially.
My kid is a biochem major, but they are part of a research team where the others are mostly Chemical Engineering.
We live in NJ. Ended up paying about half of what in state tuition wouldâve been at Rutgers. Lots of the SEC schools publish a matrix will tell you exactly how much your cost will be.
As for UMD, they do not meet need for OOS students.
The âitâs the southâ is a bit overrated from a person by person pov in my opinion as a âyankeeâ abd then socially liberal Californian living in the south for nearly 20 years. Not speaking about governmental policies.
These schools are buying in students from liberal and other areas.
And MSUâs star has rocketed over the past five years. Engineering is strong and theyâve are one of the few schools given an ecoCAR team. But itâs likely too far for OP although you can fly right to Columbus and get close.
GTR has 2 airlines now, which has made the flights much cheaper. Price drop from about 1600 to 500 There is a shuttle bus from campus, so you call and the bus will take you for free.
My kid has friends in both Jackson and Memphis who will do drop off on their way some. Got a round trip from Memphis for spring break for under 250. So going to and from has gotten cheaper.
A couple years before my kid applied southern schools started getting a lot of interest from Northeast and New England. By the time my kid applied LSU, Clemson, FSU, UGA, USC Ole Miss and MSU had record applicants. Clemson and UGA had over 60,000 and UGAâs portal broke. If your kid wants a flagship state school that is warm and sporty, thereâs a lot to choose from with all the savings. My kid wants med school or masters, so the savings on undergrad is a bonus.
Ole Miss this year, said admissions this year will be stricter and while the criteria are the same, get your application in early because the anticipation they will run out of space. Too many kids accepted them than previously. MSU created a new dorm and their application pool has grown a lot as well.
I donât know which airport someone would use from Trenton (Philly? Newark?) but Denver is about a 4 hour flight (plus you gain 2 hours) and then a 2 hour drive from the Denver airport (you can fly into Laramie, but no one does and most use friends or a shuttle service).
He doesnât want to go there, but it isnât fair to compare it to say, Louisville and say there is a 6-7 hour additional flight time. Two hours to get from Denver to Laramie but I bet there is at least 30 minutes from the airport to the college at most of the schools with flights listed.
It appears distance is the most important. For us, ease of getting there was much more important so we crossed a school off that was a 6 hour drive (which I didnât plan to do EVER again after the visit) and when I asked how people got to the very very rural school I was told âoh, they manage and their friends pick them up (at some equally small airport)â (it would have taken me an hour to drive her to our airport, I think she would have had to change planes in Atl or Charlotte, and it would have taken her 8 or more hours from door to door; my kids did not have cars in college).
Every family has priorities. Ours was cost first (had to be), and into that went cost of getting to and from college. @MilWood is still searching and putting distance as a first priority is reasonable, but that may require foregoing some cheaper opportunities.