Commute to one of your two in-state options.
Look at the info again. The 15K is for Freshmen. Avg need based self help is $5813 (line L) - that would be Work Study. A loan ($5387 in Line M). That leaves about $5K in Need Based Grants. That could be from state funds or Pell Grants.
You can’t use info like that in regards to OOS students for an instate public. Those numbers can be misleading because they could include state aid for instate students. However, as @erin’sdad mentions, UC Boulder’s aid is low…likely a Pell Grant and a loan.
Same goes for “average need met”. Those numbers, at an OOS public, are going to largely reflect the instate kids who not only make up most of the student body, but also have a much lower COA.
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Wyoming's OOS tuition this year is $15,600. First year OOS are eligible for as much as a $8,900 discount depending on GPA and test scores via the Rocky Mountain Scholars program for non-WUE states
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@goldensrock Yes, but this student wouldn’t be a first year OOS. He’s a transfer so not eligible for those scholarships. He’d be paying the full OOS costs.
You are correct. That is why I said there is no obvious discounts for OOS tranfers, but there are scholarships he can apply for. If he is really interested the school can give him a better sense if there is scholarship money he could get as an OOS transfer. The engineering department also has scholarship money. Wyo tends to be very transparent re: money.
But as someone already noted his best financial option may be to stay in NJ. But if he lives in Ramapo per his name, commuting to Newark or New Brunswick everyday for school ain’t fun. He may also just want to get out of Jersey. I left at 17 and have never regretted it.
goldensrock -
Not actually in Ramapo but next door, and certainly close enough that you are spot on about the commute. Getting out of Jersey would also be preferred, not do to it being as bad of a place as everyone thinks but my own desire for some distance from the garden state.
One thing I’ve noticed is a number of the schools mentioned in this thread being low ranked (going off of usnews) or not ranked at all. I was wondering what you guys think of that or rankings in general, how much or little should that matter, particularly for engineering? Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere my quick search didn’t bring up any big threads covering the topic.
Rutgers is a fine school and I would think the transfer from NJ CC to Rutgers would be an established path where you would know exactly which classes transfer. The Rutgers advisors would know exactly how to place you into junior level courses. Actually, that is what scares me a bit here, junior level courses are really hard. So what Rutgers and NJIT offer you are the ability to stretch out those 2 years into 3 or start taking classes at Rutgers or NJIT now rather than CC equivalents so you can be fully up to speed with your peers.
Rutgers is a major research university, which by junior year does matter, and is nationally and internationally ranked highly for engineering. New Brunswick area and the Busch campus are pretty nice. Rutgers has all the things a 30,000 person campus can offer, including Big10 sports.
Just NJ people don’t like it.
NJIT is also a good school, went there myself for grad classes and it seemed very legitimate for engineering. It’s in Newark, so shorter commute, but I doubt there is much of an on-campus life (don’t really know).
Both may offer scholarships to CC transfers, you should look.
ABET accredidation really is all you need, USNWR ranks entire universities so rates English offerings equivalent with your engineering classes.
Wyoming is beautiful, and if the program is of interest, go ahead and apply.
Many people apply to lots of OOS schools and then are shocked that the OOS bills are so high, there is no merit, and likely no to very limited financial aid.
You might also post this question under engineering majors. They will say the first thing is to make sure that the engineering program is ABET accredited. Beyond that I defer to their expertise. It probably depends on what you want to do with your degree.
My s has spoken to many engineers in Colorado, including NREL folk, the owner of a water engineering firm, and the hiring engineer for Lockheed Martin and they have all told him the same thing - just get an ABET accredited degree in place, try to do internships/coops if he can, and he will be fine - whether he goes to Mines, cu boulder, csu or wyo. The water engineering firm owner has degrees from Mines and CSU and she strongly encouraged my s to go to CSU or Wyo rather than Mines.
@PickOne1 is correct. The Jersey schools are actually excellent for engineering and you will get a good education, so long as you can manage the workload with the commute.
While attending school, try to get intern work experience, do projects in your upper courses that have industry application, and if there is a good co-op oppportunity.
H graduated with a lower eng GPA, but he did a project that was exactly in the area that company was hiring - his job offer was higher than another friend who had a much higher GPA. However company then did bring up the friend’s job offer.
When attending college, get familiar with their job fair, area eng employers, etc.
As others have said, ABET accreditation in your major is key.
Don’t have higher stat school lure you into a lot of school debt.
PickOne1-
I think it’s less that NJ people don’t like it and more that they like pretty things in far away places a lot more.
SOSConcern-
It’s less about higher rank and more about focus in the area I’m interested in as well as location. I absolutely hear you on doing projects, I couldn’t agree more.
Thanks you all for the replies, my knowledge of college admissions has increased greatly. My likely destination will be Rutgers or NJIT, but I’ll apply to a few others to see what happens. Again, thanks for the help.
Rankings mean little to NOTHING in regards to engineering. Look for ABET accreditation.
There are literally HUNDREDS of very good eng’g schools in this country. The idea that the few that get somehow cherry-picked by USNews are the only worthwhile ones is silly and naive.
The state of Calif ALONE has over 25 universities with very good eng’g programs. And that’s just ONE state.
Virtually every state has a vested interest in having several very good engineering programs…they have to. Every state needs a lot of engineers.
OP you can always read up more and study more in your area of interest. On location, once you have a degree, you can pursue living in other places. You often can also get intern and co-op job at other places too, but with some of the costs involved you may have to plan this out a bit.
Yes, apply where you think your costs can be reasonable, but also talk to eng depts at Rutgers and NJIT and see what they have to offer. Also can talk to their career planning and placement center offices on campus to see how those resources can help you on your career focus and destination goals.
@ Ramapo2 if you have not picked up on this already, ABET accreditation is by the program, not the school. Some schools will offer one engineering major that is not ABET accredited while offering other engineering majors which are ABET accredited. There is a search engine on www.ABET.org where you can look it up by the subject area or by the school.
mom2collegekids-
Honestly the way I see college’s presented, either in talk with my peers or in most media, tends support that distorted mentality, which is obviously very biased and quite limiting. Thanks for the info induced perception check.
SOSConcern-
I can and will regardless of location continue to due a lot of personal education/projects. I will of course be getting to know a lot more about NJIT and Rutgers, what they can offer, whose doing what, whose connected with who, etc., in the coming weeks and months.
Project work tends to be by invitation from faculty, at any university. Some professors have to beg for students to help with research projects. Other professors, typically those with a great track record among students, or those whom draw grant money like a magnet, turn away would-be volunteers in droves because their research team is full. In any event, you likely won’t have a problem getting an undergraduate research project if you just ask. Lake Jr. was able to join a favorite professor’s lab team as a first year Chemical Engineering major.
<<< either in talk with my peers >>>
lol…sorry, but in a few years you’ll realize that talking to peers about such things is truly the “blind leading the blind.”
goldensrock-
I did catch the fact that it’s individual programs and will make sure to keep that in mind.
mom2collegekids-
I’m already well aware of that, believe you me. The general lack of knowledge and misconceptions about various elements of importance to peoples scholastic futures is unfortunate (a trend I’m certainly not removed from as evidenced by this thread).
side-rant//
I honestly feel like there should be a much stronger focus on ‘life’ skills in high school. I see many people where I go who come to college acting as if it’s an extension of high school, which for them was an extension of elementary school. This results in a huge failure rate (the number of people who come for a two year degree and finish in two years, or at all, is abysmal). Many that do graduate barely scraped by and are no more prepared for a real job or a four year institution then when they first arrived. This has much to do with the demographics of where I currently attend but I think it’s likely an issue to some extent at many community college’s but I digress.
side-rant\
There was one other comment you made that I was curious about. For California residency, reading the following from Berkely:
http://registrar.berkeley.edu/Registrar/establish.html
It would seem, (at least how I’m reading it), that I could move to CA, work + reside in there for a year and then (at that point 24 years of age) be able to attend (at least in the case of Berkeley) while paying in-state tuition, assuming I was accepted. However, you said that I’d need to be there for two years if I was aiming for in-state tuition. Is that something that has been implemented in all of CA on top of individual schools policies? Or a general case for CA but with Berkely being an exception? Or I’m a nincompoop hoping for in-state tuition missing something that should be readily apparent?
Don’t need to look in rear view mirror - and you don’t want to move around and delay getting finished with college. You have two in-state schools to target; you need to make sure those are affordable. Then continue to finish your degree. You can continue to explore your areas of interest and pursue the opportunities to gain experiences in your specialized engineering interest areas.
You are at an advantage in that you have maintained a good GPA. Some students that drag out their education fall off on GPA.