Mid-Atlantic Engineering Student $15000 [PA resident, 3.7 GPA, 1440 SAT, electrical or mechanical engineering]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics: high school senior, US Citizen, Central PA, private high school

Budget: $15000 (quite limited, senior is question is oldest of six so many more times to go through and pay for college!)

Intended Major: Electrical/Mech Engineering

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores: 3.7 UW, 4.8 W, 1440 SAT (690 math, 750 reading), top 1/3 class rank
2 APs, 20+ Honors, APs are Bio and APUSH, took honors physics, currently taking honors calculus and stat, 4 years Spanish

Extracurriculars
Nothing exciting, 4 years of cross country, part time job, a couple of minor clubs

Essays/LORs/Other - good enough, nothing that would change much

Schools

Applied EA to the following, Looking if we’ve missed any other schools that might be able to hit budget, bc it doesn’t seem like any of these will. Would prefer mid-Atlantic but would consider further if able to avoid loans. Would prefer urban.

Shippensburg, accepted, $3000 merit
Drexel, awaiting decision
Temple, accepted, no info on merit yet
Scranton, awaiting decision
U Del, awaiting decision
Pitt, accepted, no info on merit
Penn Stare, awaiting decision
Duquesne, accepted, $25000 merit
U Gannnon, accepted, $25000 merit
Point Park, accepted, $26000 merit
Loyola in MD, awaiting decision
Catholic U, awaiting decision
Sacred Heart, awaiting decision

Far Reaches:
UVA
U Notre Dame

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Possibly York College of Pennsylvania with merit aid (and need-based aid if eligible). Would York College and/or Penn State Harrisburg be within reasonable commuting distance?

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Yes, we could do commuting to PSU satellite. Definitely an option on the table.

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Agree w considering living at home. Perhaps beginning at community college. Or consider broadening geographically.

OOS schools I know of w some possibility of reaching $15K include:
U of Louisiana Lafayette (if he receives OOS waiver + merit for his score of 1440)
Michigan tech (can give aggressive merit and room and board low, rural)
U of St. Thomas (MN) has some full rides. Urban. Mpls is airline hub

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Of the PSU branches, Behrend / Erie, Berks, and Harrisburg have EE and ME. Pitt’s branch at Johnstown also has EE and ME. Among PASSHE schools, Shippensburg and Slippery Rock have EE and ME.

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Some more:

Prairie View A&M (Texas)
Tuskegee (Alabama)

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University of Maine, SUNY Albany, and SUNY Polytech all offer tuition match programs whereby students from designated states pay the same tuition as the instate tuition at their state’s flagship campus - Penn State in your case. Pennsylvania is one of the states on their lists. SUNY Albany offers Electrical Engineering but not Mechanical. SUNY Polytech and University of Maine both offer both Electrical and Mechanical.

Manhattan University is excellent for both Electrical & Mechanical and would probably offer your son significant scholarship money. It is a Catholic college like several of the others on your list and oddly enough is NOT in Manhattan. It is located in Riverdale, NY, an upscale neighborhood of the Bronx on the Westchester County border. They have a strong cross country program, which your son might like, and the best cross country course in NYC across the street from campus in 1200 acre Van Cartlandt Park.

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Penn State (main campus) tuition and fees alone are over $20,000 for instate students, so matching instate tuition doesn’t help. Room and board at Manhattan University is at least $19,000, so even with a full tuition scholarship, COA would be more than this family can pay.

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Financial aid can cover room & board as well as tuition. None of us knows what they’ll receive in financial aid. I’m also looking at the other schools on the list and the fact that this student is attending a private HS, so I’m assuming the $15K is a goal and not necessarily hard and fast.

I thought that the point of this forum was to offer ideas and not for posters to debate each other. The OP seems quite bright and more than capable of rejecting suggestions which don’t fit their needs.

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Room and board is about $15,000 a year alone. Are you eligible for any FA (we have 5 kids, we are not). UDel offered one of my kids $10,000 a year with those stats (my others got more). I don’t know where in the northeast you can get it down to $15,000 with merit. My daughter got it down to about $22,000 at Saint joes in Philadelphia.

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Thanks for the suggestions! We did look at Maine, we love it up there but he wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of only being there during the coldest part of the year.

I have never heard of Manhattan, and while a Catholic school is not a requirement, it’s definitely a plus for us as you noticed. We will have give it a look!

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I don’t know how I never realized how much higher PA in state was in comparison to other states. I guess I just figured that all state schools were comparable. I love the state but it’s a real downside!

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Really appreciate any and all suggestions! Even if not relevant to this particular child, clearly this isn’t the last time we will do this.

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We may get a small amount, but certainly well above Pell Grant status. It does seem like $22-$23000 is the smallest number I’m coming up with. He doesn’t want to go too far though, precisely because of the younger siblings at home and not wanting to miss everything with them.

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As a fellow PA resident, to me it is a scandal.

Anyway, I’ll just toss in I agree that in PA, it is often an unfortunate necessity to live at home for at least a couple years in order to bring the total cost of a four-year degree down to something unreasonable. Again, it shouldn’t be that way, but it is what it is, and it won’t keep a kid from succeeding in the end.

And actually, if you do have suitable options within commuting distance, that at least puts you ahead of the kids who live where they really don’t even have that.

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NJ isn’t great, Rutgers ends up being $30,000 for in state students, and really only give merit awards for honors, which is extremely competitive to get in. We paid it. TCNJ is a little more than Rutgers for in state. We were eligible for some subsidized loans during the years we had 3 in at the same time.

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Yes, per the data here, in terms of tuition and fees, PA is third-worst (behind Vermont and NH), and NJ is fifth (CT at fourth):

Meanwhile, New York is actually below the national average (#37 on this list).

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Just updating for those searching in the future:

He ended up deciding he wants mechanical engineering, thus eliminating Sacred Heart from the list

Final Price Results (including room and board). Mostly the final price was from merit, Drexel and Temple both gave need based with our $25000 SAI

Shippensburg - $19000
Drexel - $49000 ($13000 scholarship, $17000 merit)
Temple - $26000 ($10000 scholarship, $5000 need based)
Scranton - $46400
U Del - $47000
Pitt - $39000 (no aid)
Penn State - $23,000 (Educational Equity scholarship he applied for separately)
Duquesne - $40000
U Gannnon - $32000
Point Park - $29000
Loyola in MD - $28000
Catholic U - $40,400
Sacred Heart - withdrew application, probably would have been around $42000 with merit

Hope this is helpful to someone researching in the future!

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