I visited UT and loved it, however with a very high out of state cost I’m not sure I can go. What are some schools most like UT Austin?
You mean large flagship Us?
Like the atmosphere of Texas
Vibrant college towns? Like Madison? Doesn’t have the UT weather.
What is your home state?
What specific things about the atmosphere did you like about UT?
Each place has its own “vibe” so hard to compare, but for vibrant college town I’d say UW-Madison, UMich-Ann Arbor or UC-Boulder, UC-Berkeley.
^Unless OP lives in one of those states, they will all be high out-of-state tuition with little to no FA.
Stats would be helpful here.
Can you possibly be more vague? Austin is not representative of Texas.
I would assume that someone with the handle “missourikid” is from MO
I agree Austin is definitely not Texas! But by “Texas” I assume OP meant UT, not the State.
Kinda hard to find a big college that isn’t a flagship, and when you say atmosphere it seems like the large population of people having good times is a part of that. I would say try for Texas A&M because they can get you a nice out of state tuition waiver if your stats are good enough, but the attitude of the school is very different than UT so again you kinda need to be more specific about what you mean by atmosphere
Add
University of Georgia (Athens - music scene, 1 hr. from Atlanta).
University of Kansas (Lawrence, 35-40 minutes from KC).
The Ohio State University (Columbus)
Most OOS schools are expensive and many offer little aid to out of state residents. Is there a comparable flagship in your home state?
UT Austin’s out-of-state sticker price is about $47K.
TAMU’s OOS sticker is about $39K, so if what you want is a large state university in Texas, that might be your next best alternative. If you’re not necessarily looking for a school in Texas, but want another big state university with a nice college town, then check out Wisconsin (Madison) at ~$40K/year OOS.
Boulder, Berkeley, and Michigan (suggested above) have even higher OOS sticker prices than UT.
If $39K is still too expensive, check out the merit scholarship requirements at the University of Alabama.
http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.html
Or, if your stats are high and your family income is fairly low, consider a selective private school that offers good need-based aid. In Texas there is Rice, but you might prefer USC (Southern California).
USC need isn’t so great. They meet 100% of school-calculated need, but at USC that frequently falls far below FAFSA-calculated need.
I suspect that for many low to middle income families, USC’s net price would be competitive with the net prices of many OOS public schools. I ran the online net price calculators for USC and UT Austin, assuming a family income of $55K (roughly the national median), 1 child in college, and no home equity. The estimated net price for USC was$19.070 (without deducting for student loans or work-study). The estimate for UT-Austin, for a Missouri resident, was $48,739 (after only $1595 in grant aid).
YMMV. Some private schools may offer even more need-based aid than USC. Or, if the OP’s family income is much higher than the national median, then USC’s net price might not be so much cheaper than UT’s. Run the online net price calculators using your own numbers to compare.
Happy1, u need to do more Homework. Big colleges that give lots of aid to out of staters: Oklahoma, Oklahoma state, West Va, Bama, Mississippi, LSU, Nebraska, Florida State, TexasTech, Kentucky, Kansas. Of course u have to have decent grades and test scores…
University of Houston will give in state tuition if you earn any merit
@moooop that is why I said many, not all. My comment was not meant to have the OP eliminate OOS flagships from consideration but rather to suggest that he/she would need to look into the availability of scholarships at any OOS schools (without any academic stats it is impossible to consider which/if any OOS schools the OP might qualify for a scholarship at)… Apologies if the intent of my post was not clear. And I do think that his/her own flagship could be worth considering.