<p>As an in-state student with a 31 ACT and assuming as a valedictorian her GPA > 3.5, she’d earn the full tutition presidential no matter what her declared major is.</p>
<p>From: <a href=“http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/in_state.html”>http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/in_state.html</a></p>
<p>Presidential Scholar
A first-time freshman student who meets the December 15 scholarship priority deadline, has a 30–36 ACT or 1330–1600 SAT score (critical reading and math scores only) and at least a 3.5 cumulative GPA will be selected as a Presidential Scholar and will receive the value of tuition or $37,800 over four years ($9,450 per year).</p>
<p>As SEA_tide noted if she’s considering engineering and declared that, the engineering stipend will provide an additional $2500 per year. </p>
<p>That $2500 + $5500 in federal loans could cover $8000 of expenses. Assuming she earns just $2000 over the summer - she’d only need to earn about another $1000 working part time while in classes to cover expenses. And that’s with $0 assistance from parents. Any money she could earn over $1000 during the school year or over $2000 during the summer would cover misc expenses and travel costs. In engineering she could defintely look into co-oping which, I believe, she could start the summer immediately after freshman year which should provide enough to cover the basic expenses of future semesters. If she began a co-op immediately after freshman year and found she needed more money to cover the final semesters of classes, I believe it’s possible to do 2 co-ops prior to graduation…I know it is occasionally done at other schools. And as aeromom noted there are additional scholarships she can look into through the honor’s college, through emails from her department, or through other outside sources.</p>
<p>I’m a VERY frugal parent on a single income too, so I understand being leary of costs, but it really doesn’t seem like there’s so much of a gap that she should let this opportunity pass. It seems that the expenses are fairly manageable, especially if she’s able to get the additional $2500 from the engineering department. She might not have enough money to join a sorority or take a spring break trip with her friends or travel abroad, but if she’s willing to live frugally it seems very possible.</p>