Honestly, Stonybrook. You’re not buying a destination vacation here; you’re buying a college education. 60K in total for the top flagship? You’re saving 60K over your next cheapest option, and it’s arguably one of the best options. Save the 60K. Stonybrook has performance music, science, business, and I’m sure he can find a tennis game there. The 60K you save can pay for a lot of fun stuff for him and the family, if it isn’t needed for the family finances - and if it is, then it’s pretty obvious that Stonybrook is the ONLY choice!
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It is. Commuter/suitcase more precisely.
So if s/he wants a more residential yet academically topnotch school, s/he has SUNY BING.
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You are absolutely right. It is needed for the family. The question is whether DS will be happy … Bing has more of a campus life but Stonybrook is top notch academically.
It is twice as much as stonybrook but does offer hopefully more residential, as you put it, environment!
I know of plenty of students from outside the Long Island area, even from outside of NYS, who choose Stonybrook. He should have plenty of social life. The reality is that the family needs that extra money. He’s lucky that you can swing the 15K/yr that would allow him to live on campus.
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If letter says for 1st year it is for first year only.
We are from MD. Both kids were accepted to UMD (both do not attend.) One had Presidential for 4 years. Youngest had it for 2 years… You have what is written in the letter and nothing else.
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Despite being largely commuter, Stony has over 15,000 undergrads. It is quite easy to find all sorts of people in such a big school.
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That is what I have told my son. There must be many excellent opportunities and it is a very affordable. Do you have kids have gone to Stonybrook? I know it attracts science focused and music focused students from all over the world.
That is so true.
The agnr school says it most probably will be renewable but it is taking a chance. Your kids received excellent scholarships from UMD. Where did they end up going?
I honestly think your best bet is to lay all the affordable colleges out for your kid and have them pick. Happy kids do better than unhappy ones.
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You said what is most important. and my kid thinks they would be happiest at UMD or COrnell. Two very expensive choices.
Based on what you said, both SUNYs are within budget so does he have a favorite choice among them? It should be up to him among the colleges that are within budget.
However unfortunately UMD isn’t within budget so should be off the table.
You can look at more colleges - a new application cycle has opened and it’s possible to apply, get housing and financial aid, at quite a few universities that may be closer to what he wants yet within budget.
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Okay… all of these are accepting apps from freshmen starting Monday and still have both housing&FA - person or email to contact at url below.
Alfred, NY
Bowling Green State U, OH
Central Michigan U
Ithaca, NY
John Carroll, OH
Kent State, OH
UMass Lowell
Western Michigan U
I’d stick with SUNYs myself 
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Thank you for your input!
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This absolutely! We had a pretty strict budget for each of our three. They had to say goodbye to some awesome but unaffordable options amongst their acceptances.
They were never unhappy with their remaining choices. And it is part of life (for our family at least) that finances are part of the equation. I am proud to say that ours wanted to make sure that their parents were not overly strained with their education costs and that their siblings had a similar allocation.
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Yes! For my kid, if 45k a year is the affordable budget, they are free to pick whatever school they get into that is within that. 5k or 45k, I want my kid to be happy.
Obviously, the top choices are unaffordable for OP, so OPs kid should go to their favorite affordable school imo.
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And you didn’t wait till the very last minute like we are doing, and my kid has such high hopes to go to UMD which is twice the cost of our state flagships STONY BROOK AND BINGHAMTON
And maybe they will, for grad school. Maybe they will wind up in a field where they go on for a fully funded PhD at U Md, or at an even more prestigious school. But Stonybrook is every bit the academic equal of U Md. It is not worth paying essentially 4 times the price of Stonybrook for you, for him to go to U Md. “But I WANT it” is not a valid reason to for you to pay more than you can manage, financially.
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