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Do you know why? Is it that she wants to go to Penn State in particular for some reason or wanted to go OOS somewhere for something different and to ‘get away’ or did she just want to get away from the home town and/or not commute?</p>
<p>If she mostly wants to ‘get away’, meaning not have parents dropping in, etc., then this can happen anywhere including the home town if the students lives on or near campus and the parents are respectful of their privacy. </p>
<p>If she wants to attend Penn State because of the rah-rah football environment, well, that’s an awful lot of money to pay for attending some football games and being happy one’s college won a football game (tarnished program or not). </p>
<p>A lot of times state colleges really are fine at the in-state cost but are over-priced at the OOS rate. </p>
<p>She needs to keep in mind that she could well change her major away from a Criminal Justice one - lots of students change majors once or twice. Given this, she should make sure wherever she attends affords her flexibility should she change her mind.</p>
<p>One more factor - some state schools, depending on major and depending on whether one switches majors, can take more than 4 years to graduate due to course scheduling and some schools/majors accept more AP credits than others. Make sure you factor that into your calculations because Penn State will be even more expensive if it takes longer than 4 years to graduate (I don’t know if Penn State has a particular issue in this area).</p>