UDel won’t come down to $30,000, could get under $40,000 with an excellent score.
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She would love to do a year abroad. Applied to nsliy twice with no luck. Made it to the last round and was cut. She’ll be applying again for a gap year but isn’t holding her breath considering her past rejections.
Thank you all so much for your advice! We watched some video tours of a few schools and she’s just burnt out of the discussion at the moment.
I’ve done some research (obviously. I’m a classic over thinker) and chatted with the husband. We are going to try to get her to tour UMaine Farmington and Salem state in Mass. Both would be doable financially. I think she’d love Farmington but she’s as stubborn as can be and may not give it a fair shake because she’s dug in her heels. Salem is a town she’s enjoyed in the past and there’s a train to Boston so it may satisfy her need for a city plus it’s got the tuition break.
She may very well get a huge scholarship somewhere she’s dreaming of… but I absolutely need a contingency plan or two that she’s on board with.
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Then…put this discussion to rest for a bit. Don’t talk about colleges. Don’t plan any trips to see colleges. Give her a break from college discussion for a month or so.
There is nothing wrong with waiting a bit.
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Were you able to glean any preferences from watching the video tours with her?
Since she’s feeling burnt out at the moment, perhaps you can use your researching tendencies to come up with various options that would work financially? Perhaps even doing a blurb or paragraph with cool things about each affordable school? So that then once she’s open to investigating colleges, she won’t just have the name of a school she may or may not have ever heard of, but she’ll have some reason to get interested in it?
If your family would like us to continue brainstorming possible ideas, please let us know. After your discussions with your husband, are you still aiming for a $30k or less price?
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As an FYI, I thought this might be helpful context about some of the MA publics. This is one person’s perspective on them, but it may give you some leads about questions to investigate at various college options (including whether a school is a commuter school or suitcase school…the latter a residential campus that empties that empties as students go home on the weekends).
Additionally, a number of the MA publics participate in the National Student Exchange program whereby students can spend a year at a college in the exchange and only pay the amount they would have paid at the home campus. I believe students can even repeat the experience (at different universities). These are the NSE profile pages for the MA publics:
- Bridgewater State University
- Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
- Salem State University
- University of Massachusetts Amherst
- University of Massachusetts Boston
- Westfield State University
- Worcester State University
There are liberal arts colleges like the CC favorite St. Olaf, or more exotic options like U. of Hawaii (or Guam, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands). There are options in Canada, or if she wants an SEC experience she could go to U. of Georgia or U. of Alabama. Essentially, lots of options.
Also, don’t overlook the SUNY schools. Although Maine’s not one of the Tuition Match states, I’d be surprised if they didn’t make themselves at least competitive with U. of Maine’s tuition for a student like your D. Some of the campuses (I think either Oswego or Oneonta is one) also have a deal on room & board for students, too.
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This entire process puts a tremendous amount of pressure on both parents and kids. It is not easy!!
Luckily, there are many people here willing to help. Many have helped me get to a calmer mental place.
Good luck to your family 
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For contingencies, consider U Maine.
If I understand the admissions website correctly, she would be eligible for full tuition scholarship and Honors College.
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Okay, I went on ahead and went looking for some additional possibilities for you to research. When referencing the number of English grads in 2022, I am using this source.
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U. of Massachusetts – Lowell: About 12k undergrads and, in 2022 at least, had more English grads (94) than UMass-Amherst (87), which I interpret as students thinking well of Lowell’s English program. It appears that your D could get the Tuition Break discount regardless of her chosen major (source) and there are scholarships that can discount up to have of the discounted tuition as well (source). So with the tuition break and a scholarship, I think this would fall below $30k. And the school is a 38m drive into Boston, only 5m longer than Salem State’s drive.
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Bridgewater State: About 8200 undergrads and in 2022 there were 83 English grads. Classified as a commuter college but 71% of first year students live on-campus. Depending on how your D’s GPA is recalculated, it looks like she would be eligible for an $11k/year merit scholarship here (source) which, if received, would bring tuition, room & board to about $22k/year. This school is 36m to Boston (1h2m via public transport) and a 41m drive to Providence.
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West Chester U. of PA: About 14k undergrads at this campus that many consider Hogwarts like and that is a 41m drive (or 1h19m via public transport) to the center of Philadelphia. In 2022 there were more than 186 English grads here, which definitely speaks to a popular offering. The sticker price for out-of-state students is about $35k, but it appears as though $8k scholarships are available, which would bring this school below the $30k price point (source).
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Millersville U. of PA: About 5700 undergrads at this school just outside of the charming town of Lancaster and = about 1h20m to Baltimore and 1h30m to Philly. Sticker price here would fall within budget even before merit aid. It had 44 English grads in 2022.
Of the SUNY schools, I’d take a particularly good look at:
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SUNY New Paltz: 72 English grads in 2022, about 6500 undergrads
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SUNY Brockport: 67 English grads in 2022, about 5400 undergrads
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SUNY Oswego: 53 English grads in 2022, about 5700 undergrads
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SUNY Purchase: 49 English grads in 2022, about 3200 undergrads
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SUNY Geneseo: 43 English grads in 2022, about 3900 undergrads
Some other schools that might be able to hit your price point that your D may want to investigate include:
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Ithaca (NY): About 4400 undergrads, with 53 English grads in 2022. Students are also allowed to cross-register for classes at Cornell, which might appeal to your D. There’s no guarantee to hit budget, but they have been known to give generous merit.
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Siena (NY): About 3500 undergrads at this school just outside of Albany.
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Saint Joseph’s (PA ): About 4800 undergrads at this Jesuit school in Philadelphia, and there have been reports of this school coming under $30k for top students.
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Arcadia (PA ): About 1900 undergrads at this school in a suburb of Philadelphia.
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Hofstra : About 6200 undergrads. This school used to have more of a suitcase/commuter reputation, but it seems as though that might be changing. 49 English grads in 2022
The SUNY system was my first thought too. Binghamton is larger than the campuses AustenNut mentioned, but not huge as flagship campuses go (around 14K undergrads) and they have programs that could be appealing:
I have seen a lot of OOS students get pretty good merit off the relatively-reasonable sticker price.
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So many excellent options. I’m going to look into each one and run the NPC and present her with a list at some point when she’s ready.
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I echo others in agreeing with your approach. Adding that one thing that has worked for some families is to set aside the same time every week to talk about all things college for 30-60 minutes. That can significantly cut back tensions between parents and the student and maybe make things less stressful for all.
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I hope this doesn’t come across as ‘creepy’ but if you discover you have further interest in SUNY Brockport or SUNY Geneseo and would like to know some things about the area in your search process, please feel free to use me as a resource.
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I haven’t yet seen St. Olaf mentioned, and just wanted to recommend it as a possibility. It’s in Northfield, MN, about 40 miles south of Minneapolis. It’s constantly recommended here on CC, for good reason. We toured it, and fell in love with it, and I know multiple kids who attend who are very happy.
Pros:
-Gorgeous campus, rivaling some of the prettiest schools in the Northeast that we toured.
-Northfield is a quintessential charming college town, with coffee houses, restaurants, right on a river, etc. There’s also another college in town - Carleton - so the town has amenities enough to satisfy two separate colleges.
-Academics are great, and the arts are fantastic.
-The campus and study body has a nice friendly vibe.
-Offers generous merit scholarships
-One of the “colleges that change lives” schools
-easy drive or shuttle ride into Minneapolis
-offers arts scholarships, including dance, on top of academic merit scholarships
Cons:
-some folks don’t love the midwest location
-for you, farther away than you’d like
-merit scholarships of up to $42k would bring the tuition down to just about $30k a year, which may be too high for you, and no guarantee that your daughter would get the top scholarship
-very cold weather, but you’re used to that
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I did this with D24 because I was driving her bananas with all of the college talk all of the time. Switched to ONE 15-min session per week. She even had me set a timer! When the timer went off, whatever we were talking about had to be put on the back burner until the following week.
It really helped me to be more succinct/brief in getting to the point when I talked w/D24 about college stuff.
OP should also go listen to episode 492 of Your College Bound Kid’s podcast and do the “30 things to rank when building your college list” with their kid. I did that w/D24 and it helped prevent both of us from going around and around on the same stuff for weeks. It also helped D24 to focus in on what specifically it was that she liked more or less about certain colleges. I’ve done this now w/D26 and it resulted in great discussions w/both of my kids.
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St Olaf meets full financial need, in addition to generous merit.
I dont remember exactly how much merit my OOS son got with a 4.0 and a 1570 sat, but it was still a little above in state costs. This is definitely out of budget for OP, other smaller SUNY schools will give more merit and get her into the under 30K number.
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My daughter’s offer from Bing got it a little under in state, all in it was around $30,000, unfortunately it was during COVID so her self tour of the campus didn’t impress (empty, cold).
OP has to be careful - their student is already burned out on talk.
OP can run NPCs but if Wellesley was $35k, other less wealthy schools may come in higher (on need aid alone).
The parent needs to be efficient to ensure when it’s your time to tour to not waste opportunities that won’t hit the # given the student’s burnout tendency.
And don’t forget, $30k is not realistic for a likely English/ IR major when the family intends to borrow 100% of the costs. I know OP didn’t think this up front but hopefully they realize now that it’s beyond insane to borrow that much (imho of course).
So most meets needs schools likely will be too high. OP almost needs full tuition at a minimum. And even that leaves a large loan.
But whatever they look at and all are ok, they need to suss out, like they did with Wheaton, what is and isn’t worth a visit as they may not get as many as one hopes.
Seems like you and your husband need to have an honest talk between yourselves about college financing, so that both of you are on the same page about what you are willing to contribute (borrow) and what the household finance implications for the future are (due to the need to pay back the loans). Remember that the student’s intended majors tend not to lead to very high paying jobs that will allow much ability to help pay back the parent loans.
Once the college financing parameters are set with both you and your husband in agreement, it will be easier to make college lists for visits and applications, since you can inform the student what the cost limits are and avoid wasting time and effort on colleges that will be too expensive.
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