UT Austin Class of 2029 Official Thread

I would have your student send a kindly worded email to their area coordinator along the lines of just want to check since you saw what could be the last batch come out, you are not intl, auto, when you submitted, just wanted to double check you are not the “app that fell behind the virtual filing cabinet” somewhere along the line. Couldnt hurt…as long as it is worded well i think. And feel free to vent here - just let it out - cuz you waited a very long time too if i remember right.

Yes he applied in early August. He is instate-auto, his portal shows in review and says auto admittance. Do you think he should email now or after 2/15 if he still does not have a response? Do you know how to find our area coordinator?

I would email now (but review it for content and tone) cuz if you wait til close of business Saturday, you might not get a reply til Tues or Wed since Monday is a federal holiday that some of them might take off. It just seems like most of today was the last batch of internationals, right? Havent seen any others not intl still waiting and like you said crickets on reddit.

We are still waiting!

Thanks for responding! Instate?

Yes in-state, not Auto, RTF major (Moody)

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Good luck! This has been a LONG wait!!

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I’m a Native Texan and have no desire to live elsewhere. Still that doesn’t mean we can’t improve things here and learn from what other states do well. That’s my point. Most people simply don’t know about how other states operate and thus don’t understand that there are other ways to do things. FWIW in their favor, UT and A&M have 90% In State populations by law so that impacts those numbers as well, that’s as high as any state I’m aware of.

Schools tend to make money on International students for Grad School and offer grants and funding to strong Domestic students. It’s all accounting and choices. Personally I think they should cut administrative costs which are very bloated at both A&M and Texas and focus on lowering the cost for all In State students. It shouldn’t cost what is approaching $150k for a student to get a 4 year Degree at UT or A&M. We should have a goal that most kids who can get into those schools can graduate without student loans or very minimal. Yet that doesn’t seem to be a priority at all and it is very attainable with the resources the schools have. A&M and Texas quite literally have 10x or more the Endowments of the schools in Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia and our state is running surpluses. Yet the idea of even having significant merit scholarships isn’t even on the table.

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UT has no tuition and fees for Texas families making less than $100,000.

That’s very generous for in state residents.

80% of Americans make less than $100,000 per year. The majority of UT students will probably pay no tuition and fees.

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Actually the percentage is above 30% and rising, in part due to inflation. That said it is also a bad stat because it is looking at all families. When talking about families of college bound children you are talking often about couples that are around 50 and having worked for 25 plus years. Often the Mother may have stayed at home when the kids were younger and then has gone back to work while the kids were in High School thus raising that income amount. So while $100k sounds like a lot these are people hitting their peak income earning years and starting to look towards retirement.

That of course assumes many other things. It assumes that parents are paying for their kid’s college. It assumes that parents have been responsible with their money and don’t have other debts and responsibilities. It assumes that they have been making $100k for a lengthy period and that it wasn’t an anomaly. I won’t even get into small business owners and how flawed looking at income can be or someone that is a farmer. So many things. Sure you have FAFSA which is incredibly intrusive and tries to make judgements about who should and should not be able to afford to pay for things and decides to make value judgements to that extent. It’s fundamentally Unconstitutional and immoral to do that but it is a blunt tool that kind of works. Of course it’s also something that is easily manipulated, there are many consultants and courses designed around manipulating FAFSA to get the best result, it’s an entire industry.

Most of all though that’s something the Federal government already does and has programs like Pell and Guaranteed Student Loan to address. Most outside scholarships also have a Need based component. So why should virtually all of the money at a Public School ALSO be focused solely on Need and ignore Merit? What you end up with is a lot of Middle and Upper Middle Class kids graduating with a lot of debt or with their families having a severe burden because they are in essence being forced to subsidize other children who didn’t have to pay or didn’t have families that saved.

I agree. I am also especially grateful how Texas continues to fund education benefits for Texas military veterans and their families. They go beyond what post 9/11 gi bill covers (and not all veterans are eligible for). Hazlewood Legacy benefits will be a God-send for us! Two decades of service and deployments finally recognized.

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No offense, but $11-13k a year in tuition is not subsidizing much of anything.

It’s dirt cheap for a UT education.

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And, UT tuition is cheaper than most other flagship state public universities for in-state students. Only a handful are lower (including Georgia, NC, Florida mentioned earlier)

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It’s obviously still high for OOS but when you compare to such equivalent publics like Michigan it’s still much cheaper. However, it’s not as affordable for OOS as UF.

Ok, but it’s twice what it is in comparable states. UT is a similar level to UNC, Georgia Tech, and UF by any objective measure yet it is a far wealthier school that charges more. Not sure why anyone is opposed to lowering the costs and having more merit unless you just like debt. Also remember those amounts only get larger as you are talking about typically 4 years for an Undergrad. We should want more people to graduate without large student loans as those other states do with less resources.

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North Carolina and Georgia both have state income taxes. Texas does not.

Connecticut is one of the wealthiest states in the country. UCONN in state tuition is $20,366. It also has a 7% state income tax.

Texas is highly competitive given the price/quality of education and free tuition for those under $100k.

I think you literally want Texas to be the cheapest public school in the US. and if not then we must be advocating for large debt.

All public universities in the U.S. There are too many worthy U.S. applicants that are being turned away.

No, I listed 3 states with comparable public schools with significantly less resources and significantly lower costs and more merit scholarships. Florida has no income tax, interesting you left them out when UF is the closest comparable in rankings and size and state to UT yet it is much cheaper for In State with a ton of merit opportunities for In State students. Georgia and NC have lower property and sales taxes. None of them have a giant Permanent University Fund worth tens of Billions that pays for a huge portion of the Infrastructure of the schools and buildings among other things making the costs to the Universities significantly lower. Connecticut is a poorly run state with mediocre Public Universities and high costs, no doubt there are other bad examples out there too we don’t want to copy.

Once again you are also missing the merit scholarship component as well. There is no excuse for Texas (or A&M) to not offer significant merit scholarships to Texas residents. Texas has some elite large public High Schools and yet a large proportion of the best students from those schools go either OOS or to private schools because they get merit that UT and A&M will not provide. The 3 states I mentioned do so and thus they keep their best and brightest going to their Flagship Public schools because kids KNOW they can go for a very low cost. It’s just dumb policy all around. We have the money as a state and at the school. We should want those kids to come and not be at a competitive disadvantage in pursuing them. The way you get them is to make sure they know if they do come they will be able to do so and probably graduate debt free or close to it.

BTW, Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia have some excellent charter/magnet public schools but they have no where near as many large 6A Public schools that crank out elite level graduates that are highly desired by top universities. The best large Public in North Carolina for instance is Chapel Hill High School which would be at the back end of the Top 10 in Texas rankings wise.

To your final point, I don’t see any reason why Texas can’t be the cheapest public school in the US. We have the money. Hard to compete with GT and UF though where such a high proportion of students go for little to no tuition In State but that’s a great goal to work towards. We should want the best students in Texas to know they can go to school at our Flagship schools for next to nothing. I want them going to Texas and A&M and keeping that talent here.

Welp, after all the waiting he got into his 3rd choice, Economics. Oh well, he will be fine.

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