D is applying to Virginia and Florida colleges in the fall (we’re VA residents). She’s interested in Health/Nursing/Dance (may combine these in physical therapy course of study). For tuition, room & board, and books, UVA in-state will be $29,460 next year. For the University of South Florida (one of her FL choices), OUT-of-state, the costs will be $29,332. What the heck?
For in-state FL residents, University of Florida is $17,530/year, University of Central Florida is $17,164/year, and USF $18,418/year. Not sure why UVA is so much more. If D gets a merit scholarship to U of F, USF, or UCF, her OOS costs decline significantly. For example, if she gets in and enrolls in USF’s Honors College, the full-year cost, OOS, is less than $17,000/year. So UVA would cost $50K more than USF over 4 years, even though D is a Virginia in-state resident and OOS for Florida. This is puzzling but is certainly making the FL schools much more attractive. D is also looking at JMU, which is more attractive financially ($21,840), but may still be more than the Florida universities. UVA is very attractive academically but financially seems to be the outlier.
Any ideas or thoughts on why this is, and where to go with this? Thanks in advance.
You are including the cost of room and board for UVa but not including it for the Florida schools?
Or you are misreading the OOS cost of the Florida colleges? http://www.sfa.ufl.edu/cost/
“Out-of-state undergraduates should add $22,278 to projected tuition/fees.”
See if you can find any information to compare tuition of both schools over the past few years. I’ve heard of schools that either approved a tuition freeze or even a tuition decrease. That could be a reason.
@Tom SrOfBoston Thanks for your response. The figures cited above include the cost of room and board at the Florida schools. I cited in-state costs between UVA and the FL colleges to allow for an apples-to-apples comparison. However, the OOS costs of USF are less expensive than the in-state costs at UVA. (The tuition at U of F, UCF, and USF are less than half of UVA’s.) The figures were taken from each school’s website and includes the cost of tuition, room, board, and books.
Florida is cheaper. My daughter goes OOS to Wyoming and her costs were about the same as they would have been in Florida for instate as she didn’t qualify for scholarships in Florida but did in Wyo. Also, the room and board in Wyo is much cheaper.
Some states just have very high tuition and fees, even for instate students. PA and IL are two states where it could be cheaper to go OOS, especially with a scholarship.
I would just note that Nursing has the lowest acceptance rate of any UVa undergrad colleges. It is a very challenging schedule, and I don’t think there is time for a double major, and there may not be time for a minor.
I just looked it up: UVa’s dance program offers a minor in the Dept. of Drama.
The public universities that are most in demand have the highest out of state tuition (such as Berkeley, UCLA, UVa and U Michigan). There are other public universities that want to strongly encourage out of state students and that spend much less per student, and therefore have lower OOS tuition and fees. That is life.
Some other public universities offer large merit aid awards to top out of state students. UVa is rare among public universities in offering large amounts of need based aid to OOS US students.
Not sure what you are looking for? Some OOS schools are cheaper than others Just works that way. Everything in Florida is cheaper than in VA. But you could compare George Mason which is about 23k total. Or look up Old Dominion or some of the other VA state schools. It doesn’t seem like your costs include travel, so I would be sure to factor that in.
Don’t forget UVA is in a completely different league from USF when it comes to academics, prestige, reputation, and career opportunities. You’re talking ab a T25 Public Ivy vs. USF (which is still a great school! not discounting it at all.)