Cost of attendance is the same for everyone.
Net price is what changes depending on the student’s financial aid and scholarships.
COA is the same for everyone, but what the student actually spends is quite different. COA is the estimate the school uses to give students an idea of what it will cost. My kids didn’t come close to the COAs because we didn’t have $1200 for books or $2000 for incidentals. Often even here on CC people talk about $50/wk in spending money but nope, not for my kids because they just didn’t have it.
The COA at both schools is $2-4k more than my kids spend. We paid a lot more attention to the fixed costs, at first tuition, fees, room and board and then just tuition and fees. Everything else is controllable. Yes, there are costs for food but whether it is $500/sem or the school $1800 meal plan within the control of the student.
@lesjubilants don’t worry…most people know exactly what you’re talking about…some people just like to school others on how smart they are… When people are wrong on the internet: xkcd (dot) com (slash) 386 https://xkcd.com/386/
You know, there are some times when electronic communications on the interwebs suffers from the lack of visual and audio cues that we get with face-to-face communication, and this is one of those times.
As much as it may come as a surprise to you, my purpose in noting the misuse of a certain term is not to “school others on how smart” I might (or might not) be. The purpose is to reduce the confusion that any misuse might cause, both in this thread and in future threads, as more of those who use this forum gain an understanding of what specifically “Cost of Attendance” means.
@BelknapPoint I’m sorry but @lesjubilants stated that they got $X in scholarships, “making COA $Y…” - this indicates to any reasonable person that is able to reach conclusions based on context clues that @lesjubilants was taking the all-in costs and subtracting their scholarships and coming up with the figure they’d have to pay. Heaven forbid you just let a small mistake slide when it was pretty obvious what they were talking about. Or if you have to correct them, you could have done it as part of another comment - actually provided some advice to @lesjubilants and then, as an aside or a “P.S.” said “by the way, the term you want is ‘net cost’ since ‘COA’ is the same for everyone in the same situation (in-state/out of state - on campus/commuting) and consists of Tuition, Room & Board, Books, Travel, and Misc Expenses”
I know what she was trying to do, and I’m sure that any reasonable person would as well. The issue is a simple misuse of a specifically defined term. A person (including a reasonable person) who doesn’t know the correct use of that term may make an assumption based on lesjubilant’s misuse, which could cause confusion when reading or writing other posts that use the term. Less confusion is better than more confusion; that’s the reason for my correcting post. You shouldn’t assume that I’m doing it in any kind of mean-spirited or mocking way. I’m trying to be helpful to lesjubilants and other readers who aren’t sure of the correct use of the term. As I note above, it’s often not easy to convey emotions or attitudes in electronic communication.
Washington and Lee University gives full ride scholarships to about 10% of each entering class. Very competitive I’m sure. GREAT school and very well-regarded.
Bucknell and Uni Rochester offer merit that could bring the total cost into the OP’s ballpark. Maybe Union?
Look at LACs that offer large merit scholarships that are ranked about 25-70 (and lower…) in the US News national LAC ranking.
Auto-merit state schools have already been mentioned.
Mount Holyoke. They offer approximately 50 full rides, and about 25 accept. They usually go to students in the Ivy range, that is to say they will be choosing between a top school, or the full ride at MoHo. About 1530 SAT. They have another range for $20,000 Merit Scholarship. My daughter received one. 1450 SAT, 4.25 W GPA 8 AP’s, but the hard one’s, Cal, AB Cal BC, Bio, Chem, APUSH, etc. competitive dancer good enough to be a dance major, although she will only minor in Dance, and the usual Honor society stuff. She interviewed and visited twice, and I think she just made it, mostly because of top 1% rigor for her high school. Smith has some as well, as far as I can tell, about half of what Mount Holyoke offers.
Lower ranked schools, Hobart & William Smith and Wheaton ( MA ) will offer about $30,000 a year to such a student, from our experience.