I live in Wisconsin. I just heard on the news that 20 percent of the incoming class at UW-Whitewater, located in the southeast part of the state, is from Illinois. According to the news story, Whitewater’s cost for out-of-state students is the same as many Illinois students would be paying to attend their in-state publics.
Many students from my son’s high school class in California are attending non-flagships in Oregon and Washington. The cost is similar and the schools offer great programs.
Yes, Whitewater always has had a group of students from the Chicago suburbs and maybe they are getting more due to the Illinois state troubles. UW-Eau Claire was just included on a list of top public colleges and I bet they will be getting a lot of out of state applications.
A word of caution: Some non-flagship publics are “suitcase schools,” where most students go home on the weekends. If you’re from out of state and too far from home to leave on the weekends, you might find the weekends lonely and boring.
For better or worse, Whitewater has a reputation as a party school. So I’m guessing that a lot of students stay for the weekends.
This might be the largest school I had never heard of before last year, but Grand Valley State in Michigan has over 20,000 students, and its OOS tuition is cheaper than in-state Illinois UC. I know little other than another parent who was very favorably impressed and a friend of my D who loves it as a dance major.
As an aside, GVSU has historically had a strong dance program. It is a very rapidly growing university but is over shadowed in a state with two other powerhouse unis.
I don’t think the Wis schools are suitcase schools so much as schools that might have a number of locals who live at home. I grew up near one such school, but lived in the dorms. Had plenty of dorm friends, plenty of townie friends, townies hung around on campus at the Union and other places more than those who lived in the dorms, and all groups mixed. Those who lived in the dorms were mostly from places several hours away and not going home for the weekend to Milwaukee or Chicago. Those who live at home are fully involved in campus life, sports, drinking, concerts, and everything else, they just don’t eat in the cafeterias.
OOS tuition at most of the Wisconsin directional is under $20k for tuition, room & book, and often that price includes books (loaned to the student).
On the financials, such schools are unlikely to offer good need-based financial aid to out-of-state students. But some of them may have low out-of-state list prices, or offer merit scholarships or regional tuition discounts. Whether that makes them less expensive than in-state public schools that the student may get admitted to depends a lot on the situation. Illinois students are mentioned above; Illinois publics tend to be expensive, with not-very-good financial aid even for in-state students.
But note that some students may want to go out-of-state to get the flagship college experience if their in-state flagship is too selective. E.g. a California student who may be able to get into a moderately selective CSU in-state may prefer to attend an out-of-state flagship like the ones in Oregon or Arizona instead, and have either willing-to-pay parents or merit scholarships to keep the price within range.
I attend a non-flagship public university as an out-of-state student, so I can relate! I think it’s an excellent choice for kids who want to head OOS but don’t have the finances or the stats for the OOS flagship. It would also help your student to settle in quickly if many OOSers are from the same state/region as you. Most OOSers at my school are from the Northeast like me, so it was easier to feel at home sooner.
As an Illinois resident, I totally agree UW Whitewater has a reputation as a party school. I know a really, really bright woman who went there (grew up living above a bar her alcoholic and abusive parents owned in small town Wisconsin, an absolutely horrible upbringing, about as white trash as one could be) and I have great respect for her. But honestly if that were my choice I’d rather send my kids to comm college for 2 years and have them transfer to U of I than go to UW Whitewater for 4 years.
A lot of kids from SoCal seem to be heading to NAU lately. So much so my kids have started calling it the Cal State Fullerton of AZ.
Just remember that many state schools have suffered from serious budget cuts over the years. Flagships can often make up for them via increased tuition, donations, and research dollars, but non flagships usually do not have the latter two options. A school like Southwestern Oklahoma State has not weathered state cuts nearly as well as the University of Oklahoma.
In my state, the non-flagship state U’s are a decent option for a kid who wants to study elementary ed, major in business or communications, or a couple of other vocationally oriented programs particularly in Allied Health. They are less suitable for the hard sciences (except for bio, since it’s a foundational program for PT, OT, nursing, etc.) and not that strong on traditional humanities. OK for math for someone who wants to get certified as a HS math teacher or major in statistics; less so for a kid interested in something theoretical.
Buyer beware. Sometimes worth it, sometimes not.
I am sure it depends on the state so good to do the homework. In Michigan as an example, Michigan Tech is very good for engineering, some think comparable to UofM and MSU in strength. But generally you could take each of Michigan’s unis, other than the two flagships, and each would have one or two areas of strength. With regard to out of state scholarship dollars, all of mine applied to at least one out of state public uni and the packages, with the exception of Vermont, brought costs to about the same as being in Michigan as full pay ($30,000 a year) so we would not have paid a “premium”. Vermont was an outlier because his scores, etc. would have indicated that he was going in at the top of the entering class but I’m guessing it’s because it was the NE and so many kids travel that being “out of state” is not of interest to the system.
Other majors that can sometimes be very strong yet not be flagship unis can be arts majors…there are directionals with very strong studio art, dance, music, etc. majors where it would be well worth the travel.
Here in Texas we have alot of kids who go to neighboring flagship schools like Oklahoma, Arkansas or LSU. Typically these kids come from competitive high schools but are just outside of being top 10%. They get merit aid that makes up for the out of state tuition difference which makes it a great deal for them. In many cases those out of state schools are closer than the in-state flagships.