@eh1234 , Sorry you have to "shell out $45K to send her OOS. " That must hurt. But, if she can’t get into a Virginia schools she would be happy to attend, then that makes it tough. Good luck to her at her OOS school!
Is it fair to say for many that the OOS public is that middle ground cost wise between the In State Public and a full pay private?
Yes, that could be a middle ground for some. Another possible middle ground -instate public even at full pay is middle ground between more expensive( private or OOS public) and cheaper OOS school known for automatic merit (like Alabama).
I haven’t read every post on here so I am not sure if this has been mentioned, but there is a subcategory within the Public University umbrella that could definitely play a role in choosing a public OOS. That is the public LAC. There is a group of them throughout the country: http://coplac.org/ My son chose one of these because they were very strong in his major (our state school isn’t), provided an environment that was exactly what he wanted academically, was shockingly affordable as these things go (barely more than our state school), and coincidentally in his case was located just a couple of hours from his only surviving grandparents, who are not getting any younger as the saying goes. It was a great fit, we and he were very fortunate.
Edit - It occurs to me in reading this that for the results oriented I should provide more info. After finishing at this school in the normal 4 years and doing well, he was admitted to a very good law school on full scholarship. Not just full tuition, but also a stipend that covered his room and board. It wasn’t a T14 law school or whatever the terminology is these days, but it was a well known one with a joint program related to his undergrad major (Russian), so he was able to expand on that. He is now in his early stages of practicing immigration law.
@fallenchemist - thanks for the info. Didn’t realize there are so few Public LACs. Or that they relatively have such small endowments.
Do you think each of these states is committed to their public LAC? Are they doing well?
I have no idea. Why create a negative slant on things that are good? As far as the small endowments, they are smallish schools and many have only gone to the public LAC format relatively recently. What else would you expect? And I don’t think there are few, I was actually surprised to find that many. Not very obvious for any state to be far-sighted enough to create a location that is dedicated to teaching in an LAC style environment. They are a potential reason for some students to attend OOS publics. Wasn’t that the question in your title?
Did you really even know there were public LAC’s? You sure didn’t mention them in your OP.
Let’s keep this thread I started about OOS public colleges on track.
Thanks for sharing about the relatively small subsection of public colleges that are LACs.
Our in state schools were not right for kid #2. She fell in love with a $65,000 a year private but she did not get merit and I did not want to spend $65,000 for years 2-4 ( first year we would have gotten some FA). So… She is at an OOS public with some FA and we will have this aid for 3 years. Year 4 we are full pay. It’s a great school and she has amazing opportunities at her fingertips.
That was an interesting list, @fallenchemist . University of Mary Washington (on the list) in Virginia is a good school in a nice town. It was at one time the woman’s college of UVa ( many decades ago.). They offer one or two full rides every year to top instate students. The valedictorian in one of my son’s graduating class got that award. People were a little surprised at the time (most top students were looking more at schools like UVa, W & M or VT if they wanted to stay instate). But she took the money, did very well there and went onto graduate school at Stanford. The school also offers one full ride a year to an OOS student. They also offer smaller merit awards that it looks like OOS students can also access. Glad a public OOS LAC worked out so well for your son.
I did not realize SUNY Geneseo was a public LAC! Thx FC!
There are public state schools that are good, great, and then there are “world class” state schools that rival the top privates in every way. For those, I don’t think you need to ask…
Re: #123-125, #128
Yes, public LACs tend to be overlooked on these forums, even though there are plenty of LAC advocates who recommend private LACs.
Interesting ranking of public colleges sourced via Barron’s:
http://www.stateuniversity.com/rank/score_rank_by_pubc.html
That looks kind of all over the place…not accurate…of course we don’t know what they are ranking. Could be greeness of the grass.
@HRSMom why do you think this ranking isn’t accurate?
@HRSMom They have the ranking criteria posted on the link. It looks like most of the data comes from US government documents. No peer reviews are used .
If the only real difference is peer evaluations, that does not explain how UConn pops up so high, or VPI? Or Westpoint so low…and where are the UCs?
@HRSMom Did you click on the link to see what went into the ranking?
@HRSMom - the ranking is based on the criteria which they outline. Similar but different.
Personally if I could re-weight the US News data points, I would assign 0% to peer review as well.
Ok, UConn over UCB…?
Rankings are somewhat useless anyway. I went through 15 pages and didn’t see my alma mater. And I did just fine a a basic giant state U. In state of course!
Someone needs to tell the CCers that rankings are useless. There seems to be quite a bit of emphasis placed on rank and prestige on most of these threads. And FWIW, I turned out fine and I attended a state directional public university , not the flagship .