UT as in Texas?

Yeah, I had to at least.

Michigan has the Promise Scholarship.. a whopping $4000 for your entire college career if you make a certain score on the standardized test everybody takes Junior year.

The top 10% thing seems odd. Isn't it conceivable that the top 10% in one school district/one school is still lower than the top 30% in another? So you could be really screwed if you're in a better district?

I read an article a couple of years ago that pretty much highlighted that problem. Some parents even went so far as to enroll their kids in lower performing schools or districts to ensure their child would be in the top 10%.

You know, I'm not so sure how much we should rely on our states to provide scholarships, especially in the cases of top state schools (UT, UVa, or the Cal system). In-state residents basically get a discount on these relatively inexpensive schools anyway, while most out-of-state residents make up for the fact that they're not paying taxes in the state with out-of-state fees. Schools like the one I mentioned above are a great bargain in the first place.

If I had chosen to go to UF (fat chance, I basically applied because our college consultant required us to apply to a state school), my education would have been free, but it was so cheap anyway that it didn't feel like a major honor. I actually got even more money from William and Mary.

See, now our main state schools are VERY expensive. At one time, U of Michigan was the most expensive public university in the nation. They are not affordable AT ALL. All the schools are insanely expensive now. I have a friend whose son is at Western Michigan and he's paying $16,000 a year for a (hate to use the word) lower tier (read: Less selective) school. That's a 400% increase over when I went to school and tuition, room and board were less than $4000 a year.

Not to totally derail the thread - I remember having a lot of fun in high school, and really enjoying it. I was pretty high up in the class (#6, and our top 7 were seperated by something like .000001 in GPA), was on the baseball team, and really didn't have any enemies. As I've gotten older though, my memories of high school seem less rosy - I'm not exactly sure why that is.

As to high GPAs - my high school didn't get up to 5, but you could have higher than a 4.0 if you took AP courses. I took 6 in high school and ended up with something like a 4.3. It sounded weird when I was putting it on college applications, but I never got asked about it, so I assumed a lot of schools did something similar.

Our valedictorian ended up staying in state, I think he got a free ride. He wanted to be a teacher, got a free education with which to accomplish that goal, and has now been a high school history teacher for a few years. It seems like he's very well liked throughout the school and local educational community, so things worked out exactly how he wanted. The in-state schools are very reasonably priced, although most people end up at UConn. In fact, I'm paying less for 4 years of law school (I'm an evening student) than my undergrad was charging for 1.5 years of tuition when I was there.

Now that I think about it, the post-high school choices of the top 10 in my class were pretty widely varied. There were a few teachers, a couple of med students and law students, and at least one successful commercial and movie actress.

My high school, you could take the easiest classes or the hardest classes and a 4.0 was still a 4.0. However as long as you had at least a 3.0, the state paid the average tuition of all the state run schools. Unfortunately it won't last much longer cause it's running out of money quickly, but if you have a 3.0 its worth about $12,000.

Yes, depending on your major, there is a choice of essays. All very PC and all kind of begging for you to bs your way through it.

Considering you are guaranteed a spot if you are in the top 10%, I doubt very seriously that they pour over them with a fine tooth comb.

For the honors colleges (Plan 2, business honors, etc.) the essays are critical, from what I've heard (don't have a dog in the hunt so can't vouch for sure).

The tuition rate for UT is around $9000 a year for instate, but what they fail to mention is that the cost of living is pretty darn high in Austin - my son is living in a 12 bedroom duplex (6 baths) with a bunch of his pledge brothers next year (I know, it's insane, but what's a mom to do) and the cost of that one stupid room is $795 a month, not including his share of utilities. So, after adding up tuition, rent, food, books, and dues, we will be spending upwards of $30,000/year for our state public.

College costs are getting astronomical - so for you young parents out there - Start saving your pennies:D

For my oldest, he chose UF (we are from Texas, so it's out of state) because it was free. He had always thought that he wanted to be a doctor, so we made a deal with him that we wouldn't touch his college fund, and he would have it to go to med school. Well, one year of all those science courses, and he quickly decided that he would go econ/business route. Good news for him though is that when he graduates next year, he has quite the nest egg to do with what he chooses.

How do you figure this? Are you just comparing In-state vs out-of-state?

In no way does it seem like I got a "discount" from being an in-state student. In fact, I paid more tuition for 1 semester at UTEP then I did for a whole YEAR (3 quarters) at CSUEB.

When I started UTEP back in '03, tuition was around $80 per credit hour. Now this fall its going to be close to $200 per credit hour.

The out-of-state students that come here get pretty good scholarships. I know a girl who came from Michigan (she wasn't an athlete or anything) and got a full scholarship to UTEP, yet many native El Pasoans (who could definitely use some aid money) rarely get aid.

Here we have two tuition rates, one for in-state and one for out-of-state.

I am aware of that, since we do have that here as well. I was just wondering why she said that in-staters get a "discount." That is why I asked if she is just shearly looking at the tuition rates between in-state vs. out-of-state. If that is what she is looking at then, yeah I guess in-staters get a discount.

That's about what I paid each month to live in the dorm at my school, which included sharing the room with a roommate.

The cost of public higher ed. varies greatly from state to state (yearly tuition):

- University of Michigan's tuition varies even according to major, which is interesting and unusual I think. But from the looks of it, 2007 tuition there for in-state averaged around $5,500 (out of state around $16,000),
- University of Washington $6,300 in state; $22,000 out of state
- University of Texas $9,200 in-state full time business undergrad (again it varies according to major); $20,000 out of state
- Ole Miss $5,100 for in-state; $7,300 out of state
- UCLA $5,800 in-state; $25,000 out of state
- Florida State $3,700 in state; $18,000 out of state

Ole Miss looks like a bargain for out-of-staters.

I always heard that about Michigan too. Just curious, Peppy, where did you get your numbers? The numbers I found were much more in line with this: http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/colle...ollege_id=9263 that says instate tuition is more like around 10 grand (and that's not including any room and board -- if your in-state kid wants to live (and eat) on campus, it looks like it could run you $18-19K, minimum)