The Great Student Swap

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In-state at William and Mary costs $43k (tuition, room/board). Likelihood of getting merit is slim if in-state.

OOS at a flagship with merit for my DS is $40k (tuition, room and board). Likelihood of getting merit for OOS is high for students with decent stats.

I can't think of any state flagship that is much like William and Mary (maybe UVM is the closest but the average stats are MUCH lower). ANd I especially can't think of any state flagship that has a comparable student body that will give enough merir to bring it down to 40K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Delaware is full of NJ students

Delaware isn't a good example, though, because it is a very small state. It isn't so much that the Delaware students are going elsewhere in droves but rather that kids from Maryland/Pennsylvania/New York/New Jersey all added up end up outnumbering them.

[Anonymous]

My kid didn’t apply because he didn’t like the school, but likely couldn’t have gotten into UVA from his high school because the necessary stats are artificially inflated b/c of the high school’s applicant pool, but he got into a higher ranked state flagship in another state. We could afford the tuition so off he went.

Our next DC doesn’t want to stay in VA and wants to go south and our finances haven’t changed so he’ll leave VA too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It can also be because of a strength in a particular area. For example, Indiana U is strong in music. Most of the colleges that are as good or better than IU in this area are private colleges, particularly conservatories. If your kid wants to major in music but you want them to have the full college experience, IU's only rival among public universities is UMichigan, which is a harder admit.

Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois (as states, not just the eponymous Universities) have a notable round-robin exchange of undergrads between them. Points have been made that this is economically inefficient for the students. But there are also a variety of reasons including specific program strengths, families' original homes, etc.

I'm familiar with New Jersey kids wanting to go to school outside their home region. The ones I knew all moved back home but they genuinely seemed to like trying something different for a few years.

New Jersey is tiny in size and the most densely populated state in the country. Virtually every student in the state lives within 2 hours of the campus, most much closer. That's a big reason why so many go elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It can also be because of a strength in a particular area. For example, Indiana U is strong in music. Most of the colleges that are as good or better than IU in this area are private colleges, particularly conservatories. If your kid wants to major in music but you want them to have the full college experience, IU's only rival among public universities is UMichigan, which is a harder admit.

Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois (as states, not just the eponymous Universities) have a notable round-robin exchange of undergrads between them. Points have been made that this is economically inefficient for the students. But there are also a variety of reasons including specific program strengths, families' original homes, etc.

I'm familiar with New Jersey kids wanting to go to school outside their home region. The ones I knew all moved back home but they genuinely seemed to like trying something different for a few years.

New Jersey is tiny in size and the most densely populated state in the country. Virtually every student in the state lives within 2 hours of the campus, most much closer. That's a big reason why so many go elsewhere.

Rutgers is a very fine school but a crappy campus and doesn’t give the “college experience”.

If Rutgers had the Princeton campus (putting aside the 18th century buildings…just if it had the space in a quaint part of NJ), it would be massively oversubscribed from in state residents.

[Anonymous]

My kid went to Pitt instead of UMD because she wanted out of the area. UMD was too close to home. If cost had been an issue would have definitely stayed in-state.

[Anonymous]

For state schools with high in-state tuition, losing their best students is a risk they are willing to take. Maybe the state gov't doesn't care, or believe the kids will come back post-grad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For state schools with high in-state tuition, losing their best students is a risk they are willing to take. Maybe the state gov't doesn't care, or believe the kids will come back post-grad.

State governments (e.g. legislatures) don't really care too much about flagships. Few of their actions directly make the flagships notably better or worse. And their actions don't threaten the continued existence of flagships.

There is a certain amount of yapping about favoring in-state students but a lot of that is just class self-interest (along the lines of "people I know can't get their kids into the school"). That's not about retaining the best students for the good of a state's economy. It's about what affluent people and alumni expect from life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid didn’t apply because he didn’t like the school, but likely couldn’t have gotten into UVA from his high school because the necessary stats are artificially inflated b/c of the high school’s applicant pool, but he got into a higher ranked state flagship in another state. We could afford the tuition so off he went.

Our next DC doesn’t want to stay in VA and wants to go south and our finances haven’t changed so he’ll leave VA too.

Didn’t have the stats for UVA in-state, but go into Berkley, UCLA, or Michigan OOS? Which one? I’m so curious. I thought those were way tougher than UVA.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s not so much about these schools being “easier to get in” from out of state as it is that they’re not serving a mission of educating all the best and brightest of the state that want to stay close to home.

[Anonymous]

Some students are more adventurous than others and prefer exploring a new location in a different state and, possibly, region of the country.

Many who attend their state flagship complain a bit about too many kids from my high school or area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some students are more adventurous than others and prefer exploring a new location in a different state and, possibly, region of the country.

Many who attend their state flagship complain a bit about too many kids from my high school or area.

This is such a trope that some people use to slight kids that go to in-state schools and/or to feel smug about their kids going to OOS schools. As if simply seeing students they know from high school on campus is a terrible thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is exactly what we are talking about in our family. If we get money yes, but why else do this. Fascinating story.

"At the average flagship’s main campus, nearly four out of every ten undergraduates now come from another state. New Jersey kids go to Penn State instead of Rutgers; Illinois residents head off to the University of Missouri instead of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. For students, going to college out of state is a chance to get away from home—and from their high-school classmates—or to experience what they perceive as “big college” life, such as Saturday tailgates and a thriving social scene centered on fraternities and sororities. But it’s the schools themselves that benefit most from this system, as they are able to charge much higher tuition for out-of-state students. Total costs for in-state students at Alabama run $34,600 this academic year; for out-of-state students, the list price is nearing sixty thousand dollars. Though the quality of the school’s football program cannot be denied, many of these students are coming from states such as Illinois, Georgia, and California, which are also known for big universities with prominent football teams, school spirit, and a vibrant Greek life. (Not to mention that at any big public university, you are still likely to encounter tens of thousands of new people who have never even heard of your high school, even if it’s in the same state.) In other words, these students are paying twice as much as they would otherwise—for a similar product."

https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-great-student-swap

UVA does not take all the virginia residents they should and so a lot of them end up at UMD, UIUC, Penn State, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some students are more adventurous than others and prefer exploring a new location in a different state and, possibly, region of the country.

Many who attend their state flagship complain a bit about too many kids from my high school or area.

This is such a trope that some people use to slight kids that go to in-state schools and/or to feel smug about their kids going to OOS schools. As if simply seeing students they know from high school on campus is a terrible thing.

+ 1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some students are more adventurous than others and prefer exploring a new location in a different state and, possibly, region of the country.

Many who attend their state flagship complain a bit about too many kids from my high school or area.

This is such a trope that some people use to slight kids that go to in-state schools and/or to feel smug about their kids going to OOS schools. As if simply seeing students they know from high school on campus is a terrible thing.

Doesn’t make it less true. A lot of kids hate high school and want to “remake” themselves somewhere else where there aren’t a bunch of kids that knew them before.