Anonymous wrote:Ahem. I'm sure you meant THE Ohio State.
Have a couple of friends with kids there, they love it. We did a brief self-tour while on a big loop through the Midwest. Wow - Student Union clearly shows the $$ pouring back in from athletics. Agree that the campus is quite nice. Made a joke at the tour station about visiting their rival school and hoo-boy! about 8 people in earshot visibly bristled. The overall athletic, hyper-sports-competitive vibe did not fit my kid.
Ultimately, when your kid can get into your in-state public land-grant university, and that university is higher ranked than the surrounding states' land-grant universities, why would you pay more money to go to a lower ranked school? It may be worth looking at them if you think you can get significant merit aid, or they have a unique specialty program, but otherwise you have a better value closer to home.
OP here. Thanks for the thoughtful answer. Our in-state is Maryland which is comparable to OSU academically. But our daughter doesn’t love it and based on what we’ve heard from kids with comparable stats we think she might qualify for enough aid to make it similar in cost. Plus we really think she’d benefit from going away. College Park is quite close and we worry that she’d come home at the first sign of struggle.