Need Met Schools- Financial AidAnswered
I work in California but often recommend out of state colleges/universities for my students because of their stellar financial aid packets. Typically we recommend private, 100% need met schools. But what types of packages are offered from public institutions? Do out of state costs factor into these high need met packages? And further- how do HBCUs factor into the out-of-state need met financial packages?
Need-based, first-gen. More competitive schools than 70%, ideally <50% as the students are high achieving but open to just understand any
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So there's an incredible amount of nuance. Try looking into Posee(minority students only) and Questbridge those are the epitome of need-based and merit programs. But they are largely private schools and fairly selective.
Private HBCUs I know little about but they largely follow the same path as equivalent non-HBCUs in terms of aid packages. Public ones vary by program but they are typically cost less but have about the same aid to slightly less as the main school. For example Bama is 3x the cost of Alabama AM but with aid applied it would be more like mid2x times but this is a balance between prestige and cost among other factors. But this is a huge over-generalization you need to look at it school by school.
Public schools especially for OOS students typically have small need aid but it differed by the school. For the schools with around a 50% admit rate the best bet for aid is typically merit such as the WUE program (link below) in the west and school-based merit systems like Alabamas. (link below) These do have a greater award than instate but %wise it is roughly the same. Need base at the 50% admit rate is typically about the same as a pell grant so the best bet for need-based aid is to need-based scholarships that schools offer that can cover a significant portion but these typically require essays and some aspects like academic thresholds.
Now generally if you/your students have limited financial capabilities besides instate schools typically the best way to optimize cost is to go to one of the Group of 5 schools (American MAC CUSA Sunbelt MW) as these have a significantly lower net cost and are good schools. (I used conferences as the generally reflect prestige) but there are other ones not part of this such as other State main schools like South Dakota St and NDSU among others. But of course, the best option is the need met schools and if you'd like I can link an article or two about them
Really hope this helps and feel free to ask for clarification if you need it as Id be happy to help.
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Are you talking need met or merit and what type of schools selective ones or ones that admit about 70%?