re: Seriously, how the F do people afford private colleges?

I wanted to post more last night but I needed sleep.

I'm going to use Birmingham Southern as an example, because their information is readily available and I am familiar with their processes.



BSC tuition is $33,200. This is your "typical" private college. Not necessarily elite academically, but provides a good education. BSC has partnerships with Vanderbilt and Duke for some majors. They have Division III athletics and a Greek scene.

As you can see in this chart, A good high school student with a 29+ ACT and a 3.9+ GPA receives a $27,000 scholarship, bringing the cost to around $6,000 - which can be covered by a Pell Grant if the need is there, but is very reasonable if there is no eligibility for need-based aid.

But consider this:

A 3.9+ GPA in high school combined with a 25 ACT is worth $25,000 at BSC, bringing the out of pocket tuition to $8,200.

If you were to have those credentials, there is no scholarship available at the University of Alabama, whose in state tuition is $10,470.

So it would be $2270 cheaper to go to Birmingham Southern than Alabama for that student. Add in that things like Greek life are much cheaper at a place like BSC than an SEC university, and a family has a tough decision.

Many times students like this never even apply to private colleges because they see the tuition price.