The Great TOPS Shell Game

No shite. I thought everyone knew this?

Friend,

Am I inferring correctly that you are complaining about having to spend $3000 a year on fees and $0 on tuition at a flagship university? See what families in the Big 10 spend on public university tuition and fees for comparison. For example, a Illinois resident can expect to spend nearly $23,000 each year on tuition and fees alone at the University of Illinois.

Yours,
TulaneLSU

Tell your kids to study hard, to get a good GPA, score high on the ACT, and live at home(or keep living costs low) and you will pay basically nothing. My kids had to come up with no money every semester for tuition and fees. The extra scholarship money covered all school fees. They worked for book money and spending money. Everyone thinks you have to send them away to school and spend a ton of money. That’s not true. You can control a lot of the costs. One more thing to add, if your kid isn’t a great student(especially boys) encourage them to get a trade or attend a community college. Low costs and they can make good money in a lot of areas.

Tops pays for about 8%

quote:

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Fast forward to my kid going and tuition is $1,851 and TOPS pays for all of it! Hooray! Fees are now, coincidently enough, almost what the tuition is, $1,584.

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Is this including meal plans or something? My kids Tops Honors award covers everything, her fee bill is $0 every semester outside of the parking pass. She doesn’t live on campus, so she’s never paid for housing or a meal plan

It will be cheaper for my kids to go anywhere in the states to the East of us than what TOPS has become with these corrupt Louisiana schools. I have friends with a kid at Tech with the highest level TOPS, plus merit scholarships and she said she sends a $3100 check per quarter. That’s 18K+ a year for me. Or…they can go to Ole Miss for free…Gee, what should I do?

I came from out of state and remained in this state. Try out of state tuition without tops. I agree school cost is bullshite, but I went to school with people, essentially making money while I paid out the arse and maintained a much higher GPA. When people bitch about tops, I don't feel bad.

I got great grades in HS, got the highest TOPS award all 4 years, then immediately went to Texas to start my career after graduating.

The state should mitigate that risk.

I seem to remember a story from Florida many years ago concerning the lottery and Education. They gave residents the impression that lottery money would be earmarked for education in addition to what was already being spent. In reality the original money was moved to pet projects and replaced in the education budget with the new money for a zero net gain. Am I remembering this correctly?

Anything subsidized by the government will have a price increase or growth relative to the subsidy.

Basic economics