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Surly Kids NOT going to UT/General College Discussion Rising 2019/2020 Seniors


Bateshorn

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So are you just being willful obtuse?  The comprehensive fee is right underneath where you are pulling the tuition on financial aid websites.  I’ll cite them for you when I get to work.  They are all mostly in the 72-78K range. And you have to take all their assessments for fees and expenses because that’s the numbers they use for FAFSA, CSS,  and your financial aid offer.  

Sure, you might be able to doge a fee or expense here or there in RL, but virtually all liberal arts private’s are north of 70K for COA. 

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1 hour ago, RiceOwl said:

Feels like it was forever ago that I was in college even though it really hasn’t been long ago... But my younger sister is applying to schools for 2020 and has a good list... Though I think she’s underestimating herself... 3.71 Unweighted GPA from a New England prep school and a 34 ACT... Most of her peers are Ivy bound but she seems insistent on applying early to WUSTL... Hey, great school but it’s still unclear to me what appeals to her there besides the fact that not many people from her school go there. Also going to apply to Rice, UT Comp Sci, and a bunch of safeties if she doesn’t get in to Wash U. 

Best of luck to everyone!!

Wash U is a hella good school.

one of the things I’ve learned doing admissions for Boy #1 is high grade/test/EC girls from NE private schools are a dime a dozen.  That’s a super competitive pool to be in.  3.7/34 is a bit low for anywhere other than Penn or Cornell (depending on program).  At least to feel good about your chances. 

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11 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

Can any other people speak to Trinity?  The boy and I are visiting in October.  I know they have super generous merit aid if you have good grades/test scores

I graduated from Trinity in '07.  Loved it.  It is expensive but I had some scholarship money and some financial aid....still had $35k of student loans when I graduated that I paid off as soon as I could after I graduated.

To state the obvious, it is a totally different type of school than UT.  There is effectively one college bar (Bays) and the rest of the social scene is small local frat/sorority life, which was actually a ton of fun if that's your thing (although to be clear - the greek life is on a totally smaller scale than what you would expect at UT).  There was a moment after my freshman year I contemplated transferring to UT, but at that point I had already made a bunch of new friends and was enjoying the school...and Austin is only an hour away.

I'm in Houston now and I wish Trinity had a bigger network in the business community, so that's probably my biggest beef with the school even though that's just the nature of a small school.  I feel like the school's reputation continues to get stronger only because UT and A&M are becoming increasingly more difficult to get into.

 

 

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11 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Maybe I'm not looking at the same #s you are, and possibly not the same schools, but a quick search for "tuition" shows:

Rice:  $43.9K

Vanderbilt:  $45.6K

Washington University:  $49.8K

Northwestern:  $50.9K

Amherst:  $56.4K

Carlton:  $54.8K

Washington & Lee:  $52.5K

 

Seems to me that would put "all in" at $55K - $67K, perhaps excluding books.  Are we talking apples to apples?  Not that any of this is inexpensive, but I just want to level the conversation.  Maybe I'm missing something.

I've not included some of the one off Freshman fees here, which are probably not reimbursable under federal financial aid rules and are tacked on after.

Rice-67K

Vanderbilt- $73,148

WashU- $76,910

NW- $78,654

Amherst- $76,800

Carlton-$71,769

W&L-$73,900

Trinity U-$60,664

 

Thoughts: As ever, given the quality of the education, Rice continues to be a good bargain.  Trinity is a down right steal given the resources.  I subtracted the health insurance charge from Amherst, since it's the only one that includes it in it's Financial Aid calculation.  Which brings me to a point I mentioned above:  This is the charge they use to calculate your financial aid package.  If you go straight cash homey, the number is just tuition/room/board, thus more in the 60s range.  Although you'll pay personal expenses, you just won't calculate them when figuring out the cost of attendance.  But if you can afford Amherst out of pocket, I'm assuming money isn't really a problem.

Edited by Bateshorn
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1 hour ago, Bateshorn said:

So are you just being willful obtuse?  The comprehensive fee is right underneath where you are pulling the tuition on financial aid websites.

No, I'm not being willfully obtuse.  As it turns out, the inaccuracy on my part wasn't a failure to include fees, it was just older data.  Tuition hikes in just 3 years are actually significant.

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The growth of Texas with UT staying the same size has really helped a lot of schools. Txst is a vastly different school than I showed up to in the fall of 2003. The quality of student, degree offerings, and overall attitude towards the school from students is so much better. With more money coming in, the campus has been renovated and looks good. I’m guessing it is the same of a lot of schools that are in a similar position such as UTSA, UH, UNT, etc. 

Aggy is kind of the wild card in the mix. When I was graduating HS, they were determined to stay around the 45k mark on students and it was pretty difficult to be accepted. Later the attitude changed and they have become huge. If aggy wants to stay around their same size, Texas will continue to grow and the other schools will get some pretty good students coming their way. If aggy wants to grow more, get ready to live in a sea of maroon.

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I'm sorry for being a dick.  It was uncalled for.

1 minute ago, jimmyjazz said:

No, I'm not being willfully obtuse.  As it turns out, the inaccuracy on my part wasn't a failure to include fees, it was just older data.  Tuition hikes in just 3 years are actually significant.

 

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15 hours ago, BurntEyes said:

Nephew has grades (almost all As) and test scores (1460/35) to likely get into Texas, but has mild Asperger's so he's likely going to UTD. He's also interested in Vanderbilt. He could be close to/live with family at either which is really the best bet for him. Most likely UTD which doesn't suck. His twin sister, who's smart, but frankly lazy/no fucks given is going to Community college. It's really the best plan for them both. Though she really wanted to be a Longhorn pom squad member and probably could have been as she was a gymnastics brat and a damn good one. (And no you fucking pedos, ZERO fucking pics) 

mild Asperger's is probably the average UT male these days.  That's preventing him from attending UT?

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Also, in my personal calculus, I don't count some of the COA because I'm paying the equivalent now.  In other words, I'm already paying "board" (although it's surely higher even in a dorm compared to a kid's fraction of our family meal budget).  Same with "other expenses".  I pay thousands every year for each kid that will go away after HS (band, lessons, select sports teams, etc.). 

BUT, that has nothing to do with your argument.  Those costs still exist, and as you say, various financial aid calculations account for them.

Thanks for the info.

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2 minutes ago, davidg said:

Spring '19 Semester at Trinity, with off campus university aparment housing, was $27,714.50.    Add food, insurance, books, beer money to that.

I don't want to fall down a "why financial aid and the cost of higher education in the country is so absurdly fucked up" hole, but this illustrates perfectly why the cost isn't always the cost. A lot of people forswear private school just assuming it's unobtainable.  If you like somewhere and can afford (or get waived) the application fee, you should apply and sweat the financial aid forms.  You might be surprised.

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3 minutes ago, davidg said:

Spring '19 Semester at Trinity, with off campus university aparment housing, was $27,714.50.    Add food, insurance, books, beer money to that.

Yeah so that works out to about $55K/year.  But the "living" money is really short on most of these sites.  $60K is imho more accurate.

My really sloppy general rule on this is take the tuition costs, and add about $15K per semester r/b/etc. in cheap cities to live, about $25K in expensive ones.  Double it.  That's yer cost per year at the low end.

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If Aggy goes to a 10% rule, they may become hard to get into.  But when I ran Boy#1 (3.5/33 ACT) through the A&M scattergram,  he was laughably to the right of the accepted student pool.

I'm with the rest of you guys marveling at UT.  I was a good, not great student with an early 90s 1300, and UT basically sent me a form already filled out that said "Sign here and you're in"

 

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3 hours ago, RiceOwl said:

Feels like it was forever ago that I was in college even though it really hasn’t been long ago... But my younger sister is applying to schools for 2020 and has a good list... Though I think she’s underestimating herself... 3.71 Unweighted GPA from a New England prep school and a 34 ACT... Most of her peers are Ivy bound but she seems insistent on applying early to WUSTL... Hey, great school but it’s still unclear to me what appeals to her there besides the fact that not many people from her school go there. Also going to apply to Rice, UT Comp Sci, and a bunch of safeties if she doesn’t get in to Wash U. 

Best of luck to everyone!!

my wife went to wash u.  loved it.  still sees her friends from there every year 2 decades later.

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Just now, phdhorn said:

Yeah so that works out to about $55K/year.  But the "living" money is really short on most of these sites.  $60K is imho more accurate.

My really sloppy general rule on this is take the tuition costs, and add about $15K per semester r/b/etc. in cheap cities to live, about $25K in expensive ones.  Double it.  That's yer cost per year at the low end.

Most of the COA include books, a grand or so for travel, insurance and a meal plan.  If you add those on you get above $60K/ year real quick for Trinity.  Could be worse.  My  sister"s kid started at SMU the same year  as my daughter.  One of girl's down the hall from my niece  only had a $1K/month budget on her Neiman's card.  What's a girl to do?

 

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9 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

I don't want to fall down a "why financial aid and the cost of higher education in the country is so absurdly fucked up" hole, but this illustrates perfectly why the cost isn't always the cost. A lot of people forswear private school just assuming it's unobtainable.  If you like somewhere and can afford (or get waived) the application fee, you should apply and sweat the financial aid forms.  You might be surprised.

I completely agree -- it appears that the net cost to attend private school is generally at or below all but in-state public schools.  There are some good public universities where out-of-state tuition isn't close to what most private schools charge, but they're rare.  Minnesota is one -- tuition/fees @ $33.5K.  I have yet to learn how financial aid compares to private institutions, though.

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9 minutes ago, Patricio Swayze said:

People need to stop perpetuating two inaccurate concepts:

 

1. Aggy is difficult or becoming difficult to get into. It’s not. Last year their acceptance rate was fucking 70%.

 

2. Aggy is a good school. Good at fucking sheep? Yes.

 

It’s a large school with a few good programs with engineering being top 20. Much of the rest is a diploma mill that just makes money for the school. I haven’t seen the latest rankings but I hear meat judging is top 3.

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6 minutes ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

my wife went to wash u.  loved it.  still sees her friends from there every year 2 decades later.

I was born in University City and my parents both went to Wash U.  Dad taught engineering there for years.  It is a tremendous school, easily on par with most of the "other Ivies".

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1 minute ago, jimmyjazz said:

I was born in University City and my parents both went to Wash U.  Dad taught engineering there for years.  It is a tremendous school, easily on par with most of the "other Ivies".

yeah,  I would have killed to get into Wash U.

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Just now, jimmyjazz said:

Anyone have info on these "required" health plans?  My kids are on my health insurance until age 26 unless they get their own through an employer.  Is a school plan pretty easily waived?

We just had to show proof of coverage by someone else.

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4 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Anyone have info on these "required" health plans?  My kids are on my health insurance until age 26 unless they get their own through an employer.  Is a school plan pretty easily waived?

NM.  Davidg has it.

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 The good news about A&M expanding enrollment by tens of thousands  is that there’s no way they can keep up their depraved cult of insanity with so many new people coming on the campus just to get a quick professional degree and not be entrenched in the Aggie culture.  

I’m quite certain the University of Phoenix once had rich traditions and a family vibe.  

But eventually things change and you need to know your position in the strip center of life. 

 

Edited by Lobo
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4 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:

Is this supposed to be funny?

No.  I don't know what you mean by mild Asperger's since Asperger's isn't even considered a condition now but what most people consider mild isn't a big deal.  Asperger's wasn't considered debilitating and if it's mild, that would seem to just be a hurdle to overcome.  

I'm not putting him down.  Good on him for doing so well with his studies.

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17 hours ago, BurntEyes said:

Nephew has grades (almost all As) and test scores (1460/35) to likely get into Texas, but has mild Asperger's so he's likely going to UTD. He's also interested in Vanderbilt. He could be close to/live with family at either which is really the best bet for him. Most likely UTD which doesn't suck. His twin sister, who's smart, but frankly lazy/no fucks given is going to Community college. It's really the best plan for them both. Though she really wanted to be a Longhorn pom squad member and probably could have been as she was a gymnastics brat and a damn good one. (And no you fucking pedos, ZERO fucking pics) 

Has he actually been diagnosed?

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1 hour ago, Bateshorn said:

If Aggy goes to a 10% rule, they may become hard to get into.  But when I ran Boy#1 (3.5/33 ACT) through the A&M scattergram,  he was laughably to the right of the accepted student pool.

I'm with the rest of you guys marveling at UT.  I was a good, not great student with an early 90s 1300, and UT basically sent me a form already filled out that said "Sign here and you're in"

 

Aggy is already a part of the top 10% rule.  All public universities in Texas are.  The difference is that there's a special statutory provision that permits UT to cap its top 10% admission at 75% of the class since without that law UT would fill out it's entire class and then some with top 10% admits.  Aggy isn't popular enough to need that limitation.

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And Pres. Powers made a very compelling case that the wholistic review process is necessary for students coming for fine arts, performing arts, that an emotional intelligence skill set was necessary for things like nursing and teaching and social work.  What's more---that students would benefit from having engagement with students from other states and countries---something a flagship should always strive for.  He delivered on that, and so many other things.  We're in great hands now, but what he did will benefit our children and grandchildren for decades to come.  

Anyway, A&M still reserves the right to admit 2 North Koreans every semester so they can have international verification of their programs.  

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6 minutes ago, Lobo said:

And Pres. Powers made a very compelling case that the wholistic review process is necessary for students coming for fine arts, performing arts, that an emotional intelligence skill set was necessary for things like nursing and teaching and social work.  What's more---that students would benefit from having engagement with students from other states and countries---something a flagship should always strive for.  He delivered on that, and so many other things.  We're in great hands now, but what he did will benefit our children and grandchildren for decades to come.  

 

The 6% rule makes UT hard to get into.  The wholistic review is what finally made UT the public ivy it had always aspired to be.

Did not know A&M was under the 10% rule as well.  That's wild.  I'm not gonna judge......but damn.

Edited by Bateshorn
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the missions for UT and aggy are as divergent as you can get.  UT prides itself on being a public ivy and wants to do everything it can to stay a highly regarded academic institution.  aggy wants to accept as many people as possible and strives to be a decent academic institution.  aggy can self fellate themselves as much as they want but they do not have the academic rep that UT has.  UT doesn't have to brag about it's academic accolades.  it has plenty of independent publications to do that.

the problem for texas, and everyone has complained about this for decades, is that there really is only 2 really great academic schools: UT and rice.  your second tier is UT-D, aggy and baylor.  then it's a bunch of 3rd rate schools.  the bigger problem is that most of the smart texas kids who for whatever reason can't get into texas or rice will go out of state rather than going to texas' 2nd and 3rd tier universities.

the UC system is full of great academic schools (most are on the list of public ivies).  it's absolutely inexcusable at the number of par and subpar schools in texas.  everyone complains about california but their focus to excellence for their universities is un-matched.  there's no excuse for texas not to be on par, but here we are decades later and we still have the same problem.

my 2nd child is borderline to get into UT.  however, i would rather send her to an out of state school for a hireable degree with a possibility for gainful employment (read not liberal arts) than to send her to UT for liberal arts.  there's a reason there's a college debt bubble and it's littered with liberal arts graduates.

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2 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

The 6% rule makes UT hard to get into.  The wholistic review is what finally made UT the public ivy it had always aspired to be.

Did not know A&M was under the 10% rule as well.  That's wild.  I'm not gonna judge......but damn.

There was another thread about this but here is a snippet from a May 2019 article about A&M changing their auto admission policy to be more "holistic" in 2021.   My take is that this let's A&M lower their 70% acceptance rate by trying to accept more good "red ass" kids and not give auto admit to people using them as a back-up school.

"Texas A&M University will change the automatic acceptance process by eliminating the academic admit option in Fall 2021.

The current academic admit process allows students to be automatically accepted if they are ranked in the top 25% of their graduating high school class and meet competitive test scores. Specifically, a minimum SAT score of 1360 with at least 620 math and 660 reading and writing; and a composite ACT score of 30 with at least a 27 in math and 27 in English.

Beginning Fall 2021, students from Texas schools can only be automatically admitted if they rank in the top 10% of their class. Those who don't qualify for automatic acceptance will be considered through a holistic review process.

"The holistic review process really gives us an opportunity to admit students who are high achieving academically, and non-academic factors, as well as looking at students are very well rounded inside and outside the classroom," said Brandie Eneks with Texas A&M Admissions."

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2 hours ago, crash_davis said:

the missions for UT and aggy are as divergent as you can get.  UT prides itself on being a public ivy and wants to do everything it can to stay a highly regarded academic institution.  aggy wants to accept as many people as possible and strives to be a decent academic institution.  aggy can self fellate themselves as much as they want but they do not have the academic rep that UT has.  UT doesn't have to brag about it's academic accolades.  it has plenty of independent publications to do that.

the problem for texas, and everyone has complained about this for decades, is that there really is only 2 really great academic schools: UT and rice.  your second tier is UT-D, aggy and baylor.  then it's a bunch of 3rd rate schools.  the bigger problem is that most of the smart texas kids who for whatever reason can't get into texas or rice will go out of state rather than going to texas' 2nd and 3rd tier universities.

the UC system is full of great academic schools (most are on the list of public ivies).  it's absolutely inexcusable at the number of par and subpar schools in texas.  everyone complains about california but their focus to excellence for their universities is un-matched.  there's no excuse for texas not to be on par, but here we are decades later and we still have the same problem.

my 2nd child is borderline to get into UT.  however, i would rather send her to an out of state school for a hireable degree with a possibility for gainful employment (read not liberal arts) than to send her to UT for liberal arts.  there's a reason there's a college debt bubble and it's littered with liberal arts graduates.

I'm a Baylor grad, but I'd certainly put SMU ahead of us. I'd say TCU is also a tier 2 school, but I get your point. Doesn't Arkansas offer discounted out of state or in-state tuition for Texas residents? I know a lot of frat and sorority types around Waco end up at UA.

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1 minute ago, SimonBolivar said:

I'm a Baylor grad, but I'd certainly put SMU ahead of us. I'd say TCU is also a tier 2 school, but I get your point. Doesn't Arkansas offer discounted out of state or in-state tuition for Texas residents? I know a lot of frat and sorority types around Waco end up at UA.

arkie, okie state, and other neighboring schools offer in-state tuition for out of state texas kids.  i know of smart girls who couldn't get into UT, didn't want aggy or rice, who went to mich st and iOSU and got in state tuition at those schools. other schools know that they can get smart texas kids to go to their schools if they offer in state tuition.  outside of texas and rice, the other in state texas schools are prob not getting the best texas kids.

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22 hours ago, yoladu said:

pretty crazy, indeed.

attended/graduated UT from '87 to '91 and a real dummy, apparently.

I had auto-admission into McCombs out of large, suburban 5A SATX HS in Fall '91 and my grades/scores wouldn't even get me into the school today.

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3 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

arkie, okie state, and other neighboring schools offer in-state tuition for out of state texas kids.  i know of smart girls who couldn't get into UT, didn't want aggy or rice, who went to mich st and iOSU and got in state tuition at those schools. other schools know that they can get smart texas kids to go to their schools if they offer in state tuition.  outside of texas and rice, the other in state texas schools are prob not getting the best texas kids.

Wait, what?  A month or two ago I specifically looked up "reciprocity Texas" and found what essentially said there is none.  With what you're saying, maybe that means Texas offers no in-state tuition breaks to any out-of-state kids, but perhaps the converse is not true.  Is there a master list somewhere that details which out-of-state public universities allow Texas kids to attend on in-state tuition rates?  That could be a game-changer.

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14 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Wait, what?  A month or two ago I specifically looked up "reciprocity Texas" and found what essentially said there is none.  With what you're saying, maybe that means Texas offers no in-state tuition breaks to any out-of-state kids, but perhaps the converse is not true.  Is there a master list somewhere that details which out-of-state public universities allow Texas kids to attend on in-state tuition rates?  That could be a game-changer.

lsu specifically references texas but make no mistake, the policies are all catered towards top 10% texas kids.  i'm sure other schools have undocumented policies.  

 

lsu https://www.lsu.edu/financialaid/policies/university_scholarship_retention_requirements/texas_tigers_scholarship_retention_requirements.php

arkie https://scholarships.uark.edu/nrta/

okie lite https://go.okstate.edu/scholarships-financial-aid/types-of-aid/scholarships-and-grants/freshman-scholarships/out-of-state-scholarships/index.html

new mex https://scholarship.unm.edu/scholarships/non-resident.html

 

Edited by crash_davis
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doing more research, it looks like most state schools have scholarships for non-residents.  they go by different names like tuition waiver, non-resident scholarships, etc.  your best bet is to contact the schools and ask about out of state tuition assistance/scholarships.  

arizona https://financialaid.arizona.edu/types-of-aid/scholarships/freshman-transfer

 

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41 minutes ago, C-Man said:

I had auto-admission into McCombs out of large, suburban 5A SATX HS in Fall '91 and my grades/scores wouldn't even get me into the school today.

Yep, nor would mine. I guess i would be Tech (gasp!), TXState or USTA bound these days.

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52 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Wait, what?  A month or two ago I specifically looked up "reciprocity Texas" and found what essentially said there is none.  With what you're saying, maybe that means Texas offers no in-state tuition breaks to any out-of-state kids, but perhaps the converse is not true.  Is there a master list somewhere that details which out-of-state public universities allow Texas kids to attend on in-state tuition rates?  That could be a game-changer.

The Oklahoma schools and Arkansas schools have discontinued this. One of my buddies sons is a frat daddy type looking at schools and he told me this first hand.

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