Cost at Miami

The Columbus Dispatch Education section has a blog and they recently posted the following entry regarding the cost of attending school at Miami. Since Miami University is one of the top schools where Kilbourne students apply each year I thought you would be like to know about their tuition news. The interesting point is that the actual cost doesn't vary, but the "sticker shock" that families might have when reviewing the cost before seeing their financial aid package will (hopefully) be diminished.

Here's the full text of their article:

Miami drops 'Public Ivy' tuition pricing

Miami University's tuition the past five years has been a lot like car pricing: A high sticker price that ends up being a much lower discounted cost.

Miami adopted the so-called "private-college pricing model with a public twist" as way to stem the flow of Ohio students going to private schools and to make the university more affordable for middle-income families. (What happens is students from high-income Ohio families pay somewhat more so that those from poor and working-class families can pay less.)
But university officials say the experiment ended up confusing people. As a result, they're going back to a more traditional public-college approach.

Instead of featuring a sticker price well over $20,000 the school is telling students to expect to pay about $11,443. But even then, there's a caveat: This is the maximum cost for Ohio residents. Nearly 60 percent of entering Ohio students will likely receive a Miami Grant, with amounts ranging from $1,000 to $2,750, which could drop the cost as low as $8,693.

Not to confuse you, but the Miami Grant is also new, at least in name. Previously, students were eligible for an Ohio Resident Scholarship and Ohio Leader Scholarships. To make things easier, the university has combined the awards into one -- and are calling it the "Miami Grant."
President David Hodge and his staff said the change is the right thing to do.

"After talking with our students and many high school guidance counselors across the state, we realized in order to have our students understand their total financial aid package we needed to simplify our process," spokeswoman Claire Wagner said.

Undergraduate students admitted prior to fall 2008, who are enrolled at the Oxford and Luxembourg campuses, will continue to be eligible for the Ohio Resident and Ohio Leader scholarships, Wagner said.

The Ohio Resident Scholarship is guaranteed to equal or exceed the state-funded appropriation per student. The Ohio Leader Scholarship will vary according to financial need.
People who have opposed the inflated sticker costs have argued that the school could remain the state's "elite public school" without pretending to be a private Ivy League university. Miami has the highest entrance standards and the highest tuition of any public institution in the state.
Hodge said the university is student-success centered, and it's students graduate in a median 3.7 years.

"We're over-achievers," he joked.