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Don't Rule Out a Private School
By Bill Zlatos, Pittsburgh
Tribune Review, August 6, 2006
Excerpt:
Cathleen Colbert, a senior last year at North Allegheny High School,
yearned to go to Penn State. Her mother pushed Chatham College.
Coming from a single-parent home, Colbert planned to base her decision
on financial aid. Chatham, although much more expensive than Penn State,
offered to cover all but $8,000 of her expenses. Penn State left a $10,000
gap.
"It was so low as to be insulting to me," said her mother, Renee
Colbert, 51, of Franklin Park. "I would have felt better if they
said you're admitted, but there's no financial aid available."
Cathleen Colbert, now a sophomore at Chatham, knows what some families
have yet to learn: Private schools, despite the Mercedes-Benz sticker
prices, can end up costing the same as—or even less than—a
public university.
"Shop around," advises Don Francis, president of the Harrisburg-based
Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania.
"You shouldn't rule out a private institution based on the sticker
price. You should find out what kind of financial aid package that institution
will make to your son or daughter, or to you if you're going back to school."
Using data on average financial aid packages and estimated college expenses,
the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review found that the actual cost to students
and parents at many local private schools is comparable to the state's
public flagships, the University of Pittsburgh and Penn State. The findings
raise questions about which schools—public or private—really
provide access to higher education in Pennsylvania.
"In a very real sense, we're doing the state schools' job for them,"
said Walt Fowler, vice president for finance at Chatham in Shadyside.
Students at private colleges and universities are more likely to attend
smaller classes than at the state flagships. Private school students also
are more likely to graduate in four years than those at state colleges
and universities, according to the Washington, D.C.-based National Association
of Independent Colleges and Universities.
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