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My last job was at a college that cost $14,000 a year for tuition, room, and board at the time (so it would probably cost $28,000 today, ten years later.)
I knew students whose financial aid package allowed them to get by paying $2,000 a year (so let's say $4,000 a year now) for everything.
If you are very smart and/or talented in some area, don't automatically rule out small schools. While the state schools figure your financial aid strictly by a mathematical formula, the private schools will sweeten the deal, because they all want the smartest students they can find.
I graduated from a small college, did my graduate work at an Ivy League school, taught at both large and small schools, and here's what they look like from my point of view.
Small colleges:
The Good: Lots of individual attention, so if you're having problems, you can go in and talk to the professor, and if you haven't been a complete goof off or brat, you're likely to get some consideration. If you seem to be flaking out for some reason, your professor may ask around among the rest of the faculty to find out if you're being flaky in every class or if it's just that particular class. By the time you are a junior or senior and settled on a major, you will know your departmental professors very well. Since they know you, they will make recommendations and suggestions about opportunities. You will also know nearly everyone on campus by sight and see the same people over and over in your classes and activities. In your extra-curricular activities, it's relatively easy to gain a major role, whether on a sports team or in a theatrical production.
The Bad: A lot of these colleges are located in tiny little towns where there is nothing to do off campus, and by the end of your senior year, you may hate the sight of every corner of your campus. If the school has a distinct personality or seems to attract predominantly one type of student and it's not your type, you're going to have a lonely time. If you don't like the professors in your department, you will have an annoying time. Some small colleges are elite institutions that attract the brightest of the bright, but more of them are struggling and will take anyone with a pulse who can pay the tuition. If the school is attracting a lot of dumb rich kids, expect loud parties, vandalism and other forms of criminal behavior, and a low level of discourse in the classroom.
Large universities:
The Good: Lots of diversity, both in people and curriculum. If you want to major in Arabic or Statistics, you can. Usually surrounded by a large neighborhood of student-oriented businesses. If you don't like one group of students, you can easily find another. There is an extra-curricular group for every interest. The library is superb and has everything you are likely to need. The bookstore is superb. If you're into the arts, you can get to see world-class performers for free by volunteering to usher.
The Bad: The students expect to be anonymous and often act like it, so cheating is a greater problem. If you don't know what you want, the sheer variety of choices can overwhelm you. The large state schools deliberately try to flunk out a certain portion of their freshmen every year by making common courses such as Intro to Biology or Freshman English extra nasty. It's hard to make close friends. The dorms are more likely to resemble East German apartment blocks and the food is more likely to be abominable--but there probably isn't enough on-campus housing anyway, so you're forced to live where sleazy landlords charge you exorbitant sums to live in ramshackle housing. Your professors are retained and promoted on the basis of their research, as measured by publications, so they may see you, the student, as an annoyance who gets in the way of the project that is going to save their job.
To my mind, unless you KNOW that you want to major in something off-beat or if you MUST have those big-city lights, you're better off going to a smaller college as an undergraduate. For students who really need to watch the budgets, the ideal solution may be a small state school, such as Western Oregon State University in Monmouth or the University of Minnesota, Morris, both of which offer a small-college atmosphere at state college prices. (I'm just mentioning these schools because they're from the states I know best.)
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