Don't know about UGa, but Bama gets lots better quality out-of-state students because it is very generous with merit-based financial aid.
The simple fact is Penn State would not be the elite university it is today (you can argue how elite all you want but for recruiters it is still a top tier school) without the success of the football program. CJF realizes he has a tremendous opportunity in front of him, but only if he can leverage the SIGNIFICANT influence football has on the overall success of the University. One only has to look at Clemson which for years was viewed as a second-tier a academic institution. All of the sudden their football program takes off and their academic status skyrockets.
USC too. Their rapid succession to a top 25 national university was years in the making but coincided with massive donor support because of football success.
Don't be silly. PSU hasn't really offered an affordable education since I was in school about 30 years ago. That leaves winning football games as the only reasonable answer from your choices.
I live several states away from PA, so not in touch with the local situation, but who would Penn State consider the competition they are affordable against? the state is blessed with many great universities, but I would think many are quite costly. Is PSU measuring itself against places like Bucknell, Penn, Carnegie, etc? If that is the case, wouldnt PSU be very competitive price wise? On the other hand, is PSU competing against the BIG schools? No idea how we stack up there. I still think of PSU as a national top 50 R1 university that is elite academically. I would take my engineering degree from PSU over say Cornell engineering. I would only put Carnegie over PSU for that degree in PA. Maybe I have lost touch and over estimate PSU.
For the pockets of the BOT, their families, and select friends.
I judge it by whether a student can pay for most of it on their own with little help from Mom and Dad. My son is a sophomore at U of Iowa, about $21k in-state annually (PSU is about $35k in-state). After student loans and a small grant, I'm paying over $9k out of pocket. That would be $23k at Penn State if we lived in PA ($40k out-of-state). That's lower than the sticker price at some private schools, but they generally offer a lot more aid.
