Affordable D2/D3 Schools in the Southwest

Affordability at the D3 level is largely based on grades. What type of GPA and test scores do you have? 

Hi BoF!

My son finished his first year of college with a 3.5.  His ACT/GPA when he graduated from HS was a 28/GPA 3.9 I am not sure if his ACT/GPA matters anymore after he is classified as a sophomore, but I am including it in case it does.  Do you have any ideas on affordable D3 colleges in the southwest?  I would appreciate any insight that you may have.

For our family at least, for a D3 school, or any private school, to be affordable there needs to be some aid, either need or merit, so I'd start by looking at schools that can afford to grant it. Since endowment numbers are public and school websites have financial calculators you can makes some guesses as to how you'll do.

As for D2  the affordable options are going to be your in-state schools that play D2.  What state are you in?

JCG,

Thanks for the reply!  I just saw your post today.  I will check out some of the D3 school's endowments and the calculators.  I think a D3 would probably be the best overall fit, I guess the trick is finding one that offers enough merit/need based aid. 

You'll have to figure out what exactly you mean by affordable.  You probably know that  many D3 are small,private, and extraordinarily expensive. By contrast, at least here in CA,  D2's tend to be much cheaper state schools  (though there are some exceptions). Don't know if the same pattern holds elsewhere.

So in terms of affordability, I think you are talking a whole different ball game when it comes to  D3 vs D2.  

Even within D3's I think there is a pretty complicated cost landscape, depending on how competitive the school is.  Many of the most competitive, nationally ranked D3 schools offer little if any merit aid -- though they do offer need based aid.   But the trick there is how they calculate need.  If they just use FAFSA, that can leave a lot of people out.  (In my limited experience FAFSA is not really a reliable indicator of what a family can realistically afford.   It determined that our annual expected contribution was extraordinarily high -- nearly 6 figures --   far more than the college itself cost.  No way that is actually realistic.)

What sometimes makes a D3 more affordable is that many are actually in pitch battles with their competitors for students.  As a consequence, they are willing to give the top students hefty tuition discounts in the form of merit scholarships. 

As someone above suggested, what you are looking for is for is an academically strong, but not uber competitive D3 with relatively hefty endowment.  That seems to be the sweet spot for significant merit aid.

One way to spot such a D3 is by their acceptance rates and yield rates.  Many perfectly respectable D3's have relatively high acceptance rates (in the 40 -  80% range), but very low yields (below 20% often).  So they accept a fair number of applicants, but a relatively small number of accepted  students actually come. Stanford, by contrast,  accepts like 6% of applicants, but has a yield of roughly 80%.  Those who Stanford wants, it gets,  Those that decent a D3 wants, it often has to fight to get.

In general, acceptance rates have gone up and yields gone down a lot since the introduction of the common app.  That's because the common app enables each student to apply for many, many college simultaneously and at almost no marginal cost,  even though each student is still only going to one. Good but not hyper competitive  D3's  have been hit  hard by this phenomenon mainly because many students apply to these sorts of D3's as back up schools.

Bottom line,  if you are a strong enough student,  some competitive D3 out there will fight for you, by offering you a steep tuition discount and then the school will be affordable, despite what the sticker says.  

I think affordability is relative.  Im currently paying out of state tuition for my son.  My wife and I have been fortunate in life and have been able to find a way to pay for him to attend a very good out of state school.  My idea of what is affordable is probably different then what others see as affordable.  From what I learned here is a rough idea of what the different types of colleges cost, all in, before scholarships:

In State Public - Approx $20,000 a year

Out of State Public - Approx $40,000 a year

Private Schools - Approx $50,000 a year

Ivy League - Top Private - Approx $65,000

Of course this is going to vary from region to region and school to school but its what I've seen.  My idea of affordable is somewhere between In State and Out of State.  Others may consider affordable less then In State. 

It all comes down to the endowments the private school has.  Many of the smaller (ie D3) private schools have larger sums of money to pass out as scholarships. Many of them attempt to use the money to bring the cost of attendance down closer to the higher end state universities in their areas.  For example, my son was accepted to a very good private school here in the midwest.  Normal cost of attendance is approximately $45,000.  The cost of attendance at the top university in our state is about $30,000 a year.  The private immediately offered a $15,000 a year scholarship to help offset the cost vs. an in state.  My son was good HS student but not great.  3.4 GPA with a 25 ACT.  I have found that many of the private schools were offering up money up front to help off set the cost differential.  

I guess what I am getting at is, you need to determine what is affordable for yourself and then start talking to the schools.  Many of the admittance folks are very helpful in helping you figure out what the real cost of the school is.  Unless your attending a state funded university don't assume what they post on the website as cost of attendance is what you are going to pay. 

As far as just low down on teams/schools these two websites are good resources.  They list the schools by region and conference.  If nothing else, it helps to give a list geographically.  For D2's  http://www.d2baseballnews.com/

For D3's,  http://d3baseball.com/teams/region/west

I don't know if you consider Texas as the southwest, there is a smaller D3 outside of Austin, Concordia which is about $36K all in, but they give decent academic money. Based on a 3.5 GPA transfer, $14.5K academic per year before considering financial aid.  Unfortunately the words affordable and college are hard to put together in the same sentence. 

This website has been a great resource in helping us find all the college baseball programs in our area and understanding the costs to attend. The numbers are 2014, but it is a great starting point. It shows all levels of play from D1 to JUCO, sorted by state and lists important info about costs, scholarships, financial aid, acceptance rates, etc.

http://www.scholarshipstats.com/baseball.html

Good luck!

Thank you so much for all of the information!  The links and personal experiences are very helpful!!