Colorado Accountable Student Fee (OSS)

[Rockhouse]

Anybody else have a better understanding about this than me. It seems like we are going to have to pay an extra $50,000 to attend Colorado if we are OSS... I am just hoping I am wrong/this is some big joke.

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[star22]

Anybody else have a better understanding about this than me. It seems like we are going to have to pay an extra $50,000 to attend Colorado if we are OSS... I am just hoping I am wrong/this is some big joke.

Is that on top of the $71,000 tuition that is quoted in MSAR?

 

[ShyRem]

Check out the Colorado class of 2010 thread in Allo Class forum. Apparently the OOS tuition is going to be the in-state PLUS the accountability fee. So the new OOS tuition is going to be about $45-50K/year. This is lower than the old $71K, but under the new rules OOS students will be OOS for the entire four years and never be eligible for in state tuition. So while your initial year's tuition is less, you'll end up paying about $100K more total to go to Colorado as an OOS student. (I may be a little off on my figures - Colorado wouldn't even interview this lowly instate student.)

 

[drhouse]

I can't believe this. I turned down other interviews b/c, as I figured it, Colorado wasn't going to be THAT expensive over four years. I am seriously shocked and pissed.

 

[Flopotomist]

This is why anybody with an MSAR did not apply OOS to Colorado. This school has always been the highest priced school for OOS students - to the point of just being ridiculous.

 

[Non-TradTulsa]

I can't believe this. I turned down other interviews b/c, as I figured it, Colorado wasn't going to be THAT expensive over four years. I am seriously shocked and pissed.

Don't know what to say - I looked at state schools contiguous with Oklahoma, and dismissed Colorado relatively early. They don't prohibit OOS students - but, constructively, they do (maybe if you're going into a surgical subspecialty it wouldn't matter, but with my interest in primary care Colorado was out-of-the-question).

I can't remember if Colorado is a WICHE school, but most of the Western Interstate Compact schools in the far West (California and Oregon are exceptions) get far more applications than they can handle and they aren't too interested in non-WICHE OOS candidates. New Mexico allows OOS to apply EDP only. Arizona does not accept OOS at all.

 

[ShyRem]

It used to be that you would pay that insanely priced first year of $71K and then declare instate residency. I think they're changing that now, but I don't know what their definitions of 'instate resident' will be. I hope for y'all's sake they don't go the way of UMass which is something like if you haven't been a resident of Mass for 5 years NOT as a student you're OOS for their purposes. But this is all new - go to the Colo Class of 2010 and ask MeowMix - she seems to have the scoop.

 

[ShyRem]

OH - while I don't know if Colo is specifically a WICHE school, they will treat students from the 5 western states with no med school (including Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska, and two others I can't remember right now) as in-state students. Colorado is VERY interested in OOS students 'cuz they pay big bucks and Colo is in a major budget crunch right now.

 

[ShyRem]

From the Colo Class of 2010 thread (various posters):

But from my understanding, the governor signed legislation that changes the out-of-state policy. Under the new policy, OOS students will be OOS for all four years. They will pay the same tuition as in-state plus an additional fee. On Friday, they thought the fee would be about $25k per year. So add an additional $100k to the price tag.

Everything about Friday was great except the part about cost of attendance, which was mad depressing.

The tuition stuff is bad news for in state and OOS. The bad news for in-state people that wasn't included in the notes was that in a worst case scenario model for tuition hikes, they said tuition could go up 10% each year. I didn't understand all their numbers - but they said we should estimate $138k for the fixed costs over four years (tuition, books, computer, health insurance). Then we should add $1300/month in living expenses to get the total cost of attendance. That's pretty close to the cost of a private med school. Maybe the worst case scenario won't become reality, but it seems like a real possibility.

Latest on tuition increase for 06-07
The word from a very recent meeting with the Dean is that they will probably keep it to single digits for next year. Anything less than 3% is still very unlikely.

So not only will OOS students be unable to get away from the "OOS student surcharge" but they'll also get hit with tuition increases. Be aware that Colorado has been talking about raising tuition an ungodly amount even for instate students due to decreased state funding. The students are fighting it, but it's looking nasty. Thank the taxpayers passing government spending caps for the tuition increases (I believe this is the TABOR amendment). Most of Colorado state funded institution tuitions are increasing by leaps and bounds to try and make ends meet.

 

[SF_Hopeful_MD]

According to an email sent out by the Dean of Admissions on 4/28/06 the new tuition for both in state and out of state students will be around $22,000 per year. On top of that, out of state students will have to pay an "accountable student fee" of around $ 24,000. Even if you become a Colorado resident during your 2nd year in Colorado you will still be considered an "accountable" (i.e. out of stater) and have to pay the additional $24k. So in a nutshell an in state student will spent $88,000 over 4 years to attend CU whereas an out of state student will spend $184,000 over 4 years. This averages $46k per year which is much higher than it was before for out of staters. Before you would pay the $72,291 for the first year and then $20,718 tuition for years 2-4 for an average of $33,611 per year. Thus tuition has effectively increased $12,389 per year for out of staters.

 

[MeowMix]

SF is correct.

For those deciding between schools, the other thing you should know is that on top of tuition, there are a few thousand dollars' worth of other mandatory fees and expenses, plus your health insurance (over $2000).

I don't know if they have closed the loophole of deferring for a year and becoming a resident. I think it's unlikely that the school would allow you to defer for that reason alone.

Yes, this is a very crappy thing that they did, especially since it was done late in the year after many of you made your decision between schools. The current students howled and screamed about it (for your benefit - it doesn't affect us, thank goodness), but it showed up pretty quickly, got passed quickly, and now it's a done deal. Sorry.

 

[gdbaby]

Yes, the governor signed the bill during our Open House day on 4/21. Dr. sondheimer got it on his blackberry while he was talking to us. A silence fell across the room.