What do you wanna do after highschool? Every kid who has ever been a senior in highschool has heard this question about 10 times a week. The most popular option after high school is college.
There are many different options for college based on your grades and the career you want to pursue. One of the main questions to decide when choosing a school is to stay in state or go out of state.
“There are many factors to deciding to go out of state versus staying in state, but the biggest problem is obviously it is a lot more expensive to go out of state,” Allie Lowenthal ’22 said.
College is an expensive thing, and the price plays a huge role in kids deciding where they go according to Will Sine ’21. For example an in-state school that is very popular for South students is Michigan State, which costs $16,000 per year for in-state and around $40,000 per year for out-of-state kids. That is a $24,000 difference every year for coming from a different state.
“I went out of state,” Sine said. “At first is was extremely hard going into a new environment, but I love it now. (It was) the greatest decision of my life. I was nervous to break out from Grosse Pointe, but it was nice to experience and live a completely new life.”
Sine said when deciding to go out of state, the main reason for many students is to find a new environment or to get away and experience something new. Going out of state does provide that new culture shock and allows students to meet completely new friends. To some people that sounds amazing, but to others that sounds like a nightmare.
“I went to Michigan State, and it was a great choice,” Bennett Smihal ’20 said. “State has a perfect balance of people I know, so I feel a lot more comfortable here than somewhere where I would know no one. Also, my roommate is one of my good friends from highschool.”
It can be very challenging for some students to make new friends, so going to college with some of the friends they already have would create a less stressful experience according to Smihal. In a roommate situation, it can be very hard to find a roommate and try to tell if you like them over Facebook.
“I am currently in the position of having to decide whether I want to stay in state or out of state,” Mikey Verlinden ’22 said. “There are many different variables to it, such as money, risks and simply going so far away. It’s definitely one of the harder decisions for college.”