Passage Two
What are the differences between public and private in American higher education? A big difference involves money. Public colleges and universities charge for an education just like private schools. But state schools cost less because they get money from the states that started them to educate local citizens. As a result, out-of-state and international students usually pay more than state residents, at least the first year.
The state with the most residents, almost forty million, is California. Its systems of two-year and four-year colleges and universities are among the largest in the world. But the example we are going to focus on today is to the north of California,in a much smaller state on the West Coast：Oregon.
The University of Oregon, located in Eugene, is one of the campuses in the Oregon University System.The cost for undergraduates this year is $6,000 for state residents.Housing is an additional $8,000. Non-residents pay the same for housing—but almost $20,000 for tuition and fees.
Let’s see how these numbers compare to a private college in Oregon.
Lewis and Clark College in Portland has 4, 000 students, compared to 20,000 at the University of Oregon.Housing costs $800 more than at the state school.But the big difference is tuition.The published price at Lewis and Clark is almost $34,000.
Yet Lewis and Clark is one of the few American colleges to offer financial aid for international students. Each year it awards financial aid to twenty students from other countries.And it says the average award last year was 19,000 dollars.That would make Lewis and Clark cheaper for international students than the University of Oregon.
But, of course, prices alone do not say anything about the quality of a school or the value of an education.
One of the differences between public and private universities is____.