Murray State

Sunday we drove from Louisville, past Land of the Lakes, to Murray Kentucky. Stephanie, Vincent, (belatedly Frisco), and I caught the tail end of a Little Shop of Horrors rehearsal on the front steps of the university theater building as we walked around campus. It was a beautiful day about 70 degrees with spring time flowers just starting to bloom. We spent way too much time driving around Murray before we checked into our motel. This morning we got up and dropped our dog off at doggie day care then were off to campus. Amber, an admissions counselor, talked with us, and then Jordan (pictured above top talking to a group of us) gave us a more formal tour of the campus. It was interesting to compare this campus to some of the others we have visited and spent a lot of time at including Ohio State, Florida State, Western Illinois, and University of St. Thomas, etc. For just the second time on one of these campus visits (out a total of five) we got to visit a dorm room albeit a model in which no one actually lives. Our Creative Writing professor appointment did not show up but we were able to talk to a Pulitzer Prize nominated short story creative writing professor and also the film studies coordinator (two of Vincent’s academic interests). The short story writing professor even gave Vincent a copy of Heart of Darkness and talked about looking forward to going fishing in Arkansas this weekend. We got to eat lunch at the college dining hall and for the fourth time in five visits got a college t-shirt (at the bookstore), (Stephanie and Vincent pictured above bottom). Murray State is the smallest state school we have looked at with only about 4,000 students on the main campus it also fashions itself as a public liberal arts college (it is in the same association of colleges as Sarasota’s New College, where I once taught). Located in far western Kentucky near the Land of the Lakes area it is also rather affordable (at least until the state budget cuts passed last week trickle down into higher tuition rates). But it is also harder to get into admission wise compared to the other three state schools we have looked at. We were also reminded driving home how far away from Louisville it is. We got there Sunday in about four hours but a wrong turn today elongated the trip (no fault of Stephanie’s since it was a very poorly marked merge). Western is still probably Vincent’s favorite so far. Western had better food, easier to get into, closer to home, and a little bigger. Vincent also wasn’t sure about the official community building stress at Murray. Public schools in Louisville are on spring break this week and we were obviously not the only family taking advantage of this, two of the other three high school juniors who were on the tour with us and their families were from the Louisville area. It was interesting talking to them. We probably just have one more visit coming up this year with Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. (See earlier Berea college entry.)

All three of the out-of-town KY state schools Vincent has looked at (Morehead State, Murray State, Western Kentucky) are between $10,000 and $12,000 a year. Obviously this would only work with some combination of aid/scholarships, College Work-study, and some limited family contribution. At $12,000 a year, his favorite, Western Kentucky, is a few hundred dollars more than the other two (but is also the closest of the three). (Murray is the most competitive of the three, admissions-wise.) At an estimated $5,500 a year (without housing), the in-town school, Indiana University Southeast (where Stephanie has consulted, but whose open house got a bad review in an earlier entry) is more affordable (up to $11,500 with part of a room in one of the new dorms). Jefferson Community and Technical College, which he attended two years ago, was about $4,000 a year back then. (Obviously, none of the very few private colleges we've started to look at would work without very generous aid from the schools. One of Vincent's teachers pushed us to look again at these.)