"It was completely my choice. They said whatever I did, we'd find a way to make it work," said Gottlieb, whose father is a municipal bond lawyer.

Unjy Park of Tacoma had a scholarship and a federal grant, but was still struggling to pay a $10,000 bill at Philadelphia University this past year.

Her South Korean immigrant parents tried to help, but their drywall business had gone from extremely busy to almost nonexistent in the past two years. With plans for medical school, Park was also concerned about collecting too many student loans.

"I kept getting more and more worried about it," she said.

So Park, 19, the first person in her family to go to college, decided to transfer to Western Washington University.

Park was pragmatic about her decision, noting that Western has the major she wants to pursue as an undergraduate — a dual anthropology and biology degree. With her federal Pell Grant and financial aid from the state, her out-of-pocket college costs will be considerably lower next year.

The school's financial aid office hasn't processed Park's application yet, but the maximum federal grant she could receive at Western is $5,350 and the maximum state need grant would be $5,030. She may qualify for other scholarships, paid jobs on campus and loans, as well.

Park is happy to be back in Tacoma after her time on the East Coast. And her parents are glad she'll be just a three-hour drive from home when she goes to school in the fall, joining about 1,000 other students transferring to Western.

Nassirian said a 5 to 10 percent shift in transfer applications could be due to any number of external factors including a winning basketball team, but up to 30 percent increases he's hearing about are most likely due to the economy.

Nassirian noted, however, that students may not save much money if they switch schools after more than two years at a college. This may force them to spend an extra semester or two in class to get a degree because the last two years of a degree are tailored by each institution.

Gottlieb has some advice for other students picking a college: Make sure that expensive private school is really what you want and need. She said after a few years of paying the pricey tuition you may start wondering if you'll have any money leftover for grad school.

"It will make it much easier for me to go to grad school if I go somewhere like Western," she said.

On the Net: Western Washington University: www.wwu.edu/; American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers: www.aacrao.org/