2 UC campuses; one financial aid award much better than the other?

<p>Theater, many people pay in and get nothing in terms of aid. Think of those who pay taxes and don’t qualify for any federal or state aid.</p>

<p>The fact is that Pell is an entitlement. Work study and Perkins are not. I was a 0 EFC student for 3 years and got a very small Perkins loan. When my EFC jumped up to around 1500 this year, I was left with no Perkins loans because they give it to neediest kids first. That means almost exclusively 0 EFC kids.</p>

<p>People pay taxes and have kids who don’t go to college or do not have kids using the school system at all. It doesn’t work the way you are thinking. I live in a crazy high property state area and though we have a good school system by every rating, I did not use it for my kids. They all went to private high schools because that was where I chose to spend my money and that option addressed my own personal concerns and wishes. CA is a low tax state in terms of spending for school, from what I have read.</p>

<p>CA is having trouble making the actual commitments that they have made in terms of higher education. They are struggling with their community colleges which is a foundation for higher education for the most number of students. So by the time one gets to areas where no true voiced or written commitment has been made and is a crapshoot of sorts, you can forget about getting a lot of subsidies unless you luck out or have a student that the colleges sit up, notice and fight over.</p>

<p>*The UC system pulls out the parent part of the EFC and adds to it $9400 for the student’s contribution. This amount is a bit lower at some campuses, but that’s the general expectation from each student. The idea is that it can come roughly half from work and half from loans.</p>

<p>Together, this student contribution and the parent part of the federal EFC constitute the expected family contribution to a UC.*</p>

<p>As to that last part…since the loans are part of the FA pkg to “meet need”, they aren’t part of the FAFSA-determined EFC. Or maybe you mean what UCs consider their “UC-determined family contribution.” </p>

<p>If that’s what the UCs are doing, then fine. It seems reasonable for schools to expect the family (family and student) to come up with AT LEAST $9400 (stafford, perkins, WS, EFC, ?). </p>

<p>Theatermajormama…what is your EFC? Frankly, the argument that we all pay federal income taxes (which pays for Perkins/W-S), doesn’t hold. Most of the recipients of those programs do not pay ANY federal income taxes. (Yes, I know that everyone pays various other taxes, but those aren’t the ones that fund these programs.)</p>

<p>Romani, are you taking about FICA? I don’t pay FICA for my FWS job.</p>

<p>College_ruled brings up another advantage of Work Study. You don’t pay FICA which is a savings of nearly 7% of earnings. I forgot about that benefit.</p>

<p><em>shrugs</em>. I don’t know. That would make sense actually.</p>