what are some of university of michigan’s peers? would cornell be a peer? like if I have to pay 60k for cornell could I negotiate and say I only have to pay 27k for umich (I’m a michigan resident)?
Congrats on Michigan. However, the answer to your question is no, private schools that only give need based aid do not care about what you have to pay as an in-state student going to a public university. That is the purpose of a public university, to try to provide an affordable option for their taxpayer base
You can try to negotiate merit money at the undergrad and also professional school level.
Especially with professional schools.
But isnt Michigan academics just as good as Cornell but Cornell costs more than double? So should I just go to Michigan for premed?
Yes, you should attend Michigan for Pre-med if you can go for 27k vs 60k. you are going to need the $$ for med school (where your parents income and assets will still be counted)
@Eeeee127 Cornell has Net Price Calculator to get info, beforehand.
So far other school said my Efc is 59k and I doubt Cornell will say my Efc is 30k
One thing the article also didn’t mention is only try to see if you can increase grants at a college you WILL attend it you get the increased grant you are seeking, preferably matching one you got from a “peer” university’s program. Our S was able to have his merit offer bumped up just a bit to co-incidentally match the merit award he received from peer program (even tho his private S said they did NOT match). The extra $1000/yr for 4 years was a help.
@robincorn and @Eeeee127 – here’s a great tool for figuring out what colleges consider their peers:
It does not matter that Michigan and Cornell are peers. What you must keep in mind is this:
Michigan is a public university that has an in-state and out of state tuition charge
You are instate for Michigan, therefore, your tuition charges at Michigan is going to be considerably less that some one from any of the other 49 states who want to attend Michigan. you benefit from your parents paying taxes to the state of michigan.
With the exception of the land grant colleges at Cornell (which NYS residents are discounted), Cornell charges every one the same tuition.
Cornell is not going to match your package to what you would receive from attending your state university as an in-state resident (perhaps if you got accepted to Michigan, OOS and Cornell, then you may have something to discuss).
@Gatormama that list isn’t very accurate. how are university of iowa and university of oregon peers of michigan? it seems like all of michigan’s peers are a bunch of other much lower ranked public universities.
That list is based on what colleges U Mich SAYS are peers and then what other schools include UM in their own lists of peers. The link breaks them out so you can see who said what.
Apparently UM considers most state flagships to be peers.
First off, it’s the Chronicle of Higher Education, which isn’t known for specious reporting. Second, it’s about what the schools think. So I guess it is accurate when it comes to playing off one against the other? If one school wants to do better than a school it considers its peer, and you’ve got offers from both, maybe that can work to your advantage?
Anyway, the data is from 2012, so keep that in mind.
You can be peers academically and NOT peers for financial aid. Never ever ever heard of a top private matching the aid given to an in-state student by a state uni. Ever.
OOS, yes, maybe.
Wish this thread was made two years ago…
@STEM2017, I think CourtneyT is an exception (huge exception, given her scholarship results) among students in terms of how articulate she is in FA matters and in general. Most students don’t have a good understanding of their parent’s financial information at all. Small business structures, rental properties, 2nd homes, home equity, trust structures, 529 ownership, alimony, or pension income, etc. are not well understood by kids. Yet it is the parent financial situation that drives the FA process. I think most FA officers world rather talk to the parent. Explaining all this to a student who hasn’t even ever filed taxes is probably exhausting.
Admissions & profs - yes, kids. FA office - no issue with parents doing it. I negotiated a deal that was $10K better per year for one of my kids, and I guarantee my kid would not have been able to get the same result.
I was able to bump up S’s merit by $1000/year for 4 years by talking with the right person at the school he wanted about how the peer U was offering that extra merit award. She said they didn’t match but then said they would. I didn’t want to make S haggle and didn’t mind doing it myself. The U didn’t seem to care that it was me and not S.
For those of you who have successfully negotiated a better offer - if the offer is in grant aid rather than merit, how do you get a guarantee that it would be continued in years 2-4? I can see a “meets need” college agreeing to provide more aid if, for example, you have a better offer from another meets-need college…but you only have that offer in year one. If you have to apply for FA every year, how would you get that extra money added back again to the next year’s package?
I don’t think it’ll HURT your kid to do all the negotiating yourself. But in my experience, colleges are definitely impressed when the kid is capable of doing it themselves, and doing it well. So if your kid is able to handle it, let them. It bumped my packages up a lot imo.
Forgot, @HImom, I also successfully got another $1000 in merit aid (no way my kid would have done that). There is no guarantee on all the years for grant aid. But ask the question, and track what they say and who said it so you can trot it out the next year. My experience with grant aid is that they need some scrap of info they didn’t have before to justify the change. Take notes from your conversation so you remember what helped the first year.&