<p>This isn’t what the OP asked, and I may have missed it in the 14 pages of responses, but I’m wondering where the daughter is coming out on all this. Even if OP is determined to give her child the elite education she’s dreamed of, it’s the daughter’s decision whether to accept that education. I have one daughter who, given the facts presented and knowing the financial situation, would lose all interest in attending GT. She would not want to put anyone in a financial bind (or get herself into one). She would much rather choose a less expensive undergraduate option, do well and attend an elite graduate school. I have another daughter who would say “Fix it, mom, I wanna go to GT.” </p>
<p>OP, I hope it all works out and that it is a big mistake, but I am in full agreement with the posters who think it’s time to put Plan B and Plan C into motion, if only so you have options when you get to the end of the day.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>What is the university in question?</p></li>
<li><p>What is the total cost of attendance?</p></li>
<li><p>How much financial aid are they giving you?</p></li>
<li><p>How much are they gapping you?</p></li>
<li><p>How much loans are they giving you?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>* I have one daughter who, given the facts presented and knowing the financial situation, would lose all interest in attending GT. She would not want to put anyone in a financial bind (or get herself into one). She would much rather choose a less expensive undergraduate option, do well and attend an elite graduate school. I have another daughter who would say “Fix it, mom, I wanna go to GT.” </p>
<p>*</p>
<p>I thought of this as well. However, since this was an EA acceptance, which means she likely found out that she was accepted last Dec, this D has been thinking that she’s going to G’town for the past few months…telling friends, etc. It’s hard for a child to do a 180 and accept something she’ll feel is a big step-down. </p>
<p>We’ve all talked about the problems with ED…but with EA there’s another problem. Kids get accepted in Dec, but don’t get FA packages until mid/late March. What a strategy for schools…get the kids/families excited for a school with an acceptance, but don’t tell them for a few months about the finances. At that point, many families will do whatever it takes to make it happen. </p>
<p>Chao…</p>
<p>Georgetown</p>
<p>COA about 55k</p>
<p>probably was only given a small Pell Grant and student loan and the rest gapped big time. </p>
<p>Parent Plus or other would be used to cover the huge gap. Ugh! </p>
<p>But, if this D is used to her mom’s self-sacrifice and strategies to give her “the best”…then…</p>
<p>SLU – Just out of curisoity, not that I think OP can do this at this time, and I understand that if CURRENT income is transferred to 401K, etc that still counts as income, but is it true if OP were to take existing furnds and put into an annutity, would that TRANSFER still be regarded as income?</p>
<p>I still think that, at best, this only solves FAFSA problem, not institutional aid issue. I think that the COLA issue and the age of parent (when determining how much of parent assets to hit) are two BIG inequities in finaid.</p>
<p>*probably was only given a small Pell Grant and student loan and the rest gapped big time. </p>
<p>Source, please???*</p>
<p>???</p>
<p>*They want me to pay $51,000. *</p>
<p>Now, you may argue that that isn’t a “gap” in the traditional sense, but it’s a gap to the OP since she was told to expect a “family contribution” of $9k at most.</p>
<p>There was no “gap” because Goeorgetown meets 100% demonstrated need. If the school states that her EFC is 51k, they believe that she has considerable income &/ assets to pay this amount.</p>
<p>I think there may been a miscommunication, or perhaps the Op’s did not lay out her financial picture to the school like she did on CC when she requested an estimate. Keep in mind when Op spoke to the school on the phone they gave her an estimate based on the information she presented at the time (Op could have just presented the information on her FAFSA, but whe do not know what she did or did not tell the school). However, once she turned in all of her information (FAFSA, CSS Profile, Report of special cirumstances) they may have seen a different picture.</p>
<p>Georgetown states:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>For example, the FAFSA does not look at home equity, but georgetown does. Op states that she barter services to offset the cost of paying for her child to attend private school, perhaps Georgetown is looking for her to continue the same work for pay and could have factored her work as income.</p>
<p>Yes, but we don’t know how much information the OP gave the rep over the phone, and how clear that info was. We also don’t know all the caveats that the rep gave back, such as, "If you paperwork comes in exactly as you have told me, $10k income…’ Did the OP even mention on the phone about the daughter’s Social Security benefits, half of which go automatically go towards EFC? Once GU received the paperwork they made a determination based on the ‘facts’ presented to them. The facts resulted in no “gap”.</p>
<p>For all we know, this could be a “failure to communicate”, or in computer-ese, GIGO.</p>
<p>A couple of people have commented that the student’s social security payments may have been included in the calculations.
Unless the student has significant other income, they should not be included. Here’s an excerpt from the FAFSA instruction set for reporting student income under “other untaxed income”:
“Don’t include student aid, earned income credit, additional child tax credit, welfare payments, <b>untaxed Social Security benefits,</b> Supplemental Security Income, Workforce Investment Act educational benefits…” </p>
<p>If the student earns income, then some of the social security benefits may become taxable, and have to be reported under their AGI. The IRS has a formula to calculate what amount that would be.</p>
<p>That’s fine for FAFSA. They’ll get PELL and subsidized Staffords based on that. But GT uses its own methodology and they can include any income they feel like including. They are not bound by FAFSA rules. They also include home equity in the assets which FAFSA does not.</p>
<p>In the first post, the mom mentioned that she hadn’t yet told her D about the FA situation. Did I miss any mention that the mom had discussed it with her D at a later time?</p>
<p>It is a good question as to whether the D’s SS payments were included, but you’d think after years and years of dealing with student aid, G’town would know that such survivor payments end at age 18.</p>
<p>This is very painful to read; I feel for mother and daughter, and the unsecured loans out at interest to friends (if I am remembering, correctly) make me oh-so-nervous for the OP.</p>
<p>I know classmates of mine, from medical school (class of '89), who are still paying off exorbitant student loans from undergrad and medical school–very much an albatross that informs other expenditures.</p>
<p>As well, there was a thread on CC which talked about how salaries in foreign service/diplomacy are not high, by any means, esp. starting ones (I’m sorry that I don’t know how to reference the thread). </p>
<p>And I say this with sympathy–it’s what you do at the school (one’s performance), not what school one is at, that is going to determine future success, financially/personally. </p>
<p>The OP’s daughter may have to swap out her GT dream for another one–it is my experience that usually such things work out. But beware getting sucked into a maelstrom of tuition burden, please.</p>
<p>We have not heard from the OP for two days. Maybe she has already sent email to GT and headed to Italy. In her early posts she mentioned she will be back on March 30th.
Really worried about the situation. What is the option if GT does not want to change the package. She said her D applied other two ivies. The offers from these schools may be better, but the difference will not be $9000 vs $51000. Schools use their own formula, but they use the same data (from FAFSA, CSS, tax returns).</p>
<p>She may do better depending on the ivy. GT and BC use similar methodology and they do not cap home equity and are known to be less generous on how they view certain situations. Of course, it may depend on the ivy as well, but she might do a lot better.</p>
<p>Can someone elaborate on what the $9,000 actually means? Is this $9,000 the amount of expected family contribution from the mother per year? Is the $9,000 the expected amount of loans the daughter must take out every year? Is the $9,000 the amount of loans the mother must take out every year? Is the $9,000 the amount of grants and scholarships the daughter was awarded? </p>
<p>I plan to read all 219 posts in this thread. I am on post #23 as of this moment as I am typing this message. </p>
<p>I will start offering advice once I read all 218 posts, so I can know what information to give (that hasn’t already been given).</p>
<p>The way I understood the 9k/year reference was that the OP was told that that would be their expected contribution ‘worst case’, so she was counting on the rest being provided in FA, and also, I think, counting on that 40k or so of FA to be mainly grants, not loans.</p>
<p>And then she got a letter indicating that basically she was getting no FA at all.</p>
<p>I think (guessing) that the ‘9k worst-case’ ballpark was given based on her annual income figure with the (incorrect) assumption that she had zero assets or that any assets were sheltered (in an IRA). </p>
<p>I, too, hope she figures something out for her D–something more affordable.
Wishing her the best.</p>