Accepted, can't pay?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Los Angeles
1

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>My family's EFC is $1870 (and we also have some debts). I was just accepted by UCLA and Berkeley (I'm a candidate for a Regents--full ride--at Berkeley, but I'm definitely not counting on that).</p>

<p>However, I just read the provisional fin.aid letter from UCLA and it does close my package, giving me all but $1870 (about 21K out of the 23K/year), but there is $2500 work study, which I can understand, and $6500 in LOANS. All this is per year. </p>

<p>Do those loans seem too high to anyone else?
I received a full Cal Grant, only half the maximum Pell Grant, and 4K from UCLA as a University grant.</p>

<p>I will definitely appeal to the Fin. Aid Office.
Should I expect lower loans from anyone else or am I dreaming here?
Any advice or comments?</p>

<p>Thank you very much.</p>

2

<p>no that sounds about right for loans. It sucks, but you can't expect your full need to be met by grants. You still have almost $12k in grants right? thats not bad.</p>

3

<p>You think that's bad, it said 30k in loans per year for me. I am OOS though.</p>

4

<p>I'm sorry!</p>

5

<p>I think they cap what you can get in "free money."</p>

6

<p>I had an EFC of 0 and I still got $5500 in loans. I don't how much lower it can get than that =/</p>

7

<p>That's what I'm saying. Even with an efc of 0, you can only get a certain amount of free money. The rest has to be loans.</p>

8

<p>yeah, i was kinda disappointed. When the fafsa gave us the efc, i thought that the schools would cover everything else. Or least a whole bunch more in grants or something. oh well =/</p>

9

<p>I got $6500 in loans with 0 EFC. Errgh.</p>

10

<p>You probably won't have to loan all of it, since those approximations of textbook costs, transportation, etc is high.</p>

11

<p>Yeah your loan amount is very normal, a bit less than myself actually. (I pay for everything, EFC is 0). But the previous poster is right, the estimated expenses are high, esspecially if you choose cheap housing.</p>

12

<p>Thank you very much guys.</p>