<p>I've been accepted to most of my colleges, I'll be attending college in fall 2010 as an undergrad, I want to study engineering (possibly computer science), I'm interested in grad school down the road, and I need help weighing the finances. Here are the colleges I'm considering, along with how much it will cost me per year to attend (I deducted any scholarships/grants from the total cost of tuition, dorms, books, travel, etc.)</p>
<p>Harvard Univ $22k
Northeastern Univ $16k
Princeton Univ $33k
Stanford Univ $36k
U of Minnesota TC $9k
U of Pittsburgh $11k</p>
<p>My family is upper middle class; I should be able to pay $60-80k. That would leave me with roughly $30k savings if I went to U of Minnesota TC, or $60k in debt if I went to Stanford. I haven't fully researched all of these universities and I won't have visited all of them until April 26, very close to the May 1 deadline. Right now I'm leaning towards attending Harvard (cross-enrolling at MIT) because it seems a good balance point between money and educational quality/prestige, but money aside I would go to Stanford (at the moment).</p>
<p>1) What do you think, where should I go, how should I decide? Any names I should knock off the list?</p>
<p>2) I've heard that some colleges such as Stanford may revise their financial aid awards if you show them significantly different offers from a competing institution (ie Harvard). How soon should I ask them to revise my package? Is it important to be able to say, "I will attend here if you can meet $X amount"? Should I wait until April 26 after the admit weekends when I have visited all my colleges and really know what I want? Should my parents ask, or should I? Phone/email/in person?</p>
<p>Thanks, I'm open to all advice! How can I graduate debt free from the school that is best for me?</p>
<p>Put it this way, If you work over the summer and save money, and with your parents saving, you can graduate from Harvard with little or no debt. No brainer to me.</p>
<p>The question is what did the SCHOOLS think you can pay? They are the ones to do this calculation. Harvard, Princeton and Stanford have VERY generous need based financial aid, with Stanford’s being perhaps the most generous to the highest wage earners in the country. They have a calculation they use to compute your need based aid. I have to be honest, I can’t imagine these schools are going to significantly increase your need based aid. They are quite generous with their offers as it is.</p>
<p>But you should ask…nothing ventured, nothing gained.</p>
<p>^^ That’s 22k per year of debt. Of course, that is the amount you would pay for the least expensive OOS schools (like the SUNYs).</p>
<p>I agree with Thumper that you’ve got offers from the schools that are most generous to high wage earners. I doubt you’ll get any more from them.</p>
<p>If you would rather attend S, you should give them a call and ask for a FA review, you have nothing to lose and they may very well match Hs offer. See this thread for the experiences of my D1 a few years ago and of another student this year, it’s for Y, but S shouldn’t be much different:</p>
<p>Yes, you can go to the financial aid office at Stanford and ask them to reevaluate your package in light of what Harvard is offering. You don’t need to draw a line in the sand with an amount they need to meet, just tell them that you would rather attend Stanford but at this point you will choose Harvard because of the greater amount of aid they are offering. From what I understand you can just be direct, you don’t need to be overly worried about tact or diplomacy. Just tell them straight out what the situation is and then the ball is in their court.</p>
<p>I don’t think you should wait, this will give you more information about the affordability of Stanford. There is no down side, they’ll either give you more aid or they won’t. If they don’t increase their aid then I think you should go to Harvard. You can have your parents do this if you would rather.</p>
<p>I sent an email to both Princeton and Stanford stressing that “although I am very excited to attend, graduating debt free is very important to me (which I could do at Harvard - see attached)”. I also re-informed them that my family’s income would decrease by about 10% in 2010.</p>
<p>They both came through and gave me an advance based on 2010 income, increasing their grant by $10,000/yr! I’m going to Stanford.</p>