<p>Well, after reading the article about Harvard drastically reducing the amount middle-income families have to pay, I was wondering how Brown is in comparison with financial aid. When I went to an info session nearby, the speaker said he only had to pay $7000 a year…I would think he must not have been middle-income. Do middle-income families typically find Brown affordable? My family’s income falls in between Harvard’s definition ($120000-180000), but when we used a FAFSA early estimation calculator, our EFC was ~$40000!</p>
<p>I’m willing to work for it if I get in, but $40000 a year is not realistic!</p>
<p>Brown isn't as generous as other schools in general with finaid. My package at vassar had 8k more in grant despite both schools claiming to meet full need and FAFSA clearly being the same at both places. </p>
<p>Brown has some programs (Sidney Frank Scholars) for low income families. They don't require work study out of first-years. But as for upper middle class people like yourself (sorry, mid income gets another big lol from me), they tend to be stuck with a hefty EFC.</p>
<p>You guys can't jump to conclusions about his income lol! He may have many brothers and sisters, and some may be in college. 40,000 might be too much for a large family.</p>
<p>scarolina89- Brown guarantees to meet your demonstrated need... so the FA office knows what will be too much for your family.</p>
<p>yeah...and I never said my family's income is $180,000.
It's actually at the low end of that range. Under taxes, I live with my mom and stepdad. The bulk of the income is my stepdad's money, and I don't think he's so willing to pay it. The income is kind of misleading. And I have no college savings, as my parents never thought I'd apply somewhere so expensive.</p>
<p>$40,000 might be too much for a large family? I think it's too much for any family unless they're millionaires. Come on, you can't just assume because someone has a six figure income they can fork out $40000 every year for four years.</p>
<p>SCarolina-- with that kind of salary living in that part of the country, the question is, why not?</p>
<p>No one said 40k a year was easy or reasonable, but FAFSA and need is based upon whether or not spending X amount of dollars would put your family under undue stress (and not undue stress to maintain a "life style"). My family's combined income is slightly less than that range and I live in the second most expensive part of the country. My family did save for college but not much as we didn't have much disposable income. I'm receiving a good amount of aid but only becuase my sister is also currently in college.</p>
<p>Honestly... 80k a year (if you're on that 120 mark) is enough for a family of three to live on for four years time without putting them in a compromising position. Unless someone is particularly irresponsible with credit or has extenuating circumstances like expensive illness or dependent family members, which is all taken into account when calculating aid, there is no way that 80k a year in a family of three (heck even in a family of four) can't cover food, housing, taxes, cars, etc.</p>
<p>Aid is not designed to account for or protect luxury spending. The goal of financial aid is not maintenance of life style or even to make paying for college easy-- it's about making sure that paying for college is possible.</p>
<p>Harvard is trying to go a step further and make it truly easy, and they should-- they have the money to do that. Right now, Brown struggles to keep up with the need demonstrated by the student body. One step at a time.</p>
<p>My experience with all of my friends so far has been satisfaction with their aid package. Very few are enthralled by it, but all must admit it truly is exactly what they can afford, it's a pain in the ass, it's a stretch, it's tight, it's not easy, but it's pretty much dead on accurate.</p>
<p>It also greatly disturbs me that Bloomberg and Harvard think that 120-180k a year is middle class.</p>
<p>Thanks for the helpful post. I guess it's just a little difficult (and perhaps a little selfish?) to ask my mom and stepdad to change their lifestyle for me to go to this school when I could go for free in state, and they have to think about saving for my sister as well.</p>
<p>scarolina89 - You'll find lots of threads in the parents' forum on this topic. I'm a parent and I suffered a momentary sticker shock when I did the EFC calculation on collegeboard a few months back. I'm over that now and, as a family, we have decided on a specific plan that works for us. Talk with your family because each one has a unique approach to financing college.</p>
<p>Woflmanjack-- though much money is going into continuing efforts to improve financial aid, here is the best document I can find on line that explains it:</p>
<p>I'm involved in 2 physics research projects, and I know what most others are about. Some more funding would certainly not be bad.</p>
<p>I don't see any problem with the fitness centers. What, are we lacking machines to help you work on your upper left butt cheek?
Do push-ups, run around. You don't need any fitness centers</p>
<p>Funny, I can't seem to find the funds for the vegetable farm anywhere. I know they spent somewhere in the hundreds of thousand dollars for it, but I want to see for sure. Then when I go back to romania I can show my relatives from the country side how much they spent for something that could be done with less than 10$...such a waste of money...</p>
<p>There is going to be increased funding for undergraduate research but it's coming through the DOC Office right now as opposed to the Corporation. That's just how the money is being funneled. One of the things Dean Bergeron will be discussing with the Corporation at their meeting in February is funneling even more money not from the DOC budget into UTRAs and other forms of research funding.</p>
<p>The Plan is being reassessed in February and will likely have quite a few nudges in various different directions than the originally laid out plan.</p>
<p>The reason why we're getting a new fitness center is because a rich parent asked his daughter what she wished we had, she said a better fitness center, so he donated money for it, millions of dollars.</p>
<p>That's how these things work, negru, most people don't just give to the general pot, they donate towards what they care about and the money has to go into those areas. It's a struggle to always do the most necessary thigns because that's not always something that's easy to sell to alumni.</p>