Aid award still leaves 20k a year net price that parents won't pay

Paying for College
1

Hello,

I recently received an acceptance letter from Grinnell College along with a tentative financial aid award. This award included a merit scholarship along with grant aid. My remaining costs are around $20,000.

Although this is my first award letter, I’m assuming most will be around this amount, and unfortunately, my parents aren’t paying for any of this.

I’ve got about $4,000 of my own money saved up, $3,000 from outside scholarships so far (applying to many others and the ones I’ve gotten so far are fairly competitive so I expect a little more), $5,000 from a small trust set up by my grandparents, and I suppose I will sell my car when I go to school, so that’s around $2,000. I also expect a couple thousand dollars from graduation money. This total is close to the $20,000.

Obviously the first year will be paid for or close to paid for, but should I really put myself in this situation for the remaining years? I’m sure I will be able to get a few more scholarships each year, but all of the money for the first year will be gone, leaving me to come up with $20,000 a year for the next three years. I could potentially wait out the year, move to my father’s (he makes a lot less than my mom and stepdad), and then reapply to schools that only consider the FAFSA. The thing is, there’s not a good community college near him so that may be problematic, and so would finding a job in the area he lives in, but if it saves me $60,000, it may be worth it.

I don’t want to take out more than $25,000 in loans, because despite my intended career of medical doctor, I know I am young and may change my mind, and don’t want to end up with a load of undergrad debt and a lower-paying job.

Do I have any other options? Are there any other options I can exhaust? I didn’t expect my net price to be so high. When I put all my info in the calculators previously this fall, none of my net prices were above 15,000, and now all of them are above 20,000, and I don’t understand why. Nothing changed.

Thank you.

Logan

2

Especially since you hope to go to medical school…you don’t want undergrad loans too.

Where else did you apply? There are plenty of excellent colleges that do not cost upward of $50,000 a year to attend.

ETA…is this your application list (from a previous post)

Unless I’m reading this incorrectly, you applied to private universities, and OOS public universities except UW Seattle.

Most of the schools on your list give need based aid only. You have two parents who are remarried, and the incomes and assets of all are considered at many of these. You knew this in December when you made a query about this here.

The UCs will expect you to pay the $23,000 differential plus your EFC.

I believe Princeton will only consider your custodial parent and spouse…because your custodial parent has remarried. But…you gotta get accepted, and that is never a slam dunk at Princeton…or many of the other schools on your list.

UW Seattle will likely be affordable for you.

At this point, you need to wait to see your net costs at all of these schools…and see what happens.

3

You can’t afford this school.

4

I applied to Amherst, Bard, Bowdoin, Brown, CMC, Columbia, Grinnell, Harvard, Middlebury, Pomona, U Rochester, Whitman, Whitworth, and WSU. I thought my best bet would be top schools that offer a lot of financial aid, even to middle class applicants. Public schools don’t offer enough gift aid, and no public school in WA offers a full-ride or many merit scholarships at all, and those net price calculators produced no gift aid at all.

5

Logan…the net price calculators are NOT accurate for families where the parents are divorced.

Your application list is top heavy, and full of schools that cost $50000 a year plus. Except for WSU.

Unfortunately you didn’t apply to any schools that guarantee merit aid for your stats…and there were some. Why not?

The top schools above (they are Profile schools) do consider the income and assets of both your custodial parent and spouse…and non-custodial parent and spouse.

As I said above…just wait and see, until all your offers are in. Look at the net costs to your family. If they are affordable, fine. If not, you will need to regroup.

6

My father and stepmother aren’t really factored into the Profile because their EFC is 0 because they have such a low income.

7

thumper1, as I’ve mentioned, I calculated the net price for both my mother/stepfather and father/stepmother. My mother/stepfather net price is around 20,000, and father/stepmother is 0.

8

Yes, they do, but you say that “my parents aren’t paying for any of this.” It sounds like the problem is your parents, not the amount of aid that meets-full-need schools will provide.

9

Oh certainly, I am not blaming the schools. The problem is my parents. What I meant by that was as compared to other options, such as more expensive in-state publics, more expensive out-of-state publics, and more expensive privates, these schools would be good options.

10

Well, if your family can’t meet the EFC for a meets-full-need school, my suggestion would be to take the stats that get you into those kinds of schools and use them to get big merit money at a less costly school.

11

The problem is that the student sought highly competive and expensive schools, knowing that he had both custodial and non-custodial parents who are remarried.

Logan…did you discuss college costs with all of your parents BEFORE you sent the applications off? What did they say they would contribute? If they said zero $, then this list was not well put together.

Is there any school to which you can commute…in WA?

12

Is the net price 0, or the EFC? Even if your dad and stepmom’s EFC is 0, it doesn’t mean colleges won’t gap you.

13

The problem is, while these schools do offer financial aid to middle-class families, they still expect the family to pay a reasonable amount. Good aid does not equal free. It’s unfortunate your parents will not help you. But schools can’t take that into consideration, or otherwise every family would say the parents refuse to pay their share and need full aid.

This is why a good school list also includes safety schools. It’s great to aim high, but there need to be realistic backups.

14

I did. And they said $0. I don’t know where I was supposed to apply if these schools aren’t right. And saying schools with lots of merit aid doesn’t help. Even with a lot of merit aid, there’s often less grant aid, so the net price still remains relatively the same.

15

austinmshauri, the net price was 0.

Inigo, Whitworth and WSU are my safeties, but they are still expensive because my parents make a lot of money, and I got a good amount of merit from both of those schools, but it still will be the same price as the top schools.

16

I see a problem with qualifying for need based aid your first year as YOU have too many assets. Once you spend them you might qualify for Pell if you live with your father, but that is not going to fill the $20k gap, just $5k of it. You could also take loans in later years.

If you go to a FAFSA only school, which might be cheaper, you might make it. Are you planning to enter as a junior? You said you’ll have an AA degree. Would going to a state school mean 2 years while going to a private means 4? Huge difference in money and experience.

17

Logan…college is usually not free. There is an expectation that the family will pay their family contribution, and the student will pay a student contribution, if that is required.

If you had applied to University of Alabama, for example, you would have gotten a grea tuition award for your stats, I believe. This would have left room and board to be covered by you…about $10,000. You could have taken the direct loan of $5500, and used job earnings and some savings to cover the balance.

Is there a four year public university in WA that is within commuting distance of your house?

What ARE your parents saying about your post high school plans? Do they want you to go to college? What are they willing to do to support this?

18

A college you are attending isn’t going to just let you “switch parents” so the FAFSA looks better in the future. Plus, a college like Grinnell still takes the non-custodial parent and their spouse’s info into account, so what the FAFSA says doesn’t matter.

Also, I am not sure Grinnell will “stack” your outside scholarships. Many schools will just reduce your need-based grants by the same amount, leaving your cost of attendance as it was. But colleges do handle it differently, so you need to ask each college.

The bottom line, though, is that you can’t afford Grinnell. Going in with only a plan to scrape through the first year and nothing for years 2, 3, and 4 is not a plan at all. Money like that isn’t going to just fall from the sky. You need to pick a cheaper option (in-state university, possibly a place where you can live at home and commute, or even cc for two years and then a transfer to a four year state university or school near your home). If your parents are not willing to help out with your EFC, then you are going to have to go with cheaper options. No amount of wishing will make it otherwise.

And… those schools aren’t your “safeties” if you can’t afford them. Safeties aren’t just schools you are sure you can get into, they are schools you KNOW you can afford.

If you wondered where you should have applied, have you looked at the guaranteed scholarships site?

http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/

They may not be the colleges you are fantasizing about, but if you really want to get an education without paying much for it, you should look hard at this list. I am not sure how they treat students who take a gap year that meet these stats, but it may be something you should look into if you don’t end up with any affordable options this year.

19

Isn’t Alabama Birmingham a good school for health careers? What is their merit deadline?
http://www.uab.edu/students/paying-for-uab/scholarships/item/570-act-gpa-based-scholarships

I agree if you can find an affordable school where you can maximize the credits you transfer so that it might even save you a year of school, that would be the way to go.

20

First, congrats on getting accepted to Grinnell, with merit. Second, you can’t afford it.

Perhaps WSU is an affordable option. If so, then that may make sense.

But you may also want to look at EWU, WWU, CWU. These are underrated options, especially if you take advantage of honors programs etc. For example, total COA at CWU is perhaps a bit under $20k. General scholarship applications don’t close until March 1st. Small amounts of merit $$ are simply stat-determined; also join the Douglass Honors College ($1000)- This should put your COA down to about $15-16K. Limit loans to Federal Direct ($5,500 for freshman slightly higher later) so that you only have to come up with about $10k per year. Keep your car and work in the summer and pt during school year on campus or off (say, 3K net earnings). Cut this remaining $7k with the external scholarships you have in hand (and others you are applying for). You’ve got enough savings in hand to probably get you through first several years. Cobble from there with extra work. (And perhaps ask parent claiming you if they will at least give you the federal tax credit ($2,500 annual) equivalent.)

State support was better then, but with no savings and no family support 30 years ago, I had to make a similar choice and a regional/directional university with an honors program worked out very well for me.