<p>i know there's this whole confusing process to the financial aid thing but the amount you recieve at one college is the amount you would recieve at any other? to clarify that question, does the amount of financial aid recieved vary with the amount of tution? for example, would a school like fairfield (about $40,000 a yr) give you the same amount of financial aid as a school like marist (about $30,000)?</p>
<p>The amout varies with the college's policy as pertains to financial aid. A relatively small group of colleges promises to give all accepted candidates aid equal to 100% of the students financial need. Colleges compute financial aid differently, and give it in different ways. For instance, a college could choose to meet one's need by giving $20,000 a year in loans or by giving a scholarship of $20,000 a year or by giving $15,000 a year in scholarships, $3,000 a year in loans, $2,000 a year in work study.</p>
<p>In general, the colleges that are most generous with financial aid are the private universities like Harvard, Yale, Amherst that are insanely difficult to gain admission to. They have large endowments, and very generous need-based financial aid policies. </p>
<p>Many other colleges spend lots of money on merit aid, in order to attract the best students they can. Lesser ranked colleges may give stellar, wealthy/upper middle class students wonderful merit-based aid to try to get those students to turn down acceptances from places like Harvard. The colleges that spend lots of $ on merit aid typically do not spend a lot on need-based aid, so may offer accepted students 0 even if the students have large financial need.</p>
<p>Since schools policies differ so widely,its possible that the school with the higher sticker price ends up being the most affordable because the cheaper school may not offer much need based aid while the expensive school may be very generous.</p>
<p>There is a lot of variation from school to school as to how they assess how much aid you will get. Yes, the amount of aid may vary considerably if the cost of one school is more than another. </p>
<p>There are many other factors to be taken into account as well. All of the colleges will determine your aid according to formulas provided by the information from the FAFSA . . .the free federal form, and often from the College Board's Profile form. Some will have institutional forms as well. These forms allow the colleges to come up with an Expected Family Contribution figure (EFC). The amount of aid is then determined by subtracting the EFC from the TOTAL cost of college, ie. tuition, room board, books fees, travel, living expenses. That gives you your "need" figure.</p>
<p>It is still pretty complicated after that, as some schools give 100% of your "need" for financial aid, but others "gap" the need, and don't promise to give you all that you think you are eligible for. (US News College and World Report Ultimate College Guide provides all this information as do many other guides; you may also find this information on the individual college's websites.)</p>
<p>In any case, the amount you will receive from one college may be quite different from another. Watch out also that some school appear generous with the total aid package, but they ask that you borrow more, while others give more grants and other forms of scholarship $$.
Again, the US New Guide I mentioned (I think I got mine from Amazon)
is very helpful.</p>
<p>Looks like NSM and I overlapped!</p>
<p>I have seen great variation among financial aid packages. Even with schools that give 100% of need, the composition of the aid package can vary. And sometimes you can even get more money from schools that do not give 100% of need, particularly if they really want you. Schools that require the Profile or their own supplemental financial aid statement often have their own special questions that can affect amounts. Also schools indicate whether you are on the A,B or C list in desirablilty and the packages are put together accordingly. I know a number of kids who have applied to Fairfield, Loyola(MD), Villanova, Fordham, Marist and Providence--all Catholic schools, and the amounts they received as total packages and outright grants varied widely. It seems to me that you get a more if you don't live as close to the school. Fairfield gets so many NYC outlying areas' kids apps, that it does not particularly want to "pay" for those kids, unless their stats are way up there. Fordham, too, is notorious about that. I know one young man who got generous offers from Catholic schools well out of area, but a very stingy package for anything within a few hours. My D got some very nice awards by going to a school that primarily serves midwest students. Also some schools are getting lopsided in M/F ratio, and if you are the right sex, you will get some preferential packaging. A friend of mine's and another friend of S's both foc\used in that category and though neither boy was a particularly great student (B-C range, about 1300 in SAt), they did get some nice scholarships which surprised them.</p>
<p>thanx for all of the info!</p>
<p>right now i'm interested in vassar, lehigh, mulhenberg, fairfield and fordham. i'm hispanic, top of my class (of about 400), take the hardest classes in school, am in marching and concert band and have done alot of community service through band. i hope all this would be to my advantage.</p>