Were you successful?
If you are comfortable to disclose what they gave you extra (more money, free laptop etc)
Still undecided here.
We appealed and got more merit money, but my son hadn’t received nearly as much as your daughter. (I read your other thread that said 47K. Was that merit money or financial aid plus merit?) it doesn’t hirt to ask.
47k is merit (we are only eligible for a $5500 federal loan I addition to that so it’s still almost 20k out of pocket & unsubsidized
Such a hard decision. Will be happy when it’s done 
That’s an awesome merit award. I know it’s expensive, but many pay MUCH more than your family will be paying. Good luck with the decision.
I’m just wondering if they give into appeals easily any way we can make this less of a burden for her to pay off
We did, and successfully. Wrote an honest letter to FinAid explaining that though they gave quite a bit in merit, it was still a struggle for us to make the number and might have to look at community/in state colleges as alternatives. No BS, all true, and they were very helpful - within a week we had received another $3k in grants. (It honestly felt great receiving that additional money…it’s a small percentage of the whole, but an accomplishment to get it, and it helped a lot!)
Doesn’t matter how high your award is you should always try and appeal. Never hurts and my experience rpi gives something if they want you and it sounds like they want your daughter.
Good luck!
@sunnydaydream, if I do the math, that makes RPI close to $72k all in ($47 merit + $5k loan + $20k out of pocket). Is that correct? I may need to rethink this school for D…
school is about $66k. A loan is still going to come out of your pocket plus interest
It is true that you can always appeal, but if we were given 47k merit, I would rather Rpi give money to other kids who truly need the support. Did not Mrs Sunny mention that her D can come out of Lally debt free in her NYU Stern Vs Lally thread?
That said, Stern is a much better choice, if affordable.
Did she ask for you (or anyone else) to judge?
Maybe her child is going to come out debt free but she’s willing to take out loans for x amount her child will be debt free but she will not…who knows but what a way to chase someone away.
I have to say I’m in a similar boat my daughter got into lally & stern, one will incur more debt than the other (stern obviously) & I’m not convinced it’s worth it. If she doesn’t get into some high powered position she will have a loan the size of a ny mortgage payment until she’s at least 35 and be crying over her high college loans like so many other foolish people.
I wish you all good luck in your appeals & your future but would hope we’d bring each other up in this stressful time & not feel the need to tear anyone down.
@sly, you have proved your case that you are in stress by giving debt free such a stressful definition, cheer up.
I’m quite cheerful. I’m also kind & compassionate & believe in the golden rule.
If people would just answer the original question it would be real helpful to the rest of us
My daughter got a fairly good merit aid offer to begin with but needed more given our financial situation. She wrote RPI and asked for more and received another 3K which tipped the balance and led her to enroll at RPI over CMU and other options (she’ll still waitlisted at Chicago, her first choice, as well as Cornell and Rice – I’m not sure she’d pick the latter 2 over RPI though, would depend on their aid). She’ll still graduate with +/- $20K debt but that’s manageable, and if she goes for co-terminal master degree, it’ll be $25K debt for a masters, which is decent.
@insanedreamer wow so your daughter received $61,000 a year in merit aid!?!? That’s amazing!
Good news for us, we were offered a housing scholarship she will probably only wind up using it for the first couple years but we are happy and thankful. Much luck to everyone else who’s trying.
We appealed and got nothing. Probably did it too late, but had late tax forms come in. Screwed by the man again…
Different was 7K in EFC with updated data plus income this year vs. last year will be 15K less.
He will have 8.5K of loans per year. I’m surprised families with a lower EFC would have less loans than my son.
However, we did calculate that if he graduates a semester early, and also takes a co-op so his college overlaps with my younger son’s, we would be able to save enough to help him pay a significant amount of his loans off.
I would be shocked if anyone of limited means wasn’t looking for their child to graduate early by taking CC courses for up to the 32 credits allowed (including AP, be careful of that), and taking a co-op (which are usually paid). Asking for more grants is one thing, but there are other ways to save a substantial amount of money on college costs.
@Sunnydaydream, is your student going to attend RPI? just curious what the final outcome was.