(Please don’t move this to the Iowa State forum for several reasons)
A low-modest income OOS student (with stats that aren’t merit-worthy) contacted me and I saw that he has Iowa State on his list. He seems to think that the school will be generous to him.
The NPC has OLD info…for school year 2014-15…and he’d be applying for 2017-18
I put in that he’s the only child going to college from a family of 4 people…income around $35k-40k per year.
The NPC did NOT ask for stats yet it mentions aid that is a combo of fed, state, merit, institutional…which I think is misleading!!!
The results …
Academic Year: 2014-15
Estimated tuition and fees $20,617
Estimated room and board charges
(Includes rooming accommodations and meals)
$7,830
Estimated cost of books and supplies $1,043
Estimated other expenses
(Personal expenses, transportation, etc.) $2,430
Estimated total cost of attendance: $31,920
Estimated total grant aid:
(Includes both merit and need based grant and scholarship aid from Federal, State, or Local Governments, or the Institution)
$15,390
Estimated Net Price After Grants and Scholarships: $16,530
Grants and scholarships do not have to be repaid. Some students also qualify for student loans to assist in paying this net price; however, student loans do have to be repaid.
d16 applied there OOS; received merit award (ACE award), no grants or aid besides merit. EFC of $16.5K. Her total cost would have been around $24K. We had another midwest U OOS offer her a grant of $4K which surprised us.
she’s one of those “average excellent” kids. Sent you a PM. we know several kids who’ve gone to ISU, but have never heard about any grants; but probably these kids werent lower-income kids to begin with.
@mom2collegekids I was searching to see if anyone else had trouble with the ISU net price calculator and found your thread. I thought I would share our experience/frustration.
My son had been looking for a big campus type school, but less selective than UW Madison. I loved how transparent their whole admission and scholarship process is. The net price calculator looked good, so he applied and was accepted. He is right below the line for getting an auto scholarship (needs one more point on ACT - we shall see if he hits that). Since the calculator didn’t include any stats questions, I wasn’t concerned about the scholarship and thought that would just be a bonus if he did get it.
In corresponding with another parent, I started to have questions about the NPC. The prices she gave me coming from the same state were not even close to what the NPC was showing.
I emailed ISU asking directly if the NPC was accurate and whether or not it included a potential scholarship. I got a non-answer, saying stop in on your visit and we’ll go over figures at that time. I responded pushing a bit more for an answer and was told the net price calculator is not accurate and that they were also including a scholarship in the award section.
We are in limbo now with ISU. Obviously, tuition and room/board will be higher for 2017-18. The NPC quoted us as receiving $12480 in aid. Assuming they were counting either $8k or $6250 for auto scholarship, that still leaves about $4-6k unaccounted for in aid. I don’t think its really a thing though, based on what this other parent told me, they did not receive any aid from out of state.
Wondering if you had any luck finding out any concrete details about the NPC and pricing for OOS students at Iowa State…
Student can run the FAFSA 4caster to get federal EFC along with anticipated Pell (which will be a given)
Op knows that s/he will be eligible for 5.5k in loans
@uwalummom – so basically you’re trying to figure out what makes that extra 4-6K$ in the aid portion . . . right?
they are slightly vague when they talk about it; not clarifying if its grants or if its loans.
All i can say is that D16 had a 16.5K EFC; and received no grants. our aid was around 9500 in specific merit scholarships; taking COA to about $23K+ , something like that. ($23K was too much for us.) The calculators on ISU’s web site say “estimates” – and DO include the merit awards of either 8K or 6.5K when spitting out net price.
another OOS public with a great design school actually did give her a grant and a merit scholarship; taking total price down closer to her EFC. both schools offered loans as well of course. You can submit those FAFSA forms soon and then you’ll know for sure how they are comprising their aid. I’m curious . . . for our next kid! We did like ISU.
Thank you @bgbg4us Yes, that’s exactly what I’m wondering. I am doubtful that the extra $4-6k even exists. It was so misleading to include scholarships in the NPC, when they don’t even ask for stats. Not all kids will get those. Plus this mysterious extra $4-6k…
Such a disappointing contrast to their transparent admission and auto scholarship guidelines.
We are in limbo now with ISU. Obviously, tuition and room/board will be higher for 2017-18.
[/QUOTE]
The NPC quoted us as receiving $12480 in aid. Assuming they were counting either $8k or $6250 for auto scholarship, that still leaves about $4-6k unaccounted for in aid.
I don’t think its really a thing though, based on what this other parent told me, they did not receive any aid from out of state.
[QUOTE=""]
[/QUOTE]
Did it say what that 12,480 in aid was? Sounds like a 5500 loan and a possible scholarship if stats come in high enough.
I few schools (wrongly) add in scholarships on their NPC’s without asking for stats. so misleading! And some NPCs are listing OLD rates. I think ISU had 2014 rates? (Maybe updated since I looked a bit ago.
(Includes both merit and need based grant and scholarship aid from Federal, State, or Local Governments, or the Institution)
Grants and scholarships do not have to be repaid. Some students also qualify for student loans to assist in paying this net price; however, student loans do have to be repaid.”
It doesn’t say it includes loans. I know it says includes merit aid, I just didn’t see how it could assume your student would qualify without asking for stats. The rates are still from 2014-15, so we would need to adjust for current costs.
I agree, I don’t think they are going to offer need based aid for OOS - guess we’ll never know what the unaccounted $4-6k is supposed to be. I don’t think it will be on the award letter.
Really just sharing my disappointment, I guess, and wondering if anyone else had similar or different experiences with the Iowa State NPC.
“Estimated total grant aid: $12,480
(Includes both merit and need based grant and scholarship aid from Federal, State, or Local Governments, or the Institution)
Grants and scholarships do not have to be repaid. Some students also qualify for student loans to assist in paying this net price; however, student loans do have to be repaid.”
[QUOTE=""]
[/QUOTE]
I’ve seen a couple of students use their NPC and get those SAME results. I wonder if that is the NPC result as long as there is “some need.”
I’m the parent that @uwalummom was communicating with when she realized that the NPC of ISU may not be accurate (FYI - I’m the Dad, not the Mom - I guess I never clarified that in our communications). My son is currently a Freshman at ISU (and is loving it so far). I’m not sure if we ever used the actual NPC at ISU when researching. They have a “Automatic Award Calculator” (ACE award) on their web site that we used. We subtracted that from the published general out of state tuition that they post and the number we came up with was almost spot on with what we are paying.
However, If I go back now and run the NPC (again, don’t think we did this originally), it shows Estimated Total Grant of $9,785 which is about $3,250 more than my son got. He got the ACE level II award and did not qualify for any other aid or grants.
This is the language under the “Estimated Total Grant” heading:
Estimated total grant aid:
(Includes both merit and need based grant and scholarship aid from Federal, State, or Local Governments, or the Institution)
If it’s including the ACE award, I’m not sure how it could do that. The ACE award is based on state of residence, ACT score, types of classes taken in HS, and class rank. None of these questions are asked when completing the NPC on the ISU website. Perhaps it’s including loan availability in “scholarship aid”? If it is, that would be misleading.
Thank you for the info. So it appears that their NPC is not the least bit accurate for OOS students since it doesn’t ask for stats, yet seems to just automatically suggest grants of about $10k. In your case, your student only got about 6500 per year in merit/grant/free-money.
If you are from certain Midwest states there are special merit awards. IIRC, it was hard to find on the website–we learned about it at a college fair. They also give about $1,000 a year if you are a legacy. I don’t remember what DS was offered, but it worked out to the same cost as our state flagship.
There are also a lot of small awards you have to apply for–for example, our local alumni association gives a small scholarship.