<p>Okay, so I got two of my financial aid packages back from Northeastern and Siena.
Northeastern gave me 43k in merit and financial aid per year, leaving me with 14k to pay a year.</p>
<p>Siena gave me 35k in merit and financial aid a year, leaving me with about 8k to pay a year.
I've applied for scholarships and stuff and I'm still waiting to hear from some other schools, but as of now, which looks better. </p>
<p>My EFC is about 0-2k so we're really looking for the best option, but financially and academically.
Also I plan on going to grad/med school so I don't want to rack up too much debt.</p>
<p>Can you pay $14,000 or $8000 per year? Where will that money come from?</p>
<p>Probably loans and possible scholarships, and if anything else I have money to cover anything remaining.</p>
<p>Agree with Thumper - which can you afford. That is what matters. </p>
<p>Also, what is in the aid. Big difference between a package with all Grants/scholarship and one that includes loans.</p>
<p>neither of those amounts are including loans, so to reach full tuition I suppose I would have to take out the federal loans and then it would cover everything.</p>
<p>Where will those loans come from? Your parents would need to cosign any loans in excess of the Direct Loan ($5500 for freshman year). </p>
<p>I would put these two offers on the back burner until you see what other schools offer you. With an EFC of $2000 or less, you need to be careful about any other costs to you.</p>
<p>You also need to look at the composition of the aid - how much is merit, is the merit renewable for four years, what GPA do you need to keep it. Is it mostly grant - they can change each year although many colleges try to keep somewhat consistent, but it’s not guaranteed like a 4-year merit scholarship. Is it grant aid from your state, or grant aid from the college? How much have you saved or will you earn in your summer job? All those variables are needed to “evaluate” an aid package. Sierna is potentially within reach with some decent savings from your job and a federal direct loan…but as Thumper1 says take a long, close look and wait to see what other schools come in at. It’s 4 years you need to be concerned with, not just one and historically colleges raise their tuition each year.</p>
<p>$8,000 is easily manageable with loans, a summer job, and a part-time job during the school year. You might even be able to keep the loan amount below $5,500.</p>
<p>$14k . . . not so much.</p>
<p>One more thing to look at . . . are your awards for fixed dollar amounts - such as, for example, a $20k/year merit award? Or is there an award (from either school) that covers, for example, “full tuition and fees”? The latter type of award will increase each year as tuition and fees increase. The former award will not . . . so you have to anticipate that the amount you’ll need to cover will go up each year.</p>
<p>How will the Northeastern coop program affect your total costs?</p>
<p>Does Northeastern’s merit require the 100 hours of civic engagement a year? It could be very tough for a freshman to keep grades up, do work study and the volunteer hours.</p>
<p>Our daughter has to pay her own living costs while she’s on co-op. As an engineering major this is pretty easy to do. Not as easy for other majors.</p>
<p>I’ve been promised $138,400 over the course of 4 years from Northeastern with their own grant and then I have the Pell grant and the SEOG grant which makes it 43k a year in grants and then I have the option of work study.
Siena, however, did not detail their award by the year.</p>
<p>Okay, so that Northeastern award is going to fall short as tuition costs go up each year. But that’s the one that’s going to cost you $14k just for your first year, which I don’t think is affordable anyway. But be aware, it’ll be more than 14k for the subsequent years!</p>
<p>What, exactly, did the Siena award say?</p>
<p>oh the 14k for northeastern is including est. transportation and books and such<br>
what is really left after the grant deduction is 11k.</p>
<p>siena gave me the presidential scholarship (13k) and I don’t know the details of that one as of yet, I believe it is renewable according to GPA etc and then they gave me a grant as well of 16.3k and then the Pell and another 1k grant and then work study of 1k</p>
<p>Read carefully about northeastern…make SURE you can graduate in 4 years or have the opportunity to have enough semesters to work and earn money to sustain for 4 or 5 years if you consider this school. Are paid work situations guaranteed for all students enough semesters to be equivalent for kids who work in the summer to earn money? If so it might be doable, but their 4-year promise is relatively newish. I know nothing about Northeastern and it’s not a destination for kids in my region so I’m no expert, but on the surface from what I’ve read I personally am leery of their program for students with tight finances. Read carefully everything you can if you are even thinking about going into the debt it would cost you apparently to attend and which you might not be able to afford anyway.</p>