<p>This has been bothering me since I'm not sure if I've done anything wrong on my FAFSA that could have lowered my financial Gift Aid... I might as well ask it now so I can be more aware before I submit my SIR.</p>
<p>Basically, my father's income is $22k a year. His income supports our family of 5. My brother is currently a student at a Cal State. My EFC is 0.</p>
<p>MY question mainly revolves around if I can get more grants/aid from UC Berkeley. My net cost to attend UCB would be 8k a year. </p>
<p>Breakdown:
COA (everything: fees, housing, etc...): $31,566
Gift Aid (Max Cal Grant A & Pell Grant + Cal Undergrad Scholarship [$4,868]): $21,920
Net Cost: $8,000 (Work Study- 3,300 / Subsidized Loans 4,700)</p>
<p>My questions:
Does the financial aid package look correct? I am worry that I might have inputted something wrong on FAFSA... Is EFC the main thing they look at for financial aid? I've always thought that I would receive enough grants since my family income is very low, but the net cost totally suprised me. Is Berkeley not 100% need based :(? </p>
<p>Do you guys think I can find a way to appeal or something? If so, any past experience or advice? I don't want to sound like I'm demanding more money, but more like pleading to see if I receive more grants/aids.</p>
<p>UCB (nor any of the other UCs) do not guarantee to meet need without loans. The only thing promised is that systemwide fees (roughly $11k) will be met if you meet the qualifications for Blue&Gold. Blue&Gold will also say its promise is met if you receive Cal Grant ;)</p>
<p>Did you qualify for Cal Grant B? That is an additional $1,551 per year for four years if so. Cal Grant A will only cover your systemwide fees while Cal Grant B will cover this* and a small living allowance (the $1,551 amount).</p>
<p>*Officially Cal Grant B says it does not have tuition/fee assistance the freshman year, but this amount is always made up with grants by the UCs.</p>
<p>I am not sure what the complaint is about - everything is covered for your attendance. The UC merely expects you to contribute via a student job (reasonable) and to take out a basic yearly student loan (also reasonable).</p>
<p>Put another way, why should the UCs have you attend without having to work a student or summer job whereas every other kid coming from even just middle class families have the same expectation? We are middle class and our son’s UC package also included work study and basic loans.</p>
<p>Your EFC is 0 – but that doesn’t mean the college expects 0 sweat equity (student loans, student work study, student summer jobs) from the student. And as other have pointed out, EFC is merely a federally generated number that colleges use in an advisory way. Having a 0 EFC does not mean the the college thinks that the student should be exempt from taking out any student loans or working part-time to pay. Your loans look reasonable, btw. If you don’t like the loans, enterprising students often earn 3 - 5K in a summer that can be used instead of taking out the student loan.</p>
<p>Your aid package looks typical for an EFC 0 at a UC. I doubt you’d get any more money</p>
<p>UC’s expect students to take out loans for some costs. They’re not going to provide “free money” for things like “personal expenses,” transportation, and such. That’s your responsibility. They expect you to pay for some of your education related costs. </p>
<p>In the end, you can control some of those costs. That’s your choice. But, in the end, you’re going to have a Berkeley education for about $28k …that’s a bargain.</p>
<p>*Put another way, why should the UCs have you attend without having to work a student or summer job whereas every other kid coming from even just middle class families have the same expectation? We are middle class and our son’s UC package also included work study and basic loans.
*</p>
<p>Excellent point. you should have to pay for SOME of your education.</p>
<p>Cal Grant B is worth more than Cal Grant A. The one who benefits the most from Cal Grant A is the school because they do not have to make up the tuition/fee assistance the freshman year. Cal Grant A only has a higher GPA requirement because it also has higher income and asset ceilings. If it did not have the higher GPA requirement, far more would qualify than there would be money to give.</p>
<p>Cal Grant B is worth $6,204 more than Cal Grant A.</p>
<p>Side comment: I agree that everyone should contribute to their education and should not simply be handed a 100% free ride just based on a low EFC. $20k~ seems to be the typical “cap,” so to speak, for grant aid from a UC. I am glad they do not meet need without loans and expect contribution from the student.</p>
<p>Also, I agree with Kender. At a UC, CAL Grant B is better than CAL Grant A 100% of the time.</p>
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<p>I agree with this. Not even Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, and Amherst give 100% free rides to the poorest students.</p>
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<p>I disagree with this because I’d rather have all loans replaced by Work-Study. After $2000 of WS and $3000 or so in Summer Contribution, a student shouldn’t have to take out any loans, but this isn’t a perfect world unfortunately. :(</p>
<p>In other words, I’m in favor of every student working to contribute, but I’m not in favor of loans nor giving students 100% free rides based on need.</p>
<p>The top schools meet full need without the use of loans but they do require WS and summer contribution.</p>
<p>Chaos, please get your info straight. Those very generous schools that meet full need DO require a student contribution BUT many of them (and the ones you named are amongst them) provide work study to low income students so they CAN earn their contribution.</p>
<p>Read my edits. Actually it is kinda my fault for not editing it properly. I did say I was in favor of WS and Summer contribution without the use of loans but I forgot to say these top schools do in fact do this by giving students WS.</p>
<p>chaospaladin:
I did not say whether the student contribution should be through loan, work study, or summer student contribution, only that the student should contribute to their education. Thus by disagreeing with my statement, you’re disagreeing that students should contribute to their education. Yes, my statement included the word “loans,” but you’re taking it out of context in the way you are attempting to interpret it.</p>
<p>And no, none of the UCs promise to meet need in any form. The only guarantee is systemwide fees for those that qualify for Blue&Gold.</p>
<p>Our kids did not qualify for need based aid. We REQUIRED them to take the Stafford loans in their names. They agreed this was a good way to help fund their college costs. I’m sorry but I DO think this is reasonable for all students…and so is working.</p>
<p>Chaos…you said yourself that you had NEVER had a job. You posted somewhere that your EFC was $0. Who is paying your college costs?</p>
<p>I am very fortunate and humble to be one of the very few lucky students to be both a low income student with a 0 EFC with a ton of scholarships. I had so many scholarships that my financial aid (loans, scholarships, Federal Pell Grant, CAL Grant, ACG, SMART Grant, UC Grant, Regent’s Scholarship, Chancellor’s Scholarship, SEOG, etc.) exceeded the total cost of attendance, so they eliminated all of my WS and loans. </p>
<p>Trust me, I really want to do WS to get the job experience, but I can’t since all of my WS was eliminated from having too much grants and WS.</p>
<p>Also since WS is limited, they give the WS to students who actually need the WS.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the comments guys. I mainly just want to be clear that the financial package was finalized to it’s best since I made some errors on FAFSA. Plus there was a 1-2 week delay before my FAFSA was finalized, so I just wanted to be 100% clear that there weren’t any possible errors. </p>
<p>Do not get me wrong, I am fine with WS. Just the idea of loans kind of depress me sometimes. But since the package seems to be the best of the best, I am more relieved now :)! </p>
<p>Also, why does Cal Grant B come out to be better than A O_o? I’m very quite surprised about that. </p>
<p>PS- Thanks to all the response so far :)! As I said, I am very relieved now to know that there were not errors on my financial aid package.</p>
<p>Cal Grant is not a merit aid program, but a need-based aid program and I think this is where your confusion lies. Cal Grant B is for low income students, Cal Grant A is for middle income students. The GPA minimum is only there to keep every kid in the state from getting it. If it were truly merit based, I imagine we’d have to resubmit our GPA verification every year just to renew the awards instead of just a FAFSA.</p>
<p>Cal Grant A provides:
tuition/fee assistance x4 years</p>
<p>Cal Grant B provides:
tuition/fee assistance x3 years* (SEE NOTE)
living allowance</p>
<p>*NOTE: While Cal Grant B does not officially provide tuition/fee assistance the freshman year, this amount is guaranteed to be covered by the UCs because no one who qualifies for Cal Grant would not qualify for Blue&Gold. I have also yet to see a CSU that does not make up this amount. So you will be getting the equivalent of four years of tuition/fee assistance with Cal Grant B that you would Cal Grant A plus the living allowance amount.</p>
<p>Who knows, though. Maybe UCB would decide to lower a grant aid amount if you added in that $1,551 each year. As I said, they don’t guarantee to meet need and once they’ve met your systemwide fees with grants, it’s up to them how to design your FA package. But Cal Grant B is worth more than Cal Grant A.</p>
<p>Wow, very clear to me now… do you think the extra 1,551 will actually apply to my gift aid too :o? I would love to get Cal Grant B in that case then O_o…</p>
<p>Trust me, I really want to do WS to get the job experience, but I can’t since all of my WS was eliminated from having too much grants and WS.</p>
<p>Chaos…</p>
<p>You don’t need WS to get job experience. My kids don’t have WS, but they’ve always worked during the school year and during the summer. You can get a job this summer and/or one during the school year.</p>
<p>You can earn about $5k per year outside of work-study and it won’t hurt your EFC.</p>
<p>MisterB…you’ll have to call your school about your Cal A vs Cal B issue. Someone said on another thread that one of them is only better after frosh year…that may be your issue and next year you’ll get the other one instead.</p>
<p>You’d have to ask them how they’d apply it. With all the budget cuts, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if they lowered a university grant that amount. I’m also a pessimist at times and think that they’d do something like make the package look unappealing with Cal Grant B (such as only meeting systemwide fees and then reducing other aid) on purpose.</p>
<p>They’re supposed to give you the one that is most beneficial to you. Cal Grant A for a Cal Grant B qualified person more benefits the university than the student, though, and the university can alter a package to make it look more appealing to have the grant aid that benefits the university the most rather than the student. Since Cal Grant monies come from the state, all UC and CSUs are more likely to be inclined to use that money instead of their own where possible.</p>
<p>Cal Grant B is worth more than Cal Grant A, but you could end up being given a worse package to try and discourage you from taking it. Best you can do is ask. The type of Cal Grant can be changed up until first distribution, by the way. The type cannot be changed after first distribution, though. It stays whatever it was at that time.</p>
<p>I see, thanks for the advice Kender :)! If I contact them about this question, would it makes me sound like I’m trying to cheat the system >.<? How should I approach this?</p>
<p>It’s not cheating the system when you’re entitled to it.</p>
<p>Just present the facts that you’re eligible for Cal Grant B and eligible for Blue&Gold and you want to know how this would affect your aid package if you switched to Cal Grant B from A.</p>
<p>You now know that Blue&Gold will ensure that your systemwide fees are covered by grant aid. The only question that remains is will the rest of your package be reduced since the rest of it doesn’t have any such guarantee.</p>
I did say I was in favor of WS and Summer contribution without the use of loans but I forgot to say these top schools do in fact do this by giving students WS.</p>