<p>Can you please recommend few good books to acquaint/educate myself on how scholarship/FA work?</p>
<p>How to pay for college without going broke</p>
<p>Debt-free U</p>
<p>[FinAid</a>! Financial Aid, College Scholarships and Student Loans](<a href=“http://Www.finaid.org%5DFinAid”>http://Www.finaid.org) - not a book, but extremely informative and has great calculators.</p>
<p>bella…much of the info that you need can be found here.</p>
<p>What is your situation?</p>
<p>What are your stats?</p>
<p>Are you lowish income?</p>
<p>How much will your family contribute towards college?</p>
<p>I see that you’re interested in Fashion Design. Most of the schools that offer that major do not give great aid.</p>
<p>“Let’s say college costs $50K per year and your family contribution is $10K and you are qualified for $40K FA from a college; if you are able to secure $5K in scholarship from outside, does that mean college will only pay $35K or you will be able to reduce your EFC to 5K.”</p>
<p>You have to understand that most colleges do not meet need. So even if your EFC is $10k, you may not get much from the school. You may be expected to pay all or most of the cost. Art schools are very bad with aid.</p>
<p>I’m a sophomore so don’t have the stats yet. Is there a way to find out how much FA a school is likely to provide beforehand? Like can I find out which art schools will offer how much in FA? This will help me decide before hand whether I should even pursue that line.</p>
<p>You could look on Collegeboard for info about each school’s aid…or their Common Data Sets.</p>
<p>But the truth is…Art schools do not have much aid to give. Most people have to take out loans to attend. </p>
<p>You’d be better off going to a university with a great art program.</p>
<p>In the meantime, get great grades and practice for the SAT and ACT…you need the best scores.</p>
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<p>I found both of these very helpful. Read the first one when S was a junior but you could honestly read it sooner if you need to think about long term (whose name assets/gifts/savings should be in, paying down debt to reduce savings, dealing with college costs in divorce settlements or whatever). </p>
<p>Debt Free U was a decent read too.</p>
<p>This web site is very useful for getting an idea of what net cost might be taking your EFC and grades into account: <a href=“http://www.collegedata.com/cs/promo/promo_netcost_tmpl.jhtml[/url]”>http://www.collegedata.com/cs/promo/promo_netcost_tmpl.jhtml</a></p>
<p>Each college and university should have a Net Price Calculator on the website. You can put in some of your family financial information and get a general idea about what your final costs might be. These calculators are new this year, so no one knows yet about how accurate they are. I can tell you that the most artsy college that Happykid applied to gave us a net price that indicated there would be absolutely no financial aid.</p>
<p>Cross posted in the OP’s fashion design thread:</p>
<p>Fashion Institute of Technology. It’s a SUNY in NYC. Very affordable if you are a NY resident, still very inexpensive if you are not. Definitely not Ivy League level of academics but very well respected fashion design program.</p>
<p>Bella…</p>
<p>You need to do some “homework” to figure out what is do-able for you.</p>
<p>1) find out how much your family will pay. If your family won’t pay much, then even a so-called low-cost school (like an OOS SUNY) will not be affordable since you won’t get the aid you’d need to attend as an OOS student.</p>
<p>2) What state are you in? It’s likely that your state schools have a good program.</p>
<p>3) Again, get the best grades and test scores you can…that will give you the most options.</p>
<p>When you say most of the Art schools do not offer much of FA. Does that include schools like Pratt, Drexel, University of Philadelphia, Cornell ?? I think what you meant by arts school is typical arts schools which only offers arts/fashion design courses. The schools I mentioned are not pure Arts schools and offer wide ranging courses. I will look up on their website meanwhile if you have any comments keeping in mind the kind of art schools I’m referring to let me know.</p>
<p>Those who’ve posted about Pratt in the past have gotten horrible aid.</p>
<p>Cornell is an ivy and gives great aid, but you need tippy top stats to have the best chances for admittance…what are your stats? </p>
<p>I don’t think Drexel “meets need”…don’t know about the other school.</p>
<p>How much will your family pay each year? Even a school that gives “great aid” will expect your family to contribute if the school determines that they should.</p>
<p>Mom2collegekids:
Not sure what you mean by Drexel won’t meet requirement? My Parents will be able to contribute about 15-20K per year. Thanks</p>
<p>When a school doesn’t “meet need”, this is what it means…</p>
<p>Say a school costs $55k to attend.</p>
<p>Say that your family’s EFC is $25k, then your “need” is $30k. If a school doesn’t meet need, then that means that the school isn’t going to give you FA that adds up to $30k. The school may only give you a $5500 loan and then you’d have a big gap. </p>
<p>Most schools do NOT meet need. </p>
<p>Since you now know that your family will pay $15k-20k per year, now you have to use some calculators to figure out how much these schools will expect you to pay.</p>
<p>Try using Pace and Drexels Net Price Calculators on their sites.</p>
<p>I keep thinking I should write one … maybe someday! :)</p>
<p>Or have a call in show, like CarTalk but for college!</p>
<p>I always thought “doesn’t meet need” meant a school might meet need if they want to for students they especially want but do not guarantee it. Are there schools that say they never meet need as a matter of course?</p>
<p>I have never heard of one like that ohiobassmom, but that doesn’t mean that none exists.</p>
<p>Ohiobassmom, In general cc parlance, if a school doesn’t meet need, it means meeting need isn’t an insitutional priority. If it happens to meet need for some students-- because of preferential packaging or because of a merit scholarship that happens to cover the student’s need or because there is little need-- it is a coincidence. </p>
<p>So yes, it is possible to have meet need at a school that doesn’t meet need but no one should count on it unless there’s guaranteed merit or need can be met in some other guaranteed way (like with a student loan).</p>
<p>That’s what I thought. I’ve seen many colleges that meet full need for 20, 30, 40% (whatever) of students, and breakdowns of that aid in $ amounts of loans, grants, etc. The only ones I’ve seen with no need-based institutional grant possibilities AT ALL for anyone have been state schools, though I admit the # of schools I looked at that closely were ones my S considered.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t count on it but I also wouldn’t rule it out as a possibility.</p>