Breaking ED Agreement Advice

That is awfully judgmental without knowing all the details and family circumstances of the OP. It is possible to have a good income in 2019 (used by the CSS profile or FAFSA) or even most of 2020 and have a parent with a shaky job situation (recently laid off or likely to get laid off). Or whatever other circumstances.

The OP said the following:

At the very least that the OP’s parents may be finding $60k per year affordable but not $80k per year - even if the OP is upper middle class. Also it is possible that the comment about it may be OK with $5k additional grant may be a typo - maybe the OP wanted to write $15k or $25k.

So let us not be too quick to rush to judgement. I see 5 people who “liked” your post - 5 other people quick to judgement.

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Got it. What do internationals file for Financial Aid? CSS?

Regardless, it sounds like OP needs to be talking to his GC to see what he/she should be doing and all along should have had some EA schools applied to. If they’re applying to RD schools that are just as expensive as CMU, then they will most likely run into a similar problem. Not only that, but the NFC is often not always accurate. So regardless of how “cheap” CMU may seem, they may still not receive substantially more FA from another school and should definitely consider a less expensive option or one that may still give them merit at this late date.

I know the sticker shock of getting zero for Financial Aid, but in our case the EFC said we should expect to get around $35k so it was more of a shock expecting something and getting zero! But knew that going in and no chance were were going to try to back out of the ED agreement.

In the very first post, the OP wrote this:

That implies that the college budget without loans is something like $5k per year.

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Colleges are not checking other colleges’ ED rosters.
Not being affordable is legit, considering you wait for the FA offer. It’s not like the NPC makes any commitment. And especially now, with covid, there are other family circumstances that could make an ED admit not feasible.

OP’s mistake was in not running the NPC. And I think the reference to 300k is the amount to be borrowed to cover this. Seems to me, the costs are not just going to roll out of the parents’ pockets.

That’s too much to call CMU affordable.

OP could run the NPC now, in case there’s some discrepancy. But fafsa alone is never sufficient. He or she could also check for errors in any FA forms submitted. Not sure we know enough to advise beyond that.

That’s even worse in terms of being able to afford being a full pay student - all the more reason to be sympathetic to the OP.

Of course the OP’s statements are not very consistent (can afford if given $5k annual aid or can afford only $5k annually as you point out):

Still let us not be very judgmental (not saying you in particular are being judgmental).

@ArtManiac

Carnegie Mellon uses the CSS Profile to determine awarding of its institutional aid. That being the case, your FAFSA EFC really has no relevance here. The financial data your family put on the Profile was what CMU used to determine your need based aid award, not the FAFSA EFC.

Regardless, if your family cannot afford the cost of CMU, just politely write admissions and decline the acceptance. There is no college anywhere that is going to force you to attend…even with an ED acceotance.

Did you complete the Profile??

If this is not affordable, just decline and move on.

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If they did complete the CSS then the OP needs reminding that it’s likely they will have similar problems at most schools, or at least ones that require the CSS.

But agree, contact admissions and advise financially this does not work and move on.

[quote=“ArtManiac, post:1, topic:2805026”]I
understand that I should have used the net price calculator but this is my family’s first time applying to American undergraduate universities. We are upper middle class and our EFC from the FAFSA was more than 20k below the cost that CMU gave us. Every other school that I applied had MUCH better financial aid than CMU (at least not forcing my family to pay full).
[/quote]

OP didn’t use the NPC, admits to being upper middle class and s/he have heard from other schools already that gave better FA. I’m in agreement that it sounds like OP could pay but would prefer not to pay full fare if receiving 5k in FA is somehow a deciding factor.

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IMHO, the reason that there’s concern about OP’s school being “blacklisted” is that this situation reveals that the guidance counselor did not adequately advise this student and parents when completing the ED paperwork with them. The counselor should have made sure that the family had run the NPC for the specific school and were committed to paying the net cost predicted. Yes, the student and parent should have done this due diligence, but the school also has an obligation, which is why the school’s standing with the college can suffer when the ED advising process breaks down.

That said, it’s easy for commenters to say that the student should honor their ED agreement, but we’re not the ones who would be shouldering six figures of debt on principle. OP needs to politely pull the plug and indicate that the offer is not affordable.

It’s also true, though, that if the cost of CMU is truly not affordable, then another private institution that costs only incrementally less should not be deemed affordable either. Certainly any options that cost only $5K less per year should be rejected; otherwise, the rationale for breaking the ED agreement would be flimsy.

OP is indicating that (s)he has options that will generate 80K less debt than the 300K CMU would incur. Even $220K is a life-altering amount of debt for undergrad. If this is all going to be on the student to pay back, an in-state flagship university or something similarly priced after merit may be a much wiser choice.

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@aquapt

With all due respect…at many schools, the school counselors are not allowed at all to inquire about family finances and the family ability to pay for college. Certainly, the family should have done their due diligence here. Absolutely!

What concerns me is that the OP references the FAFSA but never once mentions the Profile, which this school requires. The info on the Profile is much more detailed than on the fafsa. There are questions included about things like primary home equity, for example, that are not on the FAFSA at all. This makes me wonder whether this student and family really understood that the data on the Profile is what this college uses to determine financial need…not the FAFSA.

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While a school counselor cannot inquire about family finances, it is still their job to advise all students about financial aid, whether or not they need it and about filling out the fafsa.

This is my 4th kid going through the college process and ever since my first one was going through it, the school not only held financial aid workshops, they had meetings in junior year about the costs of college, what people should be doing about them, scholarships, merit, npc, etc. Not once did they ever say “how much do you make”, but in all of their presentations they strongly encourage families to sit together and review the NPC and know what they can truly afford. In addition to the meetings involving parents, they also had the meetings for kids as well as monthly newsletters they put out that are sent to parents and kids with the same information and always stuck it on the school website. At a minimum this is what all school college counselors should be doing. Again, not once have I been asked my income or if I can afford college.

This year in my state it is required to fill out the FAFSA or waive it. Again, now they just say you’re either in compliance or you’re not, but if you want to graduate, fill it out or waive it.

@srparent15

It’s one thing to have financial aid informational workshops…and our schools did that as well. These can be very helpful IF people listen to the information presented. I attended a lot of these between my two kids, and was shocked at how many of the parents walked away with the idea that the colleges would be paying anything they couldn’t or wouldn’t pay…not at all what the folks presented.

It’s another thing to inquire about whether a family can afford an ED college if accepted.

Two different things.

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On the one hand, the CMU webpage for ED does warn, “You’re not able to compare financial aid packages between Carnegie Mellon and other universities you may have applied to,” and leaves it at that.

On the other hand, like many college websites, CMU’s ED webpage does not mention that it’s possible to get an estimate via their Net Price Calculator. This is one area where colleges could do much better by informing their ED applicants, somewhere on the page that describes ED, that the NPC exists.

I don’t know whether colleges would ever go so far as also mentioning that the applicant can compare NPC estimates from other universities; that would be an additional service I’d like to see. (Perhaps they don’t want applicants relying too much on the NPC, but if that’s how they feel about it, we can open up the can of worms on the ethics of ED without knowing the price…)

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That would likely bite them in the butt. The accuracy of the NPC varies by college and individual family circumstances.

They can put in disclaimers, but people read/believe/hear what they want to read/believe/hear. This thread is Exhibit A.

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Not only are some NPCs not up to date, but they aren’t accurate for a large proportion of applicants…those with divorced parents, or parents who own a business and/or real estate beyond a primary home, or international students.

Once one understands how these situations might cause the NPC to be inaccurate, one can change their inputs, but how many people can/will figure that out?

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We looked at CMU with one of my other kids and they were very clear about their financial aid process. It’s not rocket science. Like with anything, when someone applies to a school, and in this case, ED, the applicant should be reading everything they can about the school that they can find, and if money IS an issue, then even more important to learn about the options that are available to them.

It is obvious the OP either didn’t understand the CSS, didn’t fill it out, or just thought regardless of their family’s financial situation that CMU would give them a ton of aid when they did not. Whatever the reality of it is, the OP isn’t going to take out loans and it sounds like they need to walk away from this opportunity, but I wouldn’t first do so without discussing with their counselor as to how best to do so in order to not have it bite someone in the butt later on and to make sure if the counselors failed to do something, they don’t make the mistake again.

@thumper1 When my kids applied to schools ED, each time their school counselor before signing off on it, since the school as well as parents have to sign the binding agreement, emailed all of us to make sure we understood the binding agreement, including the financial aspects of it, etc. It is all right there in the binding agreement as well about the financial. No school wants to get burned by a student who has to back out for whatever reason. Like I previously said, a kid burned CMU badly by our school that CMU burned us back for a few years. We always had a kids get in there and then wham that stopped. They don’t easily forget.

At the end of the day though, you’re right in that his same CSS will be used at other schools, so if he got squat here, he won’t get much more elsewhere even if their aid can’t be compared. They are more stingier than other schools for sure, but regardless if this applicant qualified for nothing, it’s likely they will qualify for nothing anywhere.

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How do you know that kids not getting in had anything to do with ONE kid pulling out of ED?

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Granted, it’s been a few years, but my kids’ hs did not offer FA guidance, except mention not to count on being an athletic recruit. They referred us to a state support service where, when we laid out our (very usual) concerns, we were told, “That’s what loans are for.”

What one hs does, or one district, may not happen at another.

Also, with our awareness of how many GC are overwhelmed with kids barely getting by, there is no perfect support.

I did all the research (no NPC, at the time.) Many can’t or don’t.

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OP may be referring only to the Fafsa because it gives back a $ figure.

When my D applied ED, I know the GC spoke to her about the conditions but GC never spoke to us (parents) directly about the ED application. 4 counselors for 1100 kids, so not surprising. (There was however a comprehensive general info session with slide pack available on school website that the school had for parents of college applicants.)

We are also immigrants who have never applied to any US colleges before, but we had read all the information on ED on the college website and understood the ED agreement that we signed. There was a clearly a gap somewhere in the chain of GC-student-parent knowledge in OP’s situation, hard to tell where it happened. The fact that everyone has to sign the agreement does make it sound like someone signed without understanding.

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