My d was accepted to cal poly slo. Just received financial aid and she is awarded a few small scholarships and grants. The rest is 5500 in student loans and over 20,000 in parent loan per year. We are out of state. This seems unrealistically high for the parent contribution as our Efc is around 8,000. Any input, thoughts, other experiences is appreciated.
The CA public universities do not give much aid to out of state students. Did you run the Net Price Calculator at the Cal Poly SLO website before she applied there? That should have given you an idea of what the aid package would look like.
Does she have any affordable admissions elsewhere?
Cal Poly SLO is a Cal State school, so like the other CSU’s and UC’s, awards are few and far in between for both in-state and out-of-state students. The school is meant to be affordable for in-state students, but for those applying from out-of-state, the advantages of the school certainly pose a trade off.
The fact that you even got some small scholarships and grants seems like they’re trying their best to accommodate.
Cal Poly doesn’t meet need relative to your EFC and being a public university the institutional aid they offer is for in-state students.
When you compare Cal Poly to other excellent tech-focused schools, it is a pretty good buy at full pay for out of state students. But for out of state students who require financial aid and who had the stats to get accepted at Cal Poly, there are probably better options either at their in-state pubic universities or at meets full need private schools.
Cal Poly is one of poorest state school. So scholarship is very very limited. We are in the same boat. But OOS cost is still cheaper than private school cost with a scholarship.
@kooala2 - If you don’t mind sharing, how much in merit scholarships did you receive?