<p>I'm currently a junior in high school, and CMU is my dream school. I'd really like to apply ED to CMU this fall, but I'm worried about FA. My family's income is 140k, but through the collegeboard's EFC calculator I got an EFC of 10k (Federal methodology). How would CMU meet the aid? They guarantee they'll meet 100% of aid if you apply ED, but how much of the package is usually grants vs loans?</p>
<p>Also, to pay off loans, how are the internships for ECE majors?</p>
<p>$10k sounds a little light to me, but I don’t know the entire situation (kids in college, etc).</p>
<p>CMU will calculate your financial need and meet the full need of that through grants, loans and work-study, regardless of if you do ED or RD. One thing to keep in mind is that if you are deferred in ED and get in RD, they will NOT meet need in their financial aid package.</p>
<p>CMU is not known to be a generous school to most students. Yes, they will meet your need 100% but as you yourself note, it can be through self help like loans, workstudy, and the need figure they meet is one that they generate themselves, not the FAFSA figure which also looks too low to me, given your family income. </p>
<p>As a rule, if you need financial aid, if cost is a true issue, do not apply ED. Though there is a fail safe valve in the process, it can be a messy one to use and you do not need this kind of headache when applying to schools. </p>
<p>CMU openly invites students to show them aid offers from like schools at the end of their process and they are more conducive to negotiation and matches than many schools that pretty much close the door to any discussion for more aid unless there is a mistake or big change in circumstance. You would be better off dealing with CMU that way. I can tell you that if you are PA resident or live within an hour or so of the university, you are not considered a prize applicant unless you have some other attribute they are also seeking for their community. They also openly seek geographic diversity.</p>
<p>I believe it’s that low because almost half of it went to taxes, we don’t own any home or have any other assets or investments. I sat down with my parents to calculate it, so I doubt there’s any discrepancy with the numbers. </p>
<p>Anyways, thanks for the info guys! My thinking was that I’d have a better chance if I applied ED, but finance definitely plays a major role, so I’ll definitely keep that in mind.</p>
<p>Does anyone know how much internships pay to ECE students? If they make a good amount then receiving less aid might not be as bad of a deal.</p>
<p>Tree carefully with CMU. How much can your family afford to contribute? Are there college savings? In all likelihood they will be expected to pay a lot more than $10K.</p>
<p>GDtechie, everyone has to pay taxes and FAFSFA does not include home equity. Even with no savings or assets, it’s tough to get that EFC at your family income level. Something is not right unless your parents are 83 years old and have 25 dependents.</p>
<p>That’s what I thought when I saw the number too, but I double checked the numbers with my parents today, and that is the number I’m getting. It seemed extremely strange to me as well… Btws I’m using the Collegeboard’s EFC calculator.</p>
<p>I just ran your parents number in the Collegboard’s EFC Calculator with a family of 4, 1 kid in college, oldest parent age 60, zero assets for parents and student, zero income for students. It came out to be $27K. The only thing I can see that is bringing your number down that low is that your parents own a business of some kind that is generating this income, or if they paid taxes for several prior years last year. You did just enter federal taxes, did you not?</p>
<p>As I suspected, your federal taxes are very high; higher than what they should be, given that income figure. Either that is a gross figure, not the one from the proper line, or back taxes from prior years were paid or taxes were paid early, or any other reasons why a larger than usual tax payment was made. Essentially, with the numbers given and with the estimate for state taxes as well, your family was living on much less than half of income. Was there an unusual tax payment made to the federal goverment that year or does your father own his business?</p>
<p>I’m not sure if things have changed in recent years, but CMU used the CSS Profile (?) as its own institutional methodology, which gave us a higher EFC than the FAFSA. I think they considered many more things to be assets available for tuition payment. Oh, and let me mention that our family had lower income than your family and CMU gave us almost nothing. Just be careful.</p>
<p>Don’t apply ED anywhere if you need financial aid. </p>
<p>With your family’s income, you also need to be actively seeking out schools that will offer merit aid. If your EFC is reduced based on 2011 tax figures due to an abnormally high tax bill, that same factor probably won’t come into play when you are using 2012 figures, filling out the 2013 FAFSA. And if family finances or expenses fluctuate, need based aid may not be consistent through all 4 years.</p>
<p>This is pretty unnerving… I really wanted to go here but now I’ll have to rethink applying ED and go with RD and compare offers. </p>
<p>Is their estimator accurate? I submitted it a couple days back, so I’m waiting on their reply. </p>
<p>Cptofthehouse: I’ll talk to my dad again about that and let you know. Also, he doesn’t own a business or anything of the sort. </p>
<p>For the CSS profile, do you remember what kind of things they take into consideration as assets? Sorry for all the questions, it’s just that this is a lot of money, and I don’t want to end up graduating from college with large amounts of debt.</p>
<p>Re: CSS Profile - It has been a few years since we did this, but as I recall, the CSS Profile considered more things to be assets and were more interested in ALL of your money such as home ownership, investments, retirement funds, etc.</p>
<p>When we appealed the financial aid package (and I use that term loosely), they were completely rude and not helpful at all. They pointed out how much money we had in retirement funds and suggested that we might sell our home. I think that CMU will cough up the cash IF you are a person who they really want. And two things they value is ethnic and geographic diversity. Almost everybody who applies there is academically worthy, but that just isn’t enough for them.</p>
<p>If you need financial aid, I would probably not apply ED. I also agree with the comment to consider WHY your EFC is so low this year. If it is a temporary thing, they most certainly will pull the carpet out from under you next year.</p>
<p>Cptofthehouse was correct, there was a discrepancy with the federal taxes - we had keyed in the wrong number. This number definitely makes more sense - we have an EFC of 31k. However, it’s still hard to afford it as the area in which I live is extremely expensive - rent itself is over $2000 a month.</p>
<p>Thanks for the information though, I’ll probably have apply RD because aid is a big factor.</p>