Caveat in FA package, any thoughts?

Paying for College
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<p>Okay, we’ve received son’s first financial aid package (he’s been receiving scholarship offers all along, this is the first that includes both merit and need based aid). It’s from the private engineering school that according to College Board only meets an average of 71% of need, so I knew up front that this would probably be the worst aid package. However I was pleasantly surprised, they added an additional merit scholarship and were fairly generous with institutional aid. No parent plus or private loan, does include work study, full subsidized Stafford and $2000 unsub Stafford ($1000 per semester). The school is tight w/COA, it’s going to be plenty much what the cost actually is. They charge the same for each dorm and there is only one meal plan, tuition is the same for up to 18hrs, fees can vary some but not much. The package is doable and we have more coming in, but there’s this caveat in the aid letter.</p>

<p>Both the United States Congress and the Texas Legislature are currently deliberating the funding level of several financial aid programs for the 2011-2012 academic year. The federal and state awards, indicated below with an asterisk, are estimates and are subject to reduction or elimination based on the final actions by the U.S. Congress/Texas Legislature. If institutional scholarships are listed below, LETU is committed to funding these in 2011-2012 for those students who enroll and meet eligibility criteria. </p>

<p>As we are a zero EFC family, his package includes a federal SEOG grant of $1000 year, Pell @ $5500 a year, and a Texas tuition Equalization Grant (this is a grant that the state provides to help students who normally couldn’t attend a Texas private school, it’s not much but it helps) or $3500 a year. </p>

<p>If I’m reading the part about institutional aid correctly, they’ll stand behind what they’ve offered him, but they can’t replace the federal and state aid if it’s cut. Obliviously, if none of this funding comes through, son can’t attend. I fully anticipate the Tuition Equalization Grant to be cut, the state already put that on the table back in the 2008-2009 school year, when daughter was a sophomore at a private Texas school. In that case her school said they would come up w/a way to replace that portion of her aid package as she was a returning student, and they encouraged parents to write and ask funding be continued. In the end, the state kept the Tuition Equalization Grant, but w/the atmosphere today, I except that won’t happen again. </p>

<p>I suspect all his aid letters will contain the same caveat, though for the OOS ones, it’ll just be on the federal aid. The public school aid Texas offers is the Texas Grant, it’s also on the chopping block which will affect his A&M aid, I’m guessing. I know some posters on this board actually work in FA. Have you been given any clarification or any ideas of what to expect or to advise students?</p>

<p>To further complicate matters, they are asking for a decision by April 6th and one of his OOS public schools will not be sending packages until mid-April. I need to check and see if it’s possible to accept the aid package without committing to attend the school, in 2007, daughter received an aid package that also had an early response date and when I checked the school said it was just for the FA portion so they would know which portions of the package she would be using and we could accept the offer without binding her to the school. I need to see if this is the case here.</p>

<p>Son is in the running for a S.T.E.M. scholarship at this school, but the application deadline is not till April 1st, so we won’t hear for awhile, and it’s only for 2 years, so that adds another wrinkle. In theory, son could possibly commute to this school, it’ll be about a hour’s drive and with gas prices going up, it’s not that cheap. Plus they mentioned for engineering students in particular it is hard to commute, because of projects and other things that run late into the night/early morning and with an interstate drive that’s not the safest choice. (However they are not opposed to a student bringing a cot and camping out in the labs as needed, which is a plus).
I know he will have some other options, and he has applied to 7 other schools that meet full need, that he won’t hear from until the end of the month. No way do I expect him to get into all of them, but maybe one, so that’s a possibility. Mostly just interested in what those in the business are expecting so to speak. Thanks.</p>

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<p>Ask his counselor to contact the school and get an extension till May1. That is standard, and most schools will do this. Beyond that, if there are still unreconciled issues, the only thing a person can do is to “buy time” by sending in the deposits. Double dipping is frowned upon but unless expressedly forbidden can be done in situations like this when all of the information is not available from the schools themselves.</p>

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<p>I want to add that any and all of us need to be aware that there may be drastic changes in costs at any of the schools we choose. OOS publics are particularly ones that can have a big spike in cost. I know many folks who got caught when their reasonably priced OOS public choice for their kids decided to raise the premium for those who are not in state and did not bother to grandfather in current students. Yes, it can happen. </p>

<p>If you are on the edge where you are counting on certain programs to make the cost affordable and you know those programs are endangered, that is a risk you are taking if you accept such a school. That this school is being forthright about telling you the situations is a warning.</p>

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<p>I agree, ask for the extensioin until May 1 and evaluate all offers carefully. Many Michigan students were left holding the bag a couple years ago when the Michigan Promise scholarships were axed. Some of the schools picked up the difference of $1500 (I think that was what it was) and excused the students and some of the schools billed the students. It seemed totally random how the schools reacted. The state had done this years before when it was called something else and was transportable to any college in-state or out of state, the state dropped the transportability mid-stream and kids were “caught.” States in general are looking for every area to cut these days.</p>

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<p>MI Promise responses by schools were random & varied because schools had to use their own funding to make up for the loss of the Promise funds. Not all schools HAD money to cover it.</p>

<p>Federal funding is up in the air, but it is probably more stable than state.</p>

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<p>And the federal funding issues should be relatively consistent for all schools. Only tippy-top schools using their own funds will not be affected like this.</p>