I apologize if this question/issue has been raised multiple time, but I haven’t been able to find the answer. Do institutions change their financial aid criteria within a short period of time (say during a two month period). I’m asking because I ran my financial number through multiple institution’s calculators within a two month period and the outcomes have changed considerably. I must emphasize that my numbers have basically been the same, but the EFC and corresponding institutional financial aid have changed quite a bit. I can understand year over year changes in financial aid, but within a month seems to be very strange.
Each place can change its formula whenever it sees fit. If you printed out the results each time, andyou recorded the data that you entered exactly each time, then go ahead and ask them about their formulae. They will be able to help you figure out if there has been an error in the calculations.
When did you first do it? Schools do update their NPCs to reflect the formulas they plan to,use for,the upcoming year. Is it possible that you did it the first time before the new year update was done? Some schools do,this late summer. But others don’t update until September or so.
Thanks for the responses. I ran some in early Oct and just recently. In one case, the Oct output was financial aid to cover ~50% of the projected cost and in Nov ~10%. In another case, the Nov output was about 20% lower vs Oct. I did save the output as pdf files so I can bring this up with the institutions.
And your point of this being?
Every net price calculator states that it is just an estimate and no guarantee of what you will receive nor is it a contract.
To be on the safe side, you need to determine if the lower price will be an affordable option for your family. If you should get the higher amount be pleasantly surprised.
You will have no basis for appeal or reconsideration of aid based on you got less than you thought that you would.
@BaileyBoomBoom , I think you are taking the right approach in documenting everything, in order to plan for your discussions with the FA department. Kudos to you for getting as much information as possible before applying.
If you are reviewing the NPC estimates prior to applying for admission, and the school updates its formula, it might be worth having the conversations with them before you spend the application fee to the admissions dept…
If you are applying to a full-needs met school, I would think that they would be better able to assist you with explaining the changes they have made, and perhaps be more amenable to negotiating with you. But the differences you suggest - going from you paying 50% to you paying 90%, seem too high to me. Something else must have changed in what you have input. It may not seem like much to you, but the formulae are relatively complex. We have played around with the estimators for different schools, trying to see the difference in estimated aid with various small income differences and asset differences, and found different schools assess a family’s need vary differently. Simple things like putting more or less into a 401(k) plan can have no impact at some schools, can help your aid in others, or even hurt your aid a small amount at other schools. So I can easily envision a situation where a few small changes to your inputs can add up to 20-25% difference in aid estimates.
Since you mentioned that there are multiple institutions involved, do you know if they are related in some way? Perhaps using the same vendor to update their calculators?
I was told that schools generally try to update their calculators when their admissions office begins accepting applications for the following school year, or when they have an idea as to how much aid they will have for that school year, and when they have prelim estimates for how much the following year will cost. So the difference between October and November could very well be based on their formula being updated.
Do the output files you saved show the exact same input?
Do the output files you saved show the same year that the estimate applies to?
There are some financial aid cliffs, particularly for low-income families. Sometimes schools have special financial aid for students who are eligible for Pell Grants, and if your income just pushes you out of Pell Grant eligibility, you lose that extra institution-provided aid. Colorado’s public universities follow that system. The University of California has some similar cliffs that affect middle-class families.
There were reports on this site of schools that had not updated their NPCs for 2017-2018 as of October. Remember, these schools need to determine what their formulas for that year will be. Even when they are updated, the actual cost of attendance will not have been as most schools will make,THAT adjustment the late spring or summer 2017.
It is very possible that these schools had a change in how they were awarding need based aid. As an example…Temple University old NPC would have reflected automatic merit awards. My understanding is that these have changed.
Even the asset protection allowance per fafsa changed…and colleges can set their own for institutional aid purposes.
So…it IS possible that the two different numbers were a reflection of a change in formula, policy and/or cost of attendance estimate.
Do these colleges guarantee to meet full need?
And make sure you were using 2015 tax return data.
I’d run them again next week. If the Dec. output matches the Nov. output, I’d assume the calculators hadn’t been updated yet when you ran them in Oct. If finances are an issue, don’t let your child apply to schools whose NPC show an unaffordable net cost.
Some schools have OLD info on their NPCs (outdated tuition, room, board costs), they randomly update their NPCs. There isn’t a req’t that they keep their info current, nor is there a req’t that they update by a certain date.
Aid policies change as they see their aid budget, and at some point they get around to updating their NPC.
While it’s nice to have the saved outputs to mention to the schools how their inaccurate NPCs mislead innocent families, a school isn’t likely going to give you more based on that.
The schools would have to accept you into their business program and provide aid to international transfer students.
^ @mommdc Is that post for this thread? I don’t think the OP is a transfer student and hasn’t mentioned being international.
^^ I am so sorry, I posted to this thread by mistake.
I agree to make sure there were no inadvertent errors between one run and another.
And I think OP is just trying to figure out what’s what.