Choosing to live at home

Parent Cafe
1

<p>If a student chooses to live at home instead of on-campus, how does this affect the family's EFC?</p>

<p>For example, let's say Nearby College decides that the family EFC is $12,000 and the COA (assuming a dorm room, meal plan, etc.) is $40,000. So Nearby College offers an aid package of $28,000.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, let's say that the family can't come up with the $12,000. However, if the student lived at home and commuted to campus, the room and board expenses could be reduced by, say, $6,000.</p>

<p>In this case, would the college allow the student to keep the $28,000 aid package, live at home, and reduce the family's out-of-pocket expense?</p>

<p>Or would the college say, "Gee, since you aren't paying for a dorm room and meal plan, your COA will be $6,000 lower, so your aid package is now reduced to $22,000"?</p>

2

<p>I'm not sure about the details, but from what I can tell, my friend got into Northwestern with lots of financial aid and then when he told them he'd be living with his aunt that lives in Evanston, they didn't reduce his scholarship or anything. So it might just depend on the school and how stingy they are with their aid.</p>

3

<p>the efc is how much the college thinks that you should pay. And the COA is based on the individual COA, thus if you live at home and save money then the COA would be decreased and thus generally the amount of financial aid would decrease.</p>