<p>I have a quick question for parents who have been down the financial aid package road. I know a couple of you are really good at this, so tell me if this is accurate:</p>
<p>Cost of Attendance: $16,000 / year
Estimated Family Contribution: $10,000
Demonstrated Need: $6,000</p>
<p>The demonstrated need is covered by scholarships, loans, jobs, etc., right?</p>
<p>Scholarship $$: $4,000
Loans, Jobs, Workstudy: $2,000</p>
<p>Is this correct? Thanks.</p>
<p>At 100% of need schools that is correct. Remember most schools are NOT 100% of need schools. Some are notorious about gapping. Some are notorious for large loans. Some have reps for bad second year money. </p>
<p>I know this is confusing but schools play with the COA number , also. Sometimes it will be very expansive including personal, travel, books, and sometimes more. At others it's just tuition, fees, room and board maybe books. Make sure you are "apples to apples".</p>
<p>In the example given I think it would likely be </p>
<p>$3500 loan
$1600 W/S
$900 grant</p>
<p>Now if the scholarship is considered a merit scholarship (or a merit within need scholarship), then it may well be </p>
<p>$4,000 Scholarship .
$1,100 loan or work study
$900 grant</p>
<p>Confused yet? LOL. I think I would be if I hadn't already lived this part.</p>
<p>Your guess is most likely correct. As long as you are using the school's published COA, that sounds about right.</p>
<p>Oh man. The scholarship is a merit scholarship. But I'm confused -- what if the school doesn't meet 100% need? Is there no grant and more loan, or how do the numbers change? The school I'm interested in is not great with financial aid, and I think it meets only about 70% of needs. I included in the cost of attendance tuition, room and board, plus another k or two for personal expenses.</p>
<p>EDIT:
I just looked for a published or more accurate COA. It turned up to be much higher, so I assume the higher one is more accurate (it included books, travel, supplies, transportation, etc.). That COA was around $18,000.</p>
<p>Curmudgeon posted while I was typing my reply! I assumed that the scholarship was from an outside source. He assumed it's internal. That definitely makes a difference.</p>
<p>Oops --- you are posting as I type, too! You can get the COA off the school's website. That's what they use. If you still have need after the merit scholarship, according to the COA formula school uses, you will be eligible for the full Stafford loan amount allowed by the feds for a freshman.</p>
<p>kels,</p>
<p>My older sibling has the Stafford, so that would make sense. Thanks for your help!</p>
<p>... "the full amount of Stafford loan allowed for a freshman" UP TO the amount of demonstrated need ($2000, if your numbers are correct).</p>
<p>There could be some CWS instead of loan, but I think Stafford is awarded before CWS. </p>
<p>Your school might have supplemental grants to play with, but you don't have much gap, so I doubt you'd get one. I think the loan is probably what it'll be.</p>
<p>I figured I wouldn't be given a workstudy or any major grants. So if the COA is up to $18,000, then the Stafford loan would cover $4,000? That works out.</p>
<p>When did attending a public state university become so money draining. Jeez.</p>
<p>Kelsmom - what is CWS?</p>
<p>^ Freshmen can only borrow $3,500 in Stafford loans.</p>
<p>weenie is correct. It used to be $2625, but now freshmen can borrow $3500. You would still have a gap, and you might be awarded CWS.</p>
<p>CWS is College Work Study. The schools get a pool of money from the feds for this, and they use it to pay students for on-campus jobs. While this is awarded in the aid package, it isn't given up-front. It is earned as you work (then you can use it for the personal expense/travel part of the COA).</p>
<p>Every school is different. Best bet: call the financial aid office. That's their job! They'll let you know what is likely to happen. If you still have a gap of $500, don't despair ... just be frugal! Forego the expensive cell phone plans, the nice car, the new books (buy used whenever possible), the new clothes, the expensive lattes, etc.</p>
<p>Thanks Kelsmom - I knew about federal work study but was not sure if CWS was the same thing. I did not realise stafford might be offered before work study. I have bee going merrily along thing D would get work study which I would prefer to loans. She plans to work a little anyway so work study sounded perfect. Does it vary according to each school which is offered first or is that pretty standard?</p>
<p>We're stepping all over each other here :eek: but one bit of good news - even if the school ON AVERAGE only meets 70% of need, they'll do their best job of meeting need with their best packaging on their scholarship kids.</p>
<p>It's been almost 18 years since I awarded financial aid (egads!), BUT ... we awarded FWS after loan was awarded (apparently the name has changed since I worked in fa!). Now, in reality, a student could have chosen NOT to take out a loan and still do the FWS. However, a student who didn't have any need left after the loan was awarded would not be eligible for FWS & would not have the option of FWS instead of loan. I did a quick internet search, and it looks like the regulations still state that loans must be awarded before FWS is put into a fa package. This is because it's federal aid.</p>
<p>Many colleges have part time employment available that isn't FWS. So don't despair ... there still may be a job for your son/daughter!!</p>
<p>Well phooey. Yes I know she can get a job easily but of course the benefit of work study income is that is has no impact on FAFSA next time round. I am pretty keen on the idea of not ending up with loans if at all possible but if they come before work study we may end up with them. Thanks for the info kelsmom. I would rather be prepared up front than have unpleasant surprises down the road.</p>
<p>Though work study has its advantages, the problem with it is that it is part of your financial aid package and therefore your student is limited in working part time to earn money towards the family EFC or amounts of need exceeding EFC. It can come as a nasty surprise, if you figure that your kid can work so many hours for so much money, and then find that the TIME he needs to work those hours is taken by work study that that is part of the college package.</p>
<p>swimcatsmom, the award of a work study grant is no guarantee that the work will be available -- both of my kids earned far less via work study than their grants would allow (and I am very grateful that my daughter's work study grant is relatively small - I shudder to think what would have happened if she had gone to one of the schools offering big ws. awards, naively thinking she could earn all that money. Which brings me to a second point: the rate of pay on many ws jobs can be very low. It was a big shock to my son, coming from a state where minimum wage was higher -- he was earning a lot less per hour with his first campus job than he was used to earning in high school working at a pizza joint.</p>
<p>My d. was also very proactive about finding work -- she had a ws job lined up even before the first meeting with incoming students to talk about ws, and she was the first kid on her floor to have a job. But her hours were limited somewhat by her class schedule, and she figured out pretty quickly that she would never be able to earn the full allotment. She really likes that job, but she has a second job now as well -- one that is only occasional, but involves work on evenings or weekends and pays $20 hour plus tips. </p>
<p>Anyway, I am very glad that she has subsidized loans and I am sure she will take out the max that they give her. The lenders her school works with have all waived origination fees, and she signed up for one with a discounted interest rate as well -- so as far as I am concerned it is an interest free, cost-free loan that won't cost us a penny extra until the year 2011. If my finances are good then, I might be able to help her pay off the loan quickly at that point. </p>
<p>Anyway, my own experience is that work study money is good for pocket change -- you can reasonably expect your kid to have a job that obviates the need for you to send cash or an allowance for day-to-day expenses. But you can't really count on it beyond that.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input CPT and Calmom. Definitely some points I need to consider. I had been thinking along the lines of the WS (if forthcoming) being for her personal spending money (the pesonal expenses part of COA) rather than anything toward the EFC which I think (hope) we have covered. But the pay rate is definitely something to consider and she might be better off doing something else. I was very against loans at first but now I am learning more about it the subsidised loans (again if they are offered to us) are definitely something I would take advantage of. And like you, Calmom, I hope we may be able to help pay them off. As my son is now planning to go back to school (something we hoped for but did not really think would happen till now) loans are almost sure to be in the picture, which they were not before.</p>
<p>I was glad I didn't have work-study -- the jobs were hard to find, and as Cptofthehouse menstioned, it then takes out a block of time where one could find other work. What worked for me was getting an on-campus, non-WS job -- I could work 20 hours a week, thereby giving me a little cushion.</p>
<p>OTOH, my DH's work-study job was in admissions at his Ivy, which turned out to be a highly educational (and interview-generating) experience.</p>