I was admitted to the University of Georgia for Fall 2018. However, when I got my aid letter, I was surprised to see that even with an EFC of 5000, I had gotten no grant/gift aid but around 26k in loans that cover the cost of attendance. With the HOPE scholarship, I’d get tuition waived, but I would still be paying 17k per year to attend.
I had really been hoping to get some form of grant/gift aid, because my parents can only pay $3000-6000 towards my education. Is there anything I can do to get the FA office to grant me any gift aid/reduce the amount of loans I have?
Get into another comparable school, and negotiate. Schools do this now, offer “full tuition” but lower the price of tuition and raise the price of other services.
It’s a public school. They probably don’t give a lot of need based financial aid because they do have the HOPE scholarship which rewards students with good grades, the poorest students get Pell and state need based grants but you are just outside the limit to receive those amounts…
There is nothing you can do to ‘make’ them give you more aid. You can ASK them to reconsider, ask if there are any department scholarships, but it is unlikely there will be more. You can take the $5500 in students loans ($3500 will be subsidized), you may get some work study which will be paid as you earn it. You can earn $3000 this summer.
The $17000 is an all inclusive number. How much is that actual room and board? Can you get that number down by taking a less expensive room and meal plan? The rest of that number ($5000) is within your control - books, transportation, misc.
The COA is ~$26k. If you get free tuition, that’s a $10k grant from somebody, which leaves your net cost at $17k. You can take the ~$5500/year federal student loan, and if you work summers you can probably raise $3500. That leaves $8k. If your parents can pay $6k, you have to come up with $2k/year. Check all the costs to see where you can trim. Are the estimates for the dorm and meal plan the most economical option? Can you work part-time while you’re in school and/or extra hours over the summer?
The same error people make all the time is not checking the NPC before filling up the application. Most schools do not meet financial needs of most students. Even if they do, the EFC may be different from the FAFSA caculation and may be in form of grant, Losn and/or work-study in different combinations.
Have you applied through FAFSA? Do you qualify for some Pell Grants? Did you complete everything right? Do you qualify for Zell miller?
In the total, what is direct costs (room and board) and can you the lowest options?
What about the other costs, are they included in the 17k (books: rent or buy used; transportation: will they really cost as much? Can you cut in miscellaneous, go to free entertainment on campus rather than on town…?)
Even if after the fact, run the NPC and see what they tell you - if there is a discrepancy, where might it come from?
You can do a lot to save money on cost of attendance. Colleges purposefully inflate that number to get more students Pell-eligible. Use cheap books, live off-campus, and don’t buy the meal plan.
Schools do ‘round up’ on the incidentals, but that doesn’t change Pell eligibility. Some of those incidentals, books, travel costs can be controlled by the student. Not all, but some.
You either get Zell Miller or HOPE, not both. It’s the same program.
Yes, economize but not stupidly. I know kids who have flunked a class because they refused to buy a $400 textbook. Well, the night before the final the library’s 12 copies are ALL going to be gone.
Cost cutting is admirable but you need to leave a margin here. Flunking a class for want of a $400 book is a false economy, and getting sick because you are eating ramen and hot dogs three times a day instead of fresh fruit is also a false economy.
Check the costs of incidentals- primarily travel- and see what you can cut. I’d leave the book estimates alone until you know what you’ll be taking. You can find a copy of War and Peace online for 79 cents; a current chemistry textbook may be slightly cheaper online but it still costs you big bucks.
Yes, Zell Mill is the top award, and if you don’t qualify for that you might get Hope. Since the OP said she was getting Hope, I assumed she wasn’t getting Zell Miller.
She might also be using “HOPE” generically to mean she’s getting a scholarship but might actually get the Zell. Probably is if she’s getting such a large award. But it is only tuition, not other expenses.
I don’t think I saw it mentioned (but maybe it is just common knowledge) but HOPE does not cover full tuition anymore the way it used too, aside from the Zell Miller scholarship. I believe it depends on the school and covers somewhere from 80-85% of tuition. Still great, but having gone in the early days of free tuition, fees covered, and a check each quarter (dating myself here) for books, I hate that it has been diluted over time, even if it is still better than nothing.
Florida’s bright futures went down over the years, but is now back up to full tuition and books (if it gets put in the budget). However, the cost of this is that the requirements are now higher, and the award goes to many more middle class and non-minority students.
OP, my D is at UGA. Their COA budget is quite high. You can significantly lower your expenses by renting books, getting a ride to and from school, keeping discretionary spending low (there is so much free and low cost entertainment and free food, you won’t spend much.) After freshman year you can move off campus, which is significantly cheaper than the dorms. You can also get a job on campus or in town to help out. I don’t think there are any departmental scholarships for freshman.
If you are getting free tuition and your parents can give you say $3-6k, UGA is doable. Take out the student loans, choose the cheapest dorm, get the 7 day unlimited meal plan without points, rent your books through Amazon, get an on campus/off campus job for 10 hrs per week, work over the summer. Very doable.
Well…you got the Zell Miller which is full tuition. That IS a form of merit aid because without the great grades you had, you would not have gotten that.
UGA doesn’t pledge to meet full need for all accepted students. Many colleges expect families to make a significant contribution.
You say your parents can contribute $3000-$6000…is that per year?