<p>"Just three public schools met 100 percent of demonstrated financial need in 2013-2014, according to U.S. News data."</p>
<p>I’m not sure this is exactly “news”. UVA, and UNC-CH meet full need…and UMich does for instate students. </p>
<p>I did not see anything new or earth shattering in this article. </p>
<p>But it is worth reading for those not familiar with these schools.</p>
<p>BUT YMMV…as usual. Many of these schools are very competitive for admissions…so the first hurdle any student has is to get accepted. Their generous need based aid applies only to accepted students.</p>
<p>Also, these schools use the CSS Profile or their own form (Princeton uses it’s own form) in addition to the FAFSA…and the colleges compute your family contribution and need…you don’t get to do this. </p>
<p>Exceptions are the service academies…again, competitive admissions!</p>
<p>There are a couple I am aware of that promise to meet full need that are not on this list. That may be because this about who MET it last year, not who says they WILL meet it this year. I’m thinking of Albright and Northeastern, off the top of my head. Albright does it with on FAFSA, too.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.albright.edu/news/releases/oct/financial.html”>http://www.albright.edu/news/releases/oct/financial.html</a> - actually says they started this last year so IDK why they aren’t on the list.</p>
<p><a href=“Northeastern to invest more than $220 million in financial aid - Northeastern Global News”>http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2014/04/northeastern-to-invest-more-than-220-million-in-financial-aid/</a> - this is from April 2014 and says “Notably, Northeastern will meet the full demonstrated need of all freshmen aid applicants this year—an important goal that the university is achieving three years ahead of schedule and one that has been guided by the institution’s Long Range Plan.” - not sure if they mean the class that came in 2014 or the class that is applying in 2014.</p>
<p>"Schools that meet 100 percent of need can use a combination of loans, scholarships, grants and work-study to fill the gap between the cost of attendance – tuition, fees, room, board and other expenses – and the expected family contribution, a number determined by the information you provide on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, including tax data, assets and family size. "
Disregard the entire article, because a) all schools meet 100% of need when you throw in the $40,000 parent loan each year. We all know that borrowing the entire COA does not constitute meeting need and
b) almost all the schools listed use Profile, not FAFSA, as the article said. It’s easy for a school to claim they meet need when they are the ones making the rules. If you actually asked who meets need based on FAFSA, the percentages would be WAY different.
There’s a lot of bait and switch out there and you have to dig deep to really get the answers.</p>
<p>The article is torturously written. And someone will have to explain to me why the Merchant Marine Academy (“one of the five service academies”) is considered a public U that meets need and the Naval Academy, etc are not.</p>
<p>Albright claims to meet full financial need-however their idea of meeting is the PLUS loan. No my parents do not qualify and should not have to take out $17,000 in loans. It’s a marketing scheme-plain and simple</p>
<p>First, schools claim to meet the need, however, the need is defined by the school.
Second, very often loan is one of the component that is used to meet the need. Even if it is really available to your, that is your future money, or debt.</p>
<p>One of the FA package my D received put 80% of the CoA in Parent Plus loan (another 10% in student loan). It is pretty much a joke.</p>
<p>The packages for all OOS students at UVa who receive aid from the university now includes 7K a year in federal loans (including Perkins) and 4K a year in work study. If you have a good summer job or have a family that lives frugally, you may be able to avoid needing all of that. The University’s aid is only for US students, except for a very limited number of merit scholarships run through a separate foundation. (Of course, recruited athletes are a different story.)</p>
<p>I heard second hand that UNC-CH has been considering placing a limit on OOS financial aid, in response to severe state budget cuts. </p>
<p>You may find that some other out-of-state publics are more generous with need-based aid for under-represented minorities with top qualifications.</p>
<p>However, in most cases, most public universities offer little need-based aid for OOStudents. Many do offer merit based aid for top OOS students. That aid may be designed to bring the price down to in-state levels for students they really want. </p>
<p>A college should not be able to claim they are meeting full need if they require use of PLUS loans or non-federal loans.</p>
<p>“Meet full need” leaves a lot of room for variations in the financial aid package. See the examples here, where net price calculators at two “meet full need” schools gave net prices that differ by $39,726 for one example: <a href=“"Meet full need" schools can vary significantly in their net prices. - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1675058-meet-full-need-schools-can-vary-significantly-in-their-net-prices-p1.html</a></p>
<p>UC: in your example, I’d think UCLA would be about average. Not surprisingly, Yale was unusually generous in aid. </p>
<p>USC should be charged with false advertising for claiming they met 100% of need, including thinking that a family that makes $100k a year and lives in California can afford to pay $52,000 a year in college expenses. They have to be assuming massive use of PLUS loans, the family living in a small apartment in Fresno, and that the parents never ever will retire. Maybe the parents can later get a job scrubbing out all of the toilets in their nursing home. </p>
<p>@Charliesch you neglected to include the $400K in assets in your consideration (and who says the family lives in CA?). IMO they are just saying you can live on your $100K and liquidate your assets for that fine school (tongue firmly in cheek).</p>
<p>Erin’s Dad: Ucbal said in his linked post that he inputed the three examples as a California resident. I’m not sure how many colleges consider cost of living in their calcs - I guess only the richest colleges consider it. </p>
<p>Well, the point is, a “meet full need” claim does not mean that the school’s financial aid is good, or necessarily better than that of a school that does not make such a claim. The net price calculator estimate may be a more reliable guide for a given family financial situation.</p>
<p>Ah, I missed the CA resident part, though there is a big difference between COL in LA or Monterrey and Clovis… And I think we all hope the NPCs are accurate.</p>
<p>I don’t think any of the schools on that list use Parent Plus loans to meet need…am I wrong?</p>
<p>No, they don’t use Parent Plus loans to meet need, but they may put it in the Financial Aid package.</p>
<p>Well if that’s for “unmet need” then I guess it’s OK.</p>
<p>Erin’s Dad, I bet it has to do with other cost of attending the Navy academy, The tuition is free but not the uniforms.</p>
<p>Not all these schools meet full need. For example, WashU. Their idea of EFC is more than double the number at the end of the FAFSA. In fact, I seem to recall it was close to 2.5 times what the other schools saw as the EFC.</p>
<p>Running the NPC for WashU for my son put us at $52,000 paid out per year, versus an EFC of $35,000.</p>
<p>They are way up there for a middle class family near NYC. I have told my son that I would pay $35,000 to send him to school each year, but I find it really hard to justify paying $17,000 more per year than that. MIT is only $36,000 for us, Penn, Columbia, and Dartmouth in the same neighborhood.</p>
<p>Are schools allowed to say “EFC” if they use their own method to calculate it, instead of one of the two methods by the government?</p>