Comparing 14 Financial Aid Awards

Paying for College
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<p>Our family essentially ran a comparative financial aid award experiment this year, and I want to post the results for others' benefit.</p>

<p>We received 14 different admissions for my child who is matriculating in the class of 2011. We needed to apply to so many because we are in the financial need "deadzone:" too much income to qualify for much need aid, but can't be full pay at $55k/yr without seriously weakening our financial security. </p>

<p>Our family currently makes roughly $160K/yr, from two careers. We have another child who will be a college senior in 2011-12 at a LAC. Our finances are really quite simple/typical--not self employed, no weird assets, less than $100k home equity. All of the aid awards shown are based off the same submitted data. We do not expect our incomes to fluctuate much, but once the older child leaves school, our EFC will go way up. After admission decisions were released, the FA offices at each school was contacted, asked to project what the 2011-12 aid award would have been, had the older sibling not been in school. That estimate was the basis for projecting the next 3 years of expenses, also factoring in 5% annual cost increase. Most are CSS schools; 4 are top 10 research universities, and the remainder are LACs, distributed from the top 5 down to the mid 30s (USN rankings.) All but about 5 of them claim to be "meets full need" schools. </p>

<p>The amounts shown are net of any loans--that is still money you have to pay.</p>

<p>The Results (Expense to our family=Total 4 year cost minus award)
$66,245
$70,331
$137,750
$140,650
$141,885
$142,534
$153,092
$159,859
$161,788
$167,051
$203,154
$203,913
$208,237
$212,464</p>

<p>Commentary
The two cheapest schools both offered full tuition scholarships, so the amount shown is room & board, books, fees, travel, etc based off the schools' estimates. But even setting them aside, the range among the other schools is still interesting. They were offering a mix of merit and need aid, and the variation among them is still about $80k. The four schools above $200k all had loans in their packages, but once deducted, become significantly more expensive. There are two Ivy League schools on the list, and both claim to meet full need. One came in at $140k, and the other at $203k.</p>

<p>One caveat is that the applicant had high stats (NMF/4.0 sorta stuff.) That may have created some of the variation if schools "competed" in their packaging.</p>

<p>The single greatest conclusion I come to is that it is foolish to assume that the aid offers from schools will be at all similar, even if they all claim to meet full need. You might also say "why apply to so many?" (My spouse certainly did.) Because I could not ahead of time predicted which, if any, of the schools were going to offer the great full tuition offers, or even in the absence of those, which were going to come in at $140k v $170k v $200k because their promotional rhetoric all sounds so similar. There really was not much correlation between the selectivity of the school and the aid award--some of the best schools gave the best awards.</p>

<p>I hope this is helpful; I have benefited so much from CC posters over the past year, and this is my payback. Hopefully the results are thought provoking; I have not seen anything similar--real awards, all based off real data. I will not engage in much debate, because I am not trying to convince anyone of anything, nor will I offer much more family detail. I will swing back by to answer clarifying questions about the data or methods.</p>

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<p>I want to make sure I understand this - my 10 year old had a bad dream last night and I didn’t get much sleep – the amounts you list are what your family would pay, not the award itself?</p>

<p>Thanks so much for posting this.</p>

<p>So in other words, one school that met full need might have expected you pay 140ish while another might expect you to pay 200000ish?</p>

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<p>These results are very much in line with what I have seen. It was much more stunning when I saw this in a situation where there was only the one kid in college all four years, as that really took out that factor definitively. When you need the money, by casting a wide net in various areas will likely give you the most choices.</p>

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<p>^^ That is exactly right–I have clarified my post to address your question about the amounts shown. They are the lump sum cost we would have to pay for the four years, and they vary by $80k. You are also correct that most of these schools claim to meet full need. In fact, all four of the ones that came in at over $200k claim to do so. But their calculation of your need may differ from their colleagues or from yours.</p>

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<p>Thank you for sharing that data. It is a strong endorsement for applying to many schools for students in a similar financial position. It is amazing to see the spread between the FA packages.</p>

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<p>I agree with the original poster. My D applied to a similar number of schools and we had a similar range of results. For those schools that gave us only need based aid, the awards varied by over $30,000 per year. My advice is to apply to more schools than you think you should because you may be surprised at the results, especially if finances are important. She applied and got into a lot of schools that only offered need based aid, but she also made sure to apply to a number of schools that offered strong merit scholarships and decided to take her best merit offer which was full tuition and full room and board and fees, along with an extra living stipend and extra money for overseas travel and also includes reimbursement for two trips home a year. The best part is we won’t have to fill out the FAFSA or Profile for the next 3 years and she will graduate debt free with the money we have saved for her education still in the bank for graduate school.</p>

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<p>Thank you for the very useful information. My daughter will be applying this coming year and your experience supports our plan to have her apply to a number of schools so that we can compare their financial aid offers.</p>

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<p>Very interesting and thoughtful. I think students (and their parents) applying for FA should read this.</p>

<p>One question though if you are willing to answer. Were any of the schools (especially the two at the lower end of the spectrum) ones that give very good merit to aid to National Merit Finalists. Your daughter is an NMF and I see it jumps from 66K/70K to 137K. </p>

<p>If my assumption were right, then range for non NMF schools is between 137 to 212K, which is pretty big difference (20K each year).</p>

<p>Another useful information would be the % of loans in the packet. </p>

<p>Also, it appears that about 4 schools gave no real aid (those above 200K, assuming that COA is 220K or near abouts plus inflation). Good stuff.</p>

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<p>It is true that full need seems to be evaluated differently at all schools but another way to look at the data above is four schools that will cost (out of pocket) more than $50K/year only vary by $2K/year.</p>

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<p>^^Although the applicant is NMF, these schools did not generally offer much if anything specific to that designation. $2k/year was about max. We did apply to U of Alabama for their tremendous NMF offer as our ultimate financial safety, but the applicant did not really want the big school experience. That school is not included on the list because it is not comparable to the others.</p>

<p>Once the applicant is our only child in college, our EFC jumps to the low $40k range, and the four schools that come in over $200k would meet our need through loans and work study. No school was including more than $10k loans in their package.</p>

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<p>meanwhile, congrats on all the acceptances!</p>

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<p>I concurred with the result, I found them similar to my small sample sets. The word “full-need” and meeting those need depends on whether you have demonstrated need. In this case, I doubt any of those schools will consider OP’s 160K household income demonstrate much need.</p>

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<p>Were any of the 2 Ivies HYorP? I thought they claimed it would be 10% of income or $16K*4.</p>

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<p>^The school that came in at $140k was indeed either HPorY.</p>

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<p>So for that HYP school, did they explain why not 10% of income? People throw that around here on CC all the time. I think what they actually say is AVERAGE 10% per year of income for those in income range of 90K-170K. But never a clear statement of what it is near the top of that range or what happens just over 170K… immediate step up to full pay?</p>

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<p>Asking OP -
Does your have any college saving plans? 529 or UGMA/UTMA?
And does he have any income or competition award money on his own?</p>

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<p>Total family assets (529, investments, accounts, etc.) is less than $100k. Applicant has only a couple thou in savings, no income, and no external scholarships.</p>

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<p>Dstemp - i am curious - which cost did you end up with?</p>

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<p>This is good information, thanks for posting. Our experience with older D two years ago was similar, with a variance of about $17K per year out-of-pocket for need-based aid among “meets 100% of need” schools. My assessment is that there are more schools practicing preferential aid packaging than are admitting it. Since it’s very difficult to predict where your own particular sweet spot will be, the most practical approach is to cast the wide net.</p>

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<p>bookmarked</p>