<p>"Private colleges often determine EFC by something other than just the FAFSA."</p>
<p>When our S enters college our EFC will be half what it is now because our D will be in school at the same time. I'll have an EFC of 19K. I'm confused by the above statement. With the exception of PROFILE schools can I make an educated guess as to cost of attendence. Say for instance USNWR states that a school S is interested in meets 70% of need. </p>
<p>Is it unreasonable to conclude that this FAFSA (non-PROFILE) institution will make up roughly 70% of the gap between our EFC and the cost of attendence. I understand they may use both loans and/or than grants in varying amounts to do so. </p>
<p>In other words if they are not a PROFILE school and the stats say they make up 70% (on average) of the gap, why would they choose not to do so for an accepted student and what formula would they reference for doing so if asked? </p>
<p>Are there institutional formulas unique to each school and if so are they published anywhere?</p>
<p>You aren’t likely to be able to find the kind of details that you are hoping for any time soon because no school is going to publish them. In addition to the simple fact that some schools hand out the financial aid to students as they are accepted, and when it runs out, it runs out, each school has its own specific targets each year for probable majors in different fields, geographical/ethnic/cultural/religious diversity, athletes/students newspaper staff/potential club officers, etc. This is an art, not a science so there are no hard numbers.</p>
<p>All you can do is look at the information that is published, and guesstimate (emphasis on guess here) the possibility that a decent (by your standards) financial aid package will appear. That, and make sure you like, if not actually love, your financial safety school.</p>
<p>Bear with me please. I’m curious as whether or not you folks out there found the general information regarding percentage of need met as derived from say USNWR, or other sources, to be accurate based on your personal experience. This assumes your S or D applied early, was accepted, and showed appropriate interest. I understand there are many variables as the poster above pointed out. I’m just trying to determine if the overall experience of CC parents regarding actual need met was pretty much in line with their expectations. This assumes their student applied to a good “match” school vs. a “reach” where the student might expect to be “gapped” financially. Just trying to get a handle on the process…</p>
<p>Two things. The school is more likely to meet a higher percentage of your need if your son is a candidate at the top of their pool. Most wield aid to get who they really want. Second, in this economy with shrunken endowments, it’s quite possible a school will not meet the same percent of need they historically did.</p>
<p>That said, if this is not a top school, they may actually get more aggressive about discounting to compete with public school pricing.</p>
<p>Remember that an average is just that - an average. If they say they meet on average a certain percentage of need, it could mean that 1 kid gets 100% and 50 kids get nothing (or whatever the math works out to be). Can you say that any particular kid gets that 70% of need met? No. It may be that no kid gets 70% of need met. Averages in fact tell you very little.</p>
<p>No, you will probably have the same EFC, it will just be split between 2 kids.</p>
<p>Lets test for understanding…</p>
<p>You have an EFC of 19k with 1 child in college
when S enters college your EFC will still be ~ 19k, if each school splits the EFC evenly (this will vary from school to school) each child will have an EFC of 9500.</p>
<p>Lets use this as an example:</p>
<p>Son goes to a school that cost 40,000. His EFC is 9500 (which is 1/2 of the 19k EFC)</p>
<p>His demonstrated need is 30,500 (40k-9500)</p>
<p>If he attends a school that meets 70% of his need ($21350) will leave a gap of $9150, which you will have to pay for the best way you can. Chedva is right, they in his case they may not meet 70% of his need, they may meet 50% of his need because they met 90% of some one elses. It is still a 70% average in the school’s eyes.</p>
<p>Even within the 21,350, there could still be loans which means that you/your child would still be paying on the back end.</p>
<p>My thinking was that merit aid would be used to pull in the top candidates rather than aid based on need. I gather it is easier to mix and match at PROFILE school because thier formulas allow for it. I did think non-Profile schools could give “need based” aid to kids who had high parental income. If a student has a parental income of say… 200K can a non-profile school give “need” based aid just to pull that kid in?</p>
<p>70% on average does NOT mean that most students get 70% of need met. It could just as easily mean that 70% of the students get 100% of need met and 30% get nothing. Or it could mean something in between. </p>
<p>If the school does not guarantee to meet full need, then you cannot safely assume anything.</p>
<p>I think the school would have a hard time justifying a “need-based award” with a 200K parental income especially if it is a FAFSA only school.</p>
<p>After having 4 college kiddos go through this process (1 every year in succession) and applying to at least 65+ schools between them all with maybe 2-3 schools being duplicated we saw all kinds of financial aid packages.</p>
<p>Same family size, same income, same EFC year after year- 8 years in a row now, the initial freshman packages varied (same kiddo, same app year) by as much as $20,000 PER YEAR.</p>
<p>Within that 20K variance was just as much diversity with HOW they chose to meet that need…merit money, need based grants and scholarships, federal work study($250-$4000), loans, federal aid (Pell and SEOG which also varied for the same student, same year SEOG distributed by school’s availability) and of course, preferential packaging- money for summer research and travel, money for independent research, money for laptop, money for books, new winter wardrobe, travel, and misc.</p>
<p>So the numbers you are looking for are given as averages, and we saw most numbers that were NOT within the average range. What the numbers (from common data sets and USNWR) told us was whether we could expect a gap and an maybe some loan numbers-maybe.</p>
<p>Son and daughter have received “revised” aid packages throughout the year for all their years of attendance. No averages here.</p>
<p>Also, when looking at those statistics, keep in mind that all students do not have the same amount of need. If the college typically gives out need based packages of no more than $10K, they may be meeting full need of all students whose “need” is $10K or less, and from there the percentage goes down as the amount of need goes up. </p>
<p>Additionally, I believe those figures show the average aid granted to enrolled students. The weaker the financial aid award, the less likely the student is to actually enroll. In other words, a student with $20K of need who is offered an aid package of $5K is unlikely to enroll… so that student will not be counted in the statistics. But a student with $10K of need who is offered a $9K package is far more likely to enroll… so there you have a student who is subsidized at the 90% level.</p>
<p>Hard to nail down what these folks might allow for financial need based on EFC. I innocently thought that with two kids in school I might get a break. When my D enters her 3rd year S will be in his first. I had anticipated a bump up based on need as now D recieves only merit aid. Seems like they can get away with giving her nothing in the way of need if they so choose. Hard to examine all options for S (private/public) if you don’t know if D will get a bump. Why is this such a crap shoot?</p>
<p>Your DS needs to have as many colleges that meet 100% of need on his list, several where his stats would suggest big merit aid and state school financial safeties.</p>
<p>Though there is wide leeway given for financial aid among the PROFILE schools, I don’t know where the limits would be. I have seen families with incomes in the $200K level get some financial aid from schools, but there may have been all kinds of mitigating circumstances to reduce that salary level down. You just don’t know what someone’s financial and personal business is. You can only go by what they choose to share with you.</p>
<p>I do remember many years ago when I applied for financial aid, that I got a big range of offers from full ride+ to nothing. So there is latitude. Our son did not qualify for financial aid and got a range of full ride+ to nothing this last year, so if you look, you can find, if you have a good student with good test scores.</p>
<p>Son #1 at a full-need, no loan school. Last fall I panicked when the economy sank. I asked FA what his package would look like when younger brother starts at school A or B next year. FA was willing to give me those numbers and that was very helpful. Have you asked FA?</p>
<p>Will speak to D’s college FA next week as to whether or not we should expect some need based aid as our EFC will be split between her and her brother. Not sure what to expect.</p>
<p>I have seen with private schools that those below the top ranked, large endowment area, frequently those with FAFSA not profile, that you can obtain a merit award and your state/federal entitlement grants (Pell/ACG/SMART/etc) and the rest will be loans.</p>
<p>In my book that is a gap, as I cannot afford those loans, not for three kids at four years each.</p>
<p>No. But that’s irrelevant. It’s a little like budgeting $30 for a fill-up and finding out at the gas station it will actually cost $40. Driving away with three-quarters of a tank isn’t really an option. Plan accordingly (and trust that things will work out, as they probably will).</p>