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Parents with incomes less than $60,000 will not be expected to pay tuition or contribute to the cost of room, board and other expenses.
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<p>If I'm accepted, then my family would fall under this category.</p>
<p>And then I see this:</p>
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Students at all income levels are asked to take responsibility for educational costs through summer earnings, contributions from assets in their name, academic-year earnings and/or outside scholarships. This student responsibility typically totals $4,500.
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<p>What are these "educational costs" if tuition is covered? Or is the $4,500 how much I would be paying for tuition while the rest is covered as aid? And also, these quotes are from the Parents</a>' Guide. However, the main</a> website makes it sound like you will be required to work to pay this off unless you take out a loan. My parents insist on paying for all of my college costs and do not want me to work because they fear that it will get in the way of my studies. While I'm still only considering that option, if I chose to do that would that cause any problems? In this case that $4,500 would be paid from what is in savings under my name, which would technically be my parents' money.</p>
<p>I don’t know about Stanford specifically, but what’s typical at similarly generous schools for students with family incomes below their published threshold ($60K in this case), is that the student will be expected to contribute $xxx amount from summer earnings and $xxx from workstudy income. Outside scholarships are applied toward overall costs, but will first reduce the student’s expected workstudy contribution, then perhaps summer earnings. (My son’s school will only reduce the workstudy piece, not the summer earnings expectation.)</p>
<p>If you have assets in your name (doesn’t matter if it’s “technically” your parents’ money) that will be considered as funds available to pay costs – and they will spread that expectation out over 4 years. (Some schools spread it out over 5 or 6, but don’t know about Stanford.)</p>
<p>If your parents are able to pay your portion of the costs, that shouldn’t make any difference. For example, my son works over the summer to pay his share of his costs, but he gives the money to me because the billing is spread out over the year and if he had it … well, it might be spent on other things, if you know what I mean. So he gives it to me, I stick it in the bank, and then I pay the bills as they come. Certainly it appears that I am paying the bill --even though he earned that money-- but as far as colleges are concerned, a payment is a payment. They don’t examine checks to see whose fingerprints are on them. Besides, they of course understand that finances between parents and dependent students are highly intermingled.</p>
<p>Most of these very generous schools do have a student contribution. It can be met with a combination of work study, summer jobs, and student savings. Students receiving generous full aid at Stanford still have their OWN expenses like travel to and from school, books, clothing, and some discretionary spending (entertainment etc). The school expects that the students will earn money to pay for these costs.</p>
<p>Anybody know how generous Stanford aid is in year 2, i.e. is the first year aid package generous and then sophomore year on they expect you to borrow rather than offering the same aid (all other things being equal)?</p>
<p>Please remember that parents financial situation is income + assets. Make sure your parents run some of the calculators so they have a clear picture of what their exepcted family contribution will be. For instance, my husband is retired, I work, our income falls below many of the income thresholds stated by private colleges, but our assets push up eill above. Make sure you know YOUR situation. Student contributions can come from parents or students, but the expectation is that students are working part time and contributing to their college costs. My kids garnered between around $2000-3000 from part-time work. One of the two was awarded work/study in the amount of $1500, the other was not awarded work study. All of this is just how your finaid will be compiled…if you are awarded work study you can declinet by putting a line through it and rejecting on your award letter and your parents can pay whatever component of the costs you don’t want to take on. The most important advice is know what your income and assets valuation is relative to exepcted family/parent contribution.</p>
<p>Harvard allows its students to use outside scholarships to cover their student contributions; I would think it likely that Stanford may do the same. Accepted students at both Harvard and Stanford typically don’t have trouble rounding up a few thousand dollars in outside scholarships.</p>
<p>Stanford’s financial aid will continue to be equally generous IF your financial situation does not change. You have to apply annually for need based financial aid so if your income/assets increase your aid will decrease. If you expect that your income is going to remain somewhat the same, your aid should remain similar, I believe.</p>
<p>I thought Stanford didn’t package loans for low income students. I could be wrong about that.</p>
<p>This is how I look at “Student Contribution” (self-help) …such as summer earnings or work-study</p>
<p>Schools like Stanford that are “full need” still do not want to pay for your “personal expenses” and maybe transportation, so the amount that they determine to be “self-help” is often around that total. These schools will provide for your tuition, room, board and books, but they expect YOU to pay for your own day to day expenses.</p>
<p>Since your parents don’t want you to work during the school year, then perhaps you can work over the summer to earn some/most of that $4500 to minimize the impact to them. $4500 a year can be a lot of money for families earning less than $60k…especially if they also have to fund things like “Parents Weekend” or “move in day” and move out day" expenses.</p>
<p>Sort of. Some of these generous schools WILL include transportation to and from your home in your cost of attendance for LOW INCOME students. These schools recognize that these students may have difficulty using summer earnings for college costs (like transportation which is actually essential to GOING to the college…can’t attend if you can’t GET there). Most of these schools allow low income students to meet their student contribution with work study earnings.</p>
<p>I agree…that’s why I put “maybe transportation” …because of the situations that you mentioned. </p>
<p>I have noticed that some schools won’t consider int’l travel in their COAs for in’tl students…so those kids do need to figure out how to pay to get to campus. </p>
<p>However…$4500 in self-help would cover a lot. Many schools estimate personal expenses to be around $1500-2500 dollars…so the remaining $2000+ could be for travel.</p>
<p>Well…international students have a whole different set of issues with respect to financial aid. Most schools do not guarantee to meet the full need for international students AT ALL.</p>
So he gives it to me, I stick it in the bank, and then I pay the bills as they come. Certainly it appears that I am paying the bill --even though he earned that money-- but as far as colleges are concerned, a payment is a payment. They don’t examine checks to see whose fingerprints are on them. Besides, they of course understand that finances between parents and dependent students are highly intermingled.</p>