Hi! I would really like to apply ED to Northwestern, but I’m concerned about the financial aid. Does anyone have any experience with aid and divorced parents/a complicated family situation? My father is my custodial parent, and when I put his info into the net price calculator it comes out to about $7000 a year. However, Northwestern requires noncustodial information as well. My mother and stepfather’s info yields a net price of about $35,000. Due to horrible credit card debt, my noncustodial parents are not able to contribute to my education, so they’re just messing up my situation completely. Does anyone have any idea how Northwestern will calculate my total net price? Will they combine the two efcs? Is it much more complicated than that? Will they be more understanding if I explain the credit card debt since it is my noncustodial parents? Thanks in advance.
Beware the NPC! I don’t think anyone will be able to tell you with certainty how NU will calculate what your contribution will be. Applying ED apparently tells NU that you don’t have too much concern about what you will pay.
The package they offer includes loans and likely work study that falls on you. This is disingenuous because loans and work study don’t actually reduce your responsibility. Whatever they can do to bring down the total expected contribution plays on your emotion of seeing that “affordable” number.
Also what you pay your first year can change by quite a bit the following years. NU raises their prices every year but that doesn’t mean their “generosity” follows.
Consider also that Evanston’s cost of living is outrageous. Restaurants, groceries, and off campus rent are at premium prices and one of the hidden taxes you will pay without escape. Food portions are slim for the upscale price.
I see from a previous post that you are interested in Iowa State for engineering. The CEO of Boeing started as an intern while at Iowa so that tells you that you don’t need a near Ivy to be successful. Iowa also has an honors program that you might have a chance at if you are good enough to be accepted at NU.
You are going to have a problem, as you have already ascertained. They expect all parents in the picture to pay, and do not care about credit card debt. Your EFC will probably be more than $35K, although maybe not quite as much as the two added together.
Unfortunately, I think you’re going to need to go RD. I went ED with a tough financial situation and lucked out that I got decent aid (not amazing, but good enough). But It was a gamble, and Northwestern is likely to at least partially include your noncustodial parent. I would email the financial aid office though and explain the situation as best as possible. Hopefully they give you the aid that you need if you get in, but I wouldn’t risk it on ED.
I will say though that the loan cap at Northwestern is $25,000 (for government loans, not outside loans) so while they do put responsibility on the student beyond just parental contribution, it isn’t anything ridiculous. That’s less than the national average and based on the salaries that NU students often get out of college, it is quite possible that one could knock it out in a few years (given they live very cheaply for the first few years).
There are also plenty of work study jobs that require low amounts of work and give time to the student to do homework. My two jobs aren’t like that, but I know multiple people who have jobs like that.
Thanks for the advice. I didn’t know that about the loan cap, although I would have to take out huge private loans so that wouldn’t really help me. I guess regular decision is my only option though, and I can see if I get in / what they offer me then.
Keep in mind that Northwestern hugely favors ED applicants. It filled half of its incoming class with ED applicants (about a 36% acceptance rate, I believe), leaving the RD pool, which is the significant bulk of its applicant pool, to vie for the other half of the spots.
NU is pretty generous with aid overall and so this should not normally deter ED applicants, but I will say that in your situation, that may not be the case. My memory could be failing me, but I believe that NU’s CSS Profile did ask about credit card (and other) debt, but I have no idea if they actually factor that into anybody’s package.
I’d email the financial aid office and ask what the most likely outcome with financial aid would be. ED can be very beneficial for increasing your odds of admission-- so if you can figure out what your true aid it might very well be the best choice for you. Given the huge difference in aid (7k vs 35k? yikes!!), you’re right to be concerned about applying ED. From my experience with the financial aid office, they do tend to be fairly good in increasing aid if your explain extenuating circumstances: I had a small problem with my aid applying ED last year where my parent’s income was artificially inflated by 5-10k due to a large withdrawal my parents had to make from their retirement account to help my older unemployed older sibling. Because I was borderline between two major income brackets and my parents explained the situation, I got around an extra 10k in aid and 2k in special subsidized and unsubsidized loans to make sure I could reasonably afford it.
Overall aid for ED and RD is very similar at NU so the issue of how much aid you need is a problem that won’t go away even if you decide to apply RD over ED. Communication with the aid office seems like the best bet before making any major decisions. Good luck-- I hope things turn out for the best!
You can only borrow the federal student loan: $5500 as a freshman, $6500 as a soph, and $7500/year as a junior and senior. Any additional loans would need a cosigner. I doubt your mom and stepdad would qualify and I wouldn’t recommend that your dad cosign for the kind of money you’ll need if the college determines you have a ~$35k EFC.
The difference between applying ED and RD is not the aid. Supposedly they don’t offer less to ED students knowing that they’ll commit. The difference is that applying ED is gambling 100K (approximately the difference between the estimate aid with just his dad, vs with both parents). You have to commit if you apply ED regardless of the aid package, unless you can prove something has changed in your financial situation. This won’t be a “change” in the way they see it. If you apply ED you have a better chance of getting in, but you also might be committing yourself to heavy debt.
Actually, if the financial aid is not sufficient after appealing the award, an ED applicant can request being released from their commitment:
Upon being admitted to the Early Decision program, the expectation is that students will withdraw any other admission applications and deposit at Northwestern by February 1. While this is considered a binding contract, there is an exception in place for cases of financial hardship. If a family completes the financial aid application by the December 1 deadline and believes that the resulting financial aid award would make it impossible for the student to attend, our office first asks that they file an appeal outlining any possible special circumstances and correcting any mistakes on the application. Though this appeal may or may not result in a change to the financial aid award, the student can petition the director of financial aid requesting to be released from the Early Decision contract if the family still feels that it would be financially impossible for the student to accept the offer of admission.
It isn’t true that something has to have changed in the FA situation. This poster has no good way to see what the FA offer would be ahead of time. If it is not workable, then the student could pass I the ED acceptance.