I am applying ED to NYU Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music and am well aware that I may have to drop out of the agreement if I get accepted because they are infamously stingy with financial aid. Berklee was my back up school—obviously because it’s a great school, but mostly because I thought it was cheaper. Don’t know where I got that impression, since I’m looking now, and Berklee + all of the purchases required with being a student there would make it equally as expensive for me as NYU.
Basically the only saving grace would be if they give better aid or scholarships than NYU Clive Davis. Can anyone here answer that? How is Berklee’s aid, especially for families making ~$80k with EFC of $10k?
@mommdc yeah I have, and Berklee comes out as being more expensive than NYU, but I also know those aren’t always close to what they actually do. It comes out saying Berklee would give me $30k in aid (so I’d be paying $33,200 per year), and NYU’s says they’d give $52,410 (costing me $19,344 per year). Neither seems anywhere near accurate
I used to know someone who attended Berklee College of Music who was in a similar financial situation. He had to drop out after two years for financial reasons (he just could not come up with the money). He transferred to an in-state university. Relatively few of his credits transferred. In his case he was lucky enough to live in a state (Massachusetts) where two in-state public universities have very good music programs. However he would have been much better off to just start at UMass. This was before the Berklee merger with the Boston Conservatory.
I would expect that there is a good chance that the NPC is accurate. At least in our case they were spot on most of the time.
Do you have any other more affordable alternative?
You seem to be focusing on financial need-based aid (they do not meet need and have loans). The other area of assistance is merit aid, which is hard to predict.
It certainly seems that Berklee is not a great backup school to NYU financially.
I don’t know what state you are in but there are schools in many states that are good for your interests, and affordable. UMass Lowell, SUNY Purchase come to mind. Look at Hartt and Ithaca too. UDenver?
@okisaperson I’m curious where you found an NYU net price calculator that says someone with around $80K income would get $52K in aid. I ran their NPC for a family in the $80-89K range with 6 in the family and two in college and it only came up with $38K in aid. A family of four with one in college would only be $33K in aid.
If you do get into NYU with $52K in aid that would be great, as you might be able to find a way to afford it without overly large loans. I’ve just never seen anything that would indicate that number is likely to be the case.
Berklee’s financial aid is terrible - its graduates end up with among the most debt of all college graduates.
NYU doesn’t “meet need” and the package you saw sounds excellent.
What’s your EFC?
What’s your State of residence?
What are your stats?
Your other thread says you have a weighted 3.6 GPA and (it sounds like) low test scores. You seem to have been pretty busy with your music career in the ~5 years since you graduated from high school. That’s a plus. I don’t know if you’ll be eligible for merit aid though. Does Berklee offer any need based aid?
