<p>I just had the a strange phone call with the financial aid office at NYU. The guy could not tell me ANYTHING. I ask how the financial aid package was calculated, he could not tell me. I ask how I could end up with more than $44,000 in loans when I have an EFC of $21,343. He said, thats just the way it is. I ask if I could see the worksheet about how this was decided. He said, what worksheet. I ask how the EFC is figured into the overall financial aid decision he said, we look at it. </p>
<p>Does anyone have any advice? Can anyone tell me does the EFC really mean anything? How can you end up with $44,000 in loans yearly when you have an EFC of $21,000.</p>
<p>Is is worth it to go to NYU and end up more then $170,000 in debt at the end of four years?</p>
<p>My d and I had a similiar conversation years ago with a financial aid director at usc. Of 9 offers, their was the only one that used a fastly different formula from the fafsa efc–it was based on the css, and their own method of calculation. It meant zero dollars offerred, and our expected contribution was more than double the fafsa efc or any of the other 4 private college offers. They would not disclose as to why it was so different, but it didn’t really matter–we knew going into it that usc was like that for certain income groups and weren’t really suprised.</p>
<p>As for whether its worth it to make up that difference with loans, you will have to decide but if you do, calculate the actual monthly payment and then ask yourself: will my intended career support this? Will I be able to go to grad school?</p>
<p>You have to keep the persepctive that this is a business decisoin of the uni, they give scholarship $$ where their rankings objectives and other objectives are met. You were good enough to be there, but not subsidized to be there. Are you going to be okay with being there, in classes with other kids who are subsidized? This is why we said no, take that one off the table. She chose from the other 8.</p>
<p>It is never advisable to have that much debt for an undergraduate degree. I have posted before regarding a young adult who worked for me making six figures and still had a hard time making his student loan payments. Most young people aren’t going to be able to make those payments. Student loan payments are not forgiveable through bankruptcy. Choose another school.</p>
<p>The FAFSA EFC doesn’t mean much of anything at NYU, because it’s a gapping school. It sounds like the guy was telling it exactly like it is. At gapping schools, or schools that use CSS/Profile, or at any school, there may indeed be no formula; it may be completely subjective. Don’t look for fairness in this; there is none. However, such schools generally hand out their entire FA budget to students who matriculate, and they will fill their incoming classes, but how they do it is mostly opaque. Six figures of debt seems quite unreasonable.</p>
<p>Yes, the EFC does mean something but not what you think! It’s a way for schools to determine if you’re eligible for federal and state aid, and of what type. Beyond that, it’s completely up to the school how their institutional aid is distributed. </p>
<p>Do you have other choices that you can afford? NYU is not worth that level of debt for an undergrad degree…I can’t think of a single school that is! And at NYU, the level of FA has a trend of going down as you progress.</p>
<p>^^^ actually my son’s aid stayed the same from year 1 to year 2 and we asked for more and they threw an extra 1K to us (on top of 30K in scholarship money). </p>
<p>it’s just that the COST keeps increasing so it seems like you are getting less aid. Now going towards year 3, I do not anticipate a change in scholarship, but an increase in Stafford and hopefully still more perkins and work study </p>
<p>My EFC is about 12K but I know I spend more. Can’t wait to do housing lottery soon. PLEASE let him get a cheap room (still over 8700 and that’s w/o food)</p>