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<p>Almost all such schools also have an expected student contribution, usually between $4,000 and $10,000 (varies between schools; e.g. $4,600 at Harvard, $5,000 at Stanford, $7,000 at Virginia, ~$8,500 at UCs for California residents), to be covered by student loan and work earnings (often with a work-study subsidy to make it easier for the student to get an on-campus job).</p>
<p>So a “meet full need” school will offer:</p>
<p>Grants = COA - EFC - ESC</p>
<p>and some combination of direct loans and/or work-study for the ESC. Of course, each school may calculate EFC differently, resulting in another way for the financial aid and net price to differ.</p>
<p>More ways to think about it, at a “meet full need” school:</p>
<p>Net price = EFC + ESC = COA - Grants</p>
<p>Due to the ways EFC can be calculator and the varying levels of ESC, it is not necessarily true that a “meet full need” school will have a lower net price than a school that does not “meet full need”.</p>
<p>Bottom line is, run the net price calculator on each school’s web site, rather than assuming that “meet full need” means a sufficiently low net price.</p>