<p>Hey, I just got an ED acceptance from my first choice school, but I became extremely disappointed when I got my financial aid letter. Even though they paid for about 70% of tuition, my family and I would still be saddled with $23,000-$24,000 a year plus outside expenses. By the end of the four years, I'd be about $100,000 in debt! Looks like I'm not going...</p>
<p>Anyone else have a similar experience?</p>
<p>Why do you apply ED to a non-need blind school if you won't be able to afford it?</p>
<p>get scholorships, grants... trust me they'll cut down the costs a lot</p>
<p>I applied ED because it was my first choice school, and they said you could apply ED, but be released from the commitment if the aid didn't work out.</p>
<p>Lemme guess, the COA of your ED school is over 50K</p>
<p>First of all, have you run your numbers thru an EFC calculator to get your estimated EFC. Most colleges will expect you to pay AT LEAST that amount. There are a few very generous colleges that will have you paying less. Is your EFC is in the 20K ballpark??</p>
<p>have you factored in the fact that you will still be able to take out stafford loans, even if you don't have what the college considers 'need'. The difference is that you might get the UNsubsidized, vs Subsidized. Interest on the Unsubsidized does accrue while you are in school.</p>
<p>max for freshman 5500
sophomore 6500
juniors, seniors 7500</p>
<p>PLEASE do not consider ANY school that would leave you 100K in debt for a undergrad degree. Realize that your EFC is meant to be paid by current income (of your parents), Savings and lastly borrowing.</p>
<p>No school is worth $100 k in undergrad debt, not even Bucknell </p>
<p>From other posts, I see that your stats are the below. If you don't want to accept the full ride at U Tulsa, and would prefer a LAC, there probably are LACs that would give you merit aid, resulting in a sweeter deal than you got offered by Bucknell. </p>
<p>Check the merit aid thread at the top of Parents Forum, and also check the scholarship info posted at the top of this board.</p>
<p>"I have a 32 on the ACT (34 Eng, 35 CR, 28 M, 31 Sci) and 3 5's on AP US History, AP Calculus, and AP Government. I also have a 4.0 unweighted GPA and a weighted GPA of 4.35 at a poor public Appalachian high school in East Tennessee."</p>
<p>Your situation is an example of when NOT to apply ED. If finances are a concern, don't apply ED because you miss the opportunity to compare aid packages. </p>
<p>Frankly, your stats are strong, and you probably didn't need any ED tip at Bucknell. You probably can get into other equally ranked LACs, perhaps some that even are higher ranked. By applying ED, you lost the opportunity to compare scholarship packages of other schools that are similar to Bucknell. It will not consider U Tulsa to be similar since Tulsa is not a highly ranked LAC, so Bucknell isn't likely to attempt to match what Tulsa is offering.</p>
<p>Back to LACs: Rhodes College offers excellent merit aid that you may qualify for, and there are plenty of other LACs that have excellent merit aid that you may be able to get.</p>
<p>But you will need to get out of your ED acceptance ASAP and explain why to the school...why you applied ED and cannot now attend. In addition, you will have to then apply to schools ASAP as some of those LACs have deadlines that are fast approaching.</p>
<p>In addition, you need to check the deadlines for merit aid consideration. At some (not all...but some) schools applications for merit aid consideration have to be in earlier than others.</p>
<p>You seriously need to get out of this ED decision. Bucknell is a great school, but it is not worth $100,000 in debt! Northstarmom has offered some great advice, heed it!</p>
<p>I know this doesn't happen to a lot of people, but there are not many people who decline an ED for financial reasons, and usually colleges want to keep this number as low as possible. So, in some cases, if you talk to the financial office and explain the situation, they may be able to give you a slightly better package.</p>
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<p>What do you mean, "not even?" Bucknell is a decent school, but you make it sound like it's Ivy League. For that matter, no Ivy League school is worth $100k in debt, either.</p>
<p>OP, just make sure you are looking at actual costs. Did you pull out just tuition/room/board/fees? Sometimes schools give you the cost of attendance they use when awarding your aid ... and they may have a lot of padding in it for transportation, books, living expenses, etc. You may be able to keep these costs to a minimum, and your actual cost will be lower than the school's estimate. If you pull out just the real costs and look at your non-loan aid, what is the difference?</p>
<p>Oops ... never mind. I just re-read your initial post. </p>
<p>I assume you have a relatively high EFC. You need to find a school where you have GREAT meritpotential. Rhodes is good, but we found it to be more expensive bottom-line than several others (including Centre, Furman, DePauw, and Hendrix).</p>
<p>I think you should try to get out of it if you can.
Is it possible that you can get your financial aid package improved?</p>
<p>This is a reminder to others to not apply Early Decision if finances are a concern. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Frankly, your stats are strong, and you probably didn't need any ED tip at Bucknell. You probably can get into other equally ranked LACs, perhaps some that even are higher ranked.
[/quote]
True but the part that sucks is that Early Decision does increase the probability that a highly qualified applicant will get into a top college and it is binding.
I didn't apply ED to a school I was really interested in for financial-related reasons and I ended up not getting in for the RD round. Who knows what would have happened if I applied ED? (The whole "This is my top choice" spiel probably didn't fly for RD.) Of course, in hindsight, I'm happy I didn't do it.</p>
<p>"True but the part that sucks is that Early Decision does increase the probability that a highly qualified applicant will get into a top college and it is binding."</p>
<p>Worse than that is having to turn down one's ED for financial reasons, and then having to quickly apply elsewhere.</p>
<p>ED can work out for students needing significant aid but it must be a very well-researched choice. The holy trinity of financial aid: need-blind, meets full need, and no loans can work for families who have run the calculators and know their EFC.</p>
<p>In this case, Bucknell either fell short or the family didn't run the numbers ahead of time. I hope the OP follows up on this thread and tells us how things work out. Bucknell could say they are meeting full need as defined by their insitutional methodology. Not sure what happens after that.</p>
<p>It's also important to realize that for most people, finances play a very important role in where they apply and where they get to go to college. One isn't rare if you have to take into advantage finances, and also can't apply ED for that reason or can't even consider applying to a preferred college due to finances.</p>
<p>Fortunately, for virtually everyone except for people who definitely will go into rare majors, there are many colleges that would meet their needs and where they would be fulfilled and could graduate from without crippling debt.</p>
<p>If the school is paying 70% of your tuition and leaving about 25000 a year for the family to cover, then the only way you end up 100000 in debt is if your parents were not willing to pay anything and put everything on you. If that's the case the problem is the family dynamic more than the school. Paying 70% of tuition seems generous by any standard. Does the amount they put on the family seem in line with the EFC that you get when using the institutional method? If not make an appeal to Finaid.</p>
<p>I definitely understand where you guys are coming from on this "Don't apply ED if you are worried about aid thing" but I've been to several campus visits, and asked the financial aid exactly whether or not I should apply ED. Bucknell was easily my top choice school, and I really wanted to get over the stress of wondering where I'm going to college. My parents asked and made sure that WE were the ones who decided what was affordable, and that it wasn't a big deal if we didn't feel we could pull together that much money, or if it would put us too much in debt.</p>
<p>I have other options, like at Auburn, Ole Miss, University of Oklahoma, and Tulsa, so I'm alright in terms of deadlines and college choices. I'm mostly just disappointed because I left every campus visit with this feeling that I didn't really need to worry about it, since, as a previous poster mentioned, few people have this problem. I figured if only two people turn down their ED agreement, then they must give out enough aid to let everyone attend. I think the problem was that I was comparing Bucknell to local LAC's in my area, where around 80% of students get need based financial aid (as opposed to 45%). It is still a bit of a shocker to me that anyone has $50,000 to just write out, so I assumed that the people who applied ED had gotten enough aid to make going possible, not that they didn't require much.</p>
<p>The $100,000 was very ballpark. With extra expenses, and helping my sister get adjusted to living away from home, we have had a lot of extra stuff to purchase. I decided to apply ED since I thought I would have a better chance of getting in.</p>
<p>I'm not sure exactly how much we are going to be in debt really, since I don't handle my family's finances personally. I do know, however, that it is going to be a lot more than we were originally anticipating. What would make attendance more possible would be full tuition, and then it would be a stretch for room and board. But having to pay the remaining cost of tuition is a lot of debt, plus another small loan to cover part of room and board. I know our local LAC is not considered "affordable" to my parents without some need based aid, and it's cost is the same as the remaining cost of Bucknell. My parents spend very responsibly, but a quarter of my family income for an EFC seems like a lot to stomach, especially since it means at least $45,000 in debt.</p>
<p>I think I posted incorrectly when I said $100,000 debt. It would be $100,000 out of pocket expense to come up with (since I have $25,000 yet to pay). In my haste I didn't make that clear. Sorry for that. Can't go back and edit it now. But $100,000 over four years of raw expense seemed a little much for my parents. I realize $50,000 of debt and $100,000 of debt are very different, and that was my mistake. $50,000 is still a sizeable amount though, and one I'm not sure I want to be saddled with immediately out of college. I could take out those loans myself I guess, but it is just so much to pay back. That is going to take a long time...</p>
<p>There was a $3,500 Unsibsidized Stafford loan, but we were hoping for more grant money than loan. I don't even know what a Stafford loan is, I just saw "loan" and assumed it was just like any other loan that we had to pay back eventually. Is it that different?</p>
<p>If its the college you want to go to then go for it. They are paying 70% of tuition. That means its just up to you to get a job and pay for the 25000$ left each year. Your stats are impressive and I'm sure you could get other aid, scholarships, and grants. Don't let money bring you down when it comes to higher education.</p>
<p>Okay, I talked to my Dad just now about my financial aid status, and I'll clear up stuff.</p>
<p>Currently, we have enough saved for about $3,000 per year. We used savings to pay entirely for my sister's room and board, since she got free tuition at her college, and that was sort of the plan for me. I know it sounds odd to plan on full tuition, but we knew we could get 70% and I was fairly certain they would match up to full tuition in light of our financial circumstance. I at least felt I could get $10,000 in merit aid, which was probably a little arrogant of me. Regardless, at the moment we are looking at around $22,000.</p>
<p>Since I have less after the market crash, we could have to take out the remaining money of the $22,000 as a loan (around $19,000), meaning that we could accumulate about $76,000 of debt after 4 years. With savings and such, my parents feel that paying around $10,000 per year would be justifiable, since that would leave us with the average indebtedness after graduation for most students. We would take out a loan for about $7,000 per year and end up with $21,000 of debt, the average figure for Bucknell according to the website.</p>
<p>We don't have much out of pocket money to spend on college. Most of our EFC was to come from our savings, which kind of sucks now. My savings account was better before it was halved.</p>
<p>Sorry for the somewhat confusing posts before. That is the financial aid situation of my parents according to them.</p>