<p>The lower your EFC, the more you should consider the impact of distance from home on your finances. Even the most generous colleges calculate your total college costs as including trips home only in December and at the end of the school year.</p>
<p>If a college is hard to get to, you also may not be able to visit it before you choose what college to attend. </p>
<p>If you go to college farther than a relatively short drive from home, it's unlikely that your parents will be able to help you move in or out of campus. Your parents also probably won't be able to attend parents weekend. It may even be difficult for your parents to attend your graduation graduation.</p>
<p>On three day weekends, Thanksgiving, and spring breaks when lots of students go home or visit college friends, you may be stuck on campus basically all by yourself.</p>
<p>Most students in this country attend college within 250 miles of home. What one sees on CC -- students applying to colleges thousands of miles away from home -- is unusual, not reflective at all of what most students -- even most middle class and affluent students do. So, do be practical when you consider the locations of places you'll apply to.</p>
<p>TrinSF- it may be a "full ride" but is it half loans? If so, then the student needs to be very careful in deciding whether that option makes sense</p>
<p>I go to UC Berkeley and have 0 EFC. This year I'm going to have $4000 in loans and $4000 in work-study (I can easily make that much). The rest is covered by grants. So it seems that my school always meets your efc. I thought that this was required at every school, but I guess not?</p>
<p>No, schools are not required to meet students' EFCs. Also, most schools don't have the funds to meet students' EFCs. It's only the colleges with the largest endowments which can afford to meet the EFCs of all students. Only some of those colleges can afford to do so without imposing heavy loan burdens on students.</p>
<p>Consequently, if costs are a consideration , it's a good idea to take a careful look at colleges' financial aid information. If you're unlikely to get the financial aid that you need, better to not bother to apply than to get an acceptance to a dream school that you can't afford to attend.</p>
<p>Actually, I don't think UC-Berkeley guarantees to meet full need. Some students might get sufficient aid to do so, but that is not guaranteed to ALL students.</p>
<p>The other thing all students should check for schools that don't meet full need (and that is most of them)...is how need based aid is provided in years after the freshman year. Some places provide a higher percentage of aid to incoming freshmen than to returning students. Important to know if aid is a significant issue.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>NSM--many, many low income students go away to college, and go to four year colleges to start with.<<</p>
</blockquote>
<br>
<p>Many low income student may go away to college and start at four year colleges. But those are only the tip of the iceberg. I see a lot of the rest of the iceberg because I volunteer in our local hs's college center. Most of our low low income kids who do go to college start at the local JC while living at home and working. The ones who are honor students go to hyper-selective colleges and receive full aid.</p>
<p>somemom: NO. A full ride. All grants, including tuition, room, board, stipend for books and travel expenses. It's the Regent's scholarship program, which I think ALL the UC's have. The point of it is that it replaces all loans and work study with grants, and meets 100 percent of need. </p>
<p>I'm sorry, it just really upsets me that when students ask about this, they're consistently told that such things do not exist, and that they should stay home and go to CC, rather than even bother to apply to schools. My son has an EFC = 0. He had <em>multiple</em> full ride offers, and got to choose among them. The key was that he was EFC=0 <em>and</em> he was a strong candidate and good match for the schools he was applying to. None of these full rides were just tuition, or included loans. They were all no loan, no work study, no gapping, with incidentals money.</p>
<p>Based on my experience from last year I<br>
have to agree with the second part of
TrinSFs post #28.</p>
<p>Interestingly I believe that going to the top schools is a better option
than getting into a community college given the number of external
scholarship options that you can find if your app is competitive.</p>
<p>I am one of those students who did receive complete coverage via
merit award in one school that awards this and complete (/~complete)
coverage based on need-based scholarships at the others.</p>
<p>The amount of back and forth negotiation I had to do though varied from
streamlined (MIT and Harvard) to quite a bit of negotiation required
(Stanford). Caltech's merit awards were also truly awesome and were linked
to only maintaining a decent GPA through the UG education.</p>
<p>My son had an EFC of $0 and was awarded Regents at UCB, UCLA, UCSD and UC Davis. He was offered a "free ride" at each of these schools (i.e. total cost of attendance was paid for with no loans or work study).</p>
<p>Northstarmom: Huh. My son goes to college 11 hours away by car. He hasn't come home for many vacations, but he didn't sit alone in the dorm, either. Many students at his college live off campus nearby, and he's got tons of friends. He's spent long weekends with friends, girlfriends, or just hanging out. </p>
<p>I'd say this really depends on the student, the family, and the college. Some colleges do empty out at vacations, but some don't, particularly those with a lot of international students. Probably 25-35 percent of son's classmates don't go home for Thanksgiving, for example.</p>
<p>"Northstarmom: Huh. My son goes to college 11 hours away by car. He hasn't come home for many vacations, but he didn't sit alone in the dorm, either. Many students at his college live off campus nearby, and he's got tons of friends. He's spent long weekends with friends, girlfriends, or just hanging out."</p>
<p>Yes, it does depend on the school and the individual. While some colleges leave dorms open for students during break periods, there are colleges that completely close down during winter, spring and even Thanksgiving break. Even internationals aren't allowed to stay on campus.</p>
<p>IF it's a college in which the majority of students live on campus, and the campus closes during break periods, things can be very bleak for students who can't leave during breaks. </p>
<p>When it comes to the individual, I think that things particularly can be difficult for first generation college students and/or students who are low income or are very close to their families or have major family events -- funerals, weddings -- going on during the year. </p>
<p>I noticed at S's school, for instance, during spring break many students didn't go home, but travelled abroad. The campus also closed. </p>
<p>My own S chose to come home only for Thanksgiving, Christmas, spring break and at year's end even though we offered to pay for him to come home at other break times. He tends to be very thrifty -- including with my H and my money -- so he declined our offer, but he did say that the campus was virtually empty during things like three-day holiday weekends. He's very independent and a bit introverted, and I think he enjoyed some time alone, but it could have been a very depressing period for someone who was homesick or felt bad about not having the money to do the things that their classmates were doing.</p>
<p>NSM--the student asked about state *colleges, and you sent him to a CC. My point that a student at a state college with a 0 EFC is automatically eligible for federal and state *grants, which may well add up to the tuition necessary, before loans and workstudy.</p>
<p>I would not choose to list where I work, but let's just say this--most run of the mill private colleges are beating the bushes for students--we worry about getting enough every year--we can't pick and choose to find ones with EFCs we like. </p>
<p>Just for example's sake: Pell is a little over 4000. NJ TAG grants run close to 8000 for an EFC of 0. Stafford is about 4000. workstudy can be 2000. Add in summer earnings, and even if the student didn't get institutional aid (and most would get a few thousand anyway), and you get our tuition and close to room and board (about half our students commute.) That's a typical scenario for our private school (and of course at a public, it would be even more do-able.)</p>
<p>I see their family incomes, I see their aid, and I also see their GPAs and SATs---all of these would make you doubletake, i guarantee.</p>
<p>Believe me, I know how hard it is for first gen, low income students. Their college choices are often constrained by poor academic support, and social issues. What my students do every day is heroic.</p>
<p>BUT, what they and the OP don't need to be told is: stay home, go to a CC. Anything else is unrealistic.</p>
<p>Garland,
I told him that most very low income students start at in-state CCs and then transfer to 4-year in-state public universities. This seems reasonable. I know plenty of very low income students that this has worked very well for. All we know about the OP is his EFC. We don't know their stats or even where s/he lives. I have never said that nothing else is realistic. </p>
<p>This student also says s/he wishes to stay in his/her state. Hard to give excellent advice when we don't have much info to go on.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, it would be helpful to the student to go into the process with eyes fully open including the travel and other implications of living far from home (which could even be in-state depending on what their state is).</p>
<p>Thanks, Garland. I am frustrated that so many students are being told that their only choice is CC, when there are great state programs to get them into 4 year colleges, with support and extra finances.</p>
<p>As everyone has demonstrated here, there are many roads which can lead to the same place. It's always helpful, whatever the efc or stats, to have plan A, B, and C in mind. My D is low efc, high gpa, and has identified several routes to help her get into the career she wants. </p>
<p>Just like nearly everyone else, she'll apply to her favorite schools that might or might not give good aid and to several others that are lower on the list but in state and so will have higher aid and lower travel costs. If nobody takes her (I'd be amazed but anything could happen), she'll start local and transfer after a year or two. In the meantime, she's applying for many local scholarships, saving money, and keeping her grades as high as possible while doing relevant internships and EC's! If you don't have alot of money then be alot of something else - flexibility is your friend too!</p>
<p>Hello,
I just recieved my EFC number I earned around 7,000 in 2007 on my taxes and I currently still live at home with my Single Mom and my sister. My Mom earned 11,000 in 2007. My EFC number is 19359.It was noted I wasn't eligible for the pell grant.But other loans would be options. I will be enrolling in Culinary School in Jan '09 the cost is $8,500 for the entire course plus Books, uniform etc.
certification classes $600.00 exam $200.00. Can anyone tell me if I am still able to get any federal help at all. My Mom is Currently a student as well and did receive the full $4,400 for 2008. But why did they require both mine and my moms income to judge my eligibility? Any help would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>Garland, NJ has a great TAG grant that many states do not have. In that case, even a zero EFC makes it difficult for kids. In our area, community college is not the only choice for low income kids, but the most often chosen, as the tuition is substantially lower than that of even the state schools and the transportation options are good. Some of the local schools that would be a good possibility are tough on the wallet because you really need a car or someone with a car to give you a ride to get to the college. Our state has low state u tuition which makes a lot of this possible but there are states where even in-state tuition is expensive and exceeds what PELL can give you by a large margin.</p>
<p>volcom90: How old are you? It sounds like you're not an independent student, for financial aid purposes -- that's why your mother's income would be included. Even with that, though, the numbers you gave don't make sense. Does your mother own the house? Are there large assets?</p>