@Mwfan1921 20k annually. 80k over 4 years roughly. I have saved my whole life and worked a lot, all my Christmas and Birthday money. I’ve got about $40k in a college account for myself. $40k in debt. My sisters both had about $60k so I’ll just have to do it if I have any wants of going to college.
@cshell2 I plan on doing all of those.
Congratulations on saving so much money to put toward your education.
With your $40K savings ($10k year), plus summer earnings, school year earnings, and the Federal Direct loan of $5,500 ($6,500 soph year and $7,500 each of the remaining two years) it sounds like you can afford around $20K/year. Now you will just have to wait to hear from ISU re: their full financial aid package which they will complete upon receiving your FAFSA…I hope they close the gap further from the $28K where they are right now.
Meanwhile are you applying elsewhere?
@cshell2 Yes I did. I applied for it. Plan on doing Stafford Loan, Work Study and Summer job aswell.
Everywhere else I’ve looked at is over 5-10k more yearly. @Mwfan1921 And thank you for the congratulations. It was a lot of birthdays and christmas without gifts, and a LOT of working over the summer and during the year. Plus a couple extra things that helped.
You have a lot more get up and go than my son. I’m still trying to get him to fill out the engineering scholarship application.
I don’t know if you looked into Nebraska, but with a 28 or 29 ACT (can’t remember which), out of state gets an automatic 15K/year scholarship.
Or maybe a smaller out of state school that doesn’t charge much for out of state tuition? I don’t know what engineering branch you’re looking at but University of Wisconsin - Platteville only charges 12K/year for out of state tuition and is suppose to have a good program. My son’s “safety”, in that we know he can go for a low price is Duluth, but we’re in MN.
@ALewis3 any interest in Youngstown State in Ohio? Not sure what kind of Engineering you want to major in, they don’t have them all, but it’s a good school and very economical even for out of state students https://ysu.edu/tuition-financial-aid
Are you sure the $8k you received as a scholarship and the $7.5k grant on the NPC are two separate awards? Schools interchange ‘grant’ and ‘scholarship’ all the time; an athletic scholarship is actually a ‘grant in aid’ but everyone calls it a scholarship. NPC’s are often a year or two behind and haven’t been updated if an award increases with a new tuition increase. Just be sure you have 2 awards and not just one that’s been increased.
Great school and I hope you can make it work.
Their NPC doesn’t ask any stats. It has you enter the annual scholarship amount yourself and gives a link to a separate scholarship calculator to figure it out.
We’re going down there in a couple weeks for an Experience Iowa State event. I think I’ll make a point of talking to someone in financial aid about this mysterious “grant” and if it actually exists.
what are your stats?
If you share your test scores, GPA, and desired engineering major, posters might be able to offer suggestions that will bring your costs down much lower. You still have time to apply to several schools offering large merit scholarships.
I know the rank may not be as high but you have NIU as an option too. They are very reasonably priced.
@cshell2 I’m going to DM you what the email from the Financial advisor said. I’d like to know about this grant too once you find out.
Yes!!!
@ALewis3 what are your test scores and gpa? We can probably help you with more choices that will be affordable.
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I have a 3.5 unweighted with primarily all honors or AP classes. I also have a 30 ACT composite with a 31 in Math and Science, 30 in English and 29 in Reading <<
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Are these still your stats or have you retaken the ACT or SAT?
Here is the way it usually works: Your FAFSA EFC is generally the absolute least amount you are going to be paying. In your case that amount is $12,495. It is highly unlikely to get financial aid that will bring your cost below that amount. In fact, it is highly unlikely that any school, even those that guarantee to meet full need will give you sufficient aid so that you only pay your FAFSA EFC.
Schools that guarantee to meet full need tend to define that need themselves , and they do not use the FAFSA EFC formula. Yes, some exceptions, UChicago, Albright college, to name a few. But, the FAFSA formula and institutional formulas tend to differ, and the institutional ones tend to expect you to pay more.
As for most schools, the do use FAFSA, but they do not tend to give financial aid in amounts that leave you just the EFC to pay. Some state schools have made that commitment to try to make college affordable to all, but as you have noted, your state, Illinois has not. Your state schools all gap, as you have seen, running the NPCs in them.
Whether ISU is out of state to you or not, was not of issue to me. I took your original statement that you are expecting a scholarship of $8000 as fact as you did not indicate that was from the NPC of ISU. The NPC is not a guarantee, but it should give the usual outcome for a student running those numbers. What it’s saying is that a student of your caliber generally gets an $8k scholarship. That it does not list any other financial aid is typical of state schools’ treatment of OOS students. You are not first in line for financial aid there, and that one award is all you are likely to get, and no guarantees there even.
You can also borrow $5500 as a freshman from the federal Direct Loan program, and some of that will be subsidized as you are likely to be asked to pay more than your EFC.
It is possible to get more than the $8k scholarships from ISU, but also possible you get less. That is just what is expected, given your stats. With merit money, there is that possibility of scholarships covering even your EFC. But those are generally very difficult to get
You can look for schools that may give you a full tuition scholarship and give them a go with your applications. Nebraska, Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky are some ideas
There are also schools with low sticker prices in the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, Mississippi. Google, “least expensive
Colleges”, as well as “Full ride Scholarships” and “Full tuition Scholarships” Those schools are not going to have the name recognition of ISU, but they have the possibilities of costing less, maybe even less than your EFC.
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The Adventure Award (from the marketing campaign “Choose your adventure at Iowa State” is $8k/yr from students with the OP’s stats. He won’t get less unless there’s a change to the award structure this year, and I suppose that could happen at any school from one year to the next. It’s the grant, the need based aid component, that I’d be more worried about given the OP is an OOS student.
The 8K award was already sent out in letters for the 2020-2021 students and is renewable for 4 years, so I think he can bank on that one. Residents from some states get even more than that (CA and CO get 11K for whatever reason).
I’m not real trusting of the grant though. Especially not with an over 12K EFC and being out of state.
Are award letters always sent out in February? That’s what most schools say, but do they actually send them out on a rolling basis as the FAFSA info comes in and you’re just guaranteed to get them BY February?
One thing to factor in with ISU is the annual tuition increase. My younger D was accepted and planning to attend next fall. As we’ve been looking and talking to others the one thing I keep hearing is to plan for an increase in tuition annually.
Also, some of the programs have an automatic bump up in tuition when you start your higher level classes. We’re going to be there next week for an admitted student day and we plan to ask about the tuition increases and program bumps that we’ve been hearing about.
My oldest D hasn’t really had to deal with that at her school but it seems a little more of an issue at ISU then other schools we looked at. As your doing your planning and working your numbers, make sure you are factoring in the annual increase.
Some of this may be out of habit. In the olden days, way back in 2014, the FAFSA didn’t open until January 1 so the earliest financial aid based on the FAFSA could be issued was in February. If you filed Jan 1, you were using estimated taxes so had to wait until you filed to link the DRT. A lot of the application and filing deadlines are still set with the old dates.
One kid’s tuition went up $2k every year (including from when we looked at it in high school). Original tuition was $32k and her last year was $41k. Merit award was set as a freshman and never increased. Pell grant didn’t increase, state merit didn’t increase…
Other kid’s at a public school didn’t increase enough so that I noticed in the 5 years she was there.