It was going to a be a crazy stretch to come up with the EFC from FAFSA, but TWICE that amount is not possible. My kid has kept up their end of the bargain, busted butt in high school and is a very competitive candidate with excellent schools accepting them. How do I explain that they may not get to go to college at this rate?
All the schools applied to ended up being unaffordable? That’s scary. Had you run the NPC’s prior to applying? Were they inaccurate?
Every school I have applied to that meets full need, when I ran their NPC my EFC at those school was very close to my fafsa EFC. Maybe you have very large assets fafsa is not counting?
Bargain with whom? No college was part of this bargain.
Many (many many many) kids work hard in high school and cannot afford a particular school even if they get in. Most top students can qualify for merit aid at some school and make the finances work, just not always at the desired first choice school. Some kids don’t work very hard at all, still have good grades, and are lucky enough to have parents who can afford any school. Life isn’t fair and you have to work within your own financial situation.
EFC only has to do with federal aid. Some schools also use that number to award need based aid, but not all do and not all fill that gap between the cost of attending and the EFC.
Did your very competitive student also apply to places where she would garner very significant guaranteed merit aid?
Very often, that is what students do who find that their families cannot really afford their EFC…or additional costs due to a gap in aid.
Why wouldn’t your kid be able to attend college? What you are experiencing is what many experience- “top” students who can’t afford “top” schools. I would not let my own kid apply to an Ivy (and she had little interest, so it worked out) because if she happened to get in, we would not have received FA beyond the first year. I was not spending $60,000+ a year for an undergraduate education. She focused on merit aid as well as schools that meet full need that also include grad school as having two in college. Thanks to CC I learned that we really needed to do our research, and it paid off. Did your child apply to any schools that give merit aid?
@MomofMany02 - You really need to tell us what schools your student applied to. Some schools meet full need, others don’t. Some schools offer generous merit aid - but only to the tippy-top candidates from their applicant pool. Others offer guaranteed merit aid to ALL applicants with GPA and ACT/SAT scores above a certain level. It’s possible you just didn’t target the right schools . . . and, as you’ve figured out, getting into an excellent school doesn’t make a darned bit of difference if it’s unaffordable.
So, come back, give us more information, and we’ll try to help you figure it out.
Posted by the OP.
UVA meets full need but it’s a Profile school. The FAFSA EFC is not what they use to calculate institutional need based aid.
Are you saying that both UVA (which meets full need) and College of Wooster are both unaffordable?
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My kid has kept up their end of the bargain,
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??? What???
Maybe YOU had a bargain with your child to pay for college if he busted his fanny, but no one else did.
If you didn’t run any of the Net Price Calculators before you let your child apply to various schools, then that could be largely the problem.
Did your child apply to any schools that would have given him large enough assured scholarships for his stats so the remaining costs would be affordable?
EFC is a federal number. The feds can’t require schools to give aid to make attending affordable. Most schools dont have the money.
If your child didn’t apply to any financial safeties, then no one properly advised him…
Oh, come on! Do you all really not understand what the OP is saying? The kid’s job was to do well in school, and the expectation was that if he did that, he’d get into a good college. He did his part - that’s all she’s saying.
No, that’s not what she’s saying. He wasn’t rejected from good schools. He got into good schools. If that was the “bargain” she was referring to, then the bargain was met…busted fanny = acceptance.
She’s saying that the expectation was that if the kid busted his fanny to get the grades, then the school should keep some mythical bargain to make themselves affordable to him.
There is no such bargain at 95%+ of schools.
Maybe schools should claim some bargain that if they provide a great education and accept your child, then you’ll keep your end of the bargain and pay the cost.
Never mind. Carry on.
According to the OP, this student has been accepted to UVA…which meets full need, and College of Wooster. Other posts indicate he has gotten some scholarships as well.
UVA is an excellent school…and meets full need. If this Profile school is asking for twice the FAFSA EFC, then there are financial assets that were on the Profile that the FAFSA doesn’t consider. This could be a family owned business, primary home equity, a self employed parent. It is possible that this parent is self employed or owns rental properties…and some of the deductions allowed by the IRS for tax purposes were added back in as income for financial aid purposes.
We don’t know!
Double the EFC? Is this $2000 instead of $1000? Or is this $40,000 instead of $20,000?
Again, we don’t know.
College of Wooster is a fine school. Did the student get a good scholarship from this school?
Do the aid packages include the Direct Loan? Does the student have a job now…for the summer, and will he work while at college? Depending on the amount of the gap…it might be possible to make up the financial difference.
I think this is a little extreme. If you can’t afford these competitive schools he can’t go to college at all? You didn’t have him apply to any financial safeties? If he has high stats then he can take a gap year and apply to colleges that offer guaranteed merit aid. Are there 4-year colleges within commuting distance of your home? Or community colleges? Unless your budget is $0 out-of-pocket, he likely has options. They may not be name brand and he may not be able to dorm, but that doesn’t mean he can’t go to college at all.
The FAFSA EFC isn’t a guarantee for the maximum you’ll have to pay; it tells you if you qualify for a Pell grant and I think it’s considered the minimum you’ll have to pay. Did you run the Net Price Calculators for the schools on his list? If not, do that so you have an estimate of what they’ll cost.
How you approach this depends on how you handled his high school. If you’re one of those parents who used attendance at selective colleges as a motivator to get him to work hard in high school, you’ve created a difficult situation for yourself. Getting in is only half of the equation; paying is the other half. He kept up his end, but the financing is your end, not the colleges’. If finances appear to be a problem, let your son know now that you may need a new application strategy.
The OP has posted elsewhere that her s has gotten nice acceptances and nice scholarships (I think also Transylvania and possibly Case?? In addition to the school’s mentioned above). So hopefully all will work out in the end.
@MomofMany02 I understand that it is frustrating when you can’t provide financially what you believe your student deserves due to all of his hard work. However, as others have mentioned, the EFC is not a guarantee, just a minimum estimate and each college or university will have a NPC that will usually provide a more accurate estimate based on their specific criteria.
Are you saying that neither UVA nor Wooster will be affordable? I read elsewhere that you son was being considered for a substantial scholarship at an unnamed university? Surely, there must be some options that are feasible.
Maybe you could provide an updated list of acceptances, financial/merit awards, and what you feel comfortable paying for his education. Then you might get some more useful advice.
While I absolutely don’t expect schools to be able to afford to admit all their students for free, I do think that they could do a much better job in providing a more realistic financial aid picture up-front. Their prospective student webpages read more like advertisements – they remind me of banks advertising mortgages, to be honest. They mention that a large percentage of their students get financial aid, talk about “meeting need”, and being “affordable”, etc.
Just look at this front page from USC; the lead-in line is “Our commitment to affordability”, and in big bold letters, “Nearly 2/3 of our students receive some form of financial aid”, then “…the reality is that a top-tier education may be more affordable and more attainable than you think. Today, whether our students are receiving full-tuition merit scholarships…” Then, when you click on “How Aid Works”, the first bolded line is “At USC, we meet a student’s full USC-determined financial need”, and show graphics that imply that the EFC is small piece of the COA pie. While none of this is false, there’s no doubt that it uses really basic advertising methods.
http://www.usc.edu/admission/fa/undergraduates/prospective/students.html
I see the same style financial pages everywhere. Most schools use the term EFC which so many people assume to mean the same as the EFC computed on FAFSA. I don’t think it’s lost on the schools that this confusion exists but it’s apparently not in their best financial interest to use a different term. In the end, I think it’s clear that the message that these websites intend to convey is “DON’T WORRY, we’ll make sure you’ll be able to afford our school”.
@MomofMany02 You’re not alone. Just because a kid gets accepted, it doesn’t mean it’s possible (affordable). We cannot even afford one school that meets full need.
D2 is going to end up “taking the money” at her third or fourth choice school. Her friends at (private) high school from affluent families are all going to prestigious selective schools. For her, it really stings. Nevertheless, I think D is really lucky and I hope she comes around to seeing it that way too.
Everyone has to play with the cards they’ve been dealt. If your list of school acceptances does not include any affordable schools, you may have to strategize a gap year and hunt down big merit aid for the following year.
Good luck!
I think that’s pretty clear. But if it isn’t, the NPC tells the story for families with straightforward financial situations (business owners and divorced parents not so much).
Wooster has not been able to so far, we have appealed. We haven’t gotten a package from UVA yet.