<p>Yes, jym. Very true.</p>
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<p>Agreed. I’ve found it surprising the number of parents and students on CC who applied and were accepted ED only to learn their dream school did not provide/offer merit scholarships, but another school on their list does offer merit scholarships and might’ve given the student a huge one.</p>
<p>garland:</p>
<p>yeah I’ve read the ‘rules’, which are really guidelines since any college can do what they want. But Wake Forest is a college that claims to meet 100% of need but also includes parent loans in meeting that need. In previous years, they even footnoted that fact on their common data sets – totally ignoring the clear instructions of the CDS which said to EXCLUDE non-federal loans. (Note, I’ve read that WF is trying to raise the cash to do away with the parent loans as part of need; dunno if they have accomplished their goal. Also, not trying to pick on WF, but just using them as a clear example of what ‘meets-100%-of-need’ means to one college. There must be others.)</p>
<p>robin:</p>
<p>NYU clearly states that they do NOT meet 100% of need for every student on the first page of their website. It is only a sentence or two down from what you quoted. In fairness, thus I disagree strongly with your assertion that they are misleading. Sure kids have stars in their eyes for Manhattan, but if they can’t read…</p>
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<p>Agreed.</p>
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<p>Not always; facts not in evidence. If someone has an uncomplicated return, the financial aid calculators for Dartmouth or Vandy or Emory, for example, can give a very fair representation of what your finaid package would look like. Thus, that is your “expectation.”</p>
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<p>I don’t agree with that. My income is higher than 180K and my wife doesn’t work. But with three kids, 180K+ is very middle income. It’s not high income. Most people I know earn 50% to 300% more than I do. THEY are high income, not me.</p>
<p>Fortunately, my D2 receives financial aid (and a merit scholarship) from her ridiculously expensive LAC, but the only reason she gets the financial aid is because she has a sibling in college at the same time, so the EFC is cut in half. Unfortunately, once big sister graduates, I’m stuck with the whole bill for D2 (minus the merit scholarship) for two years. I don’t how I’m going to manage it. </p>
<p>Despite my situation, I don’t think anyone but the rich should apply to a college/university that does NOT meet full need. I don’t know why people do it.</p>
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Sorry, Bluebayou, I don’t know any kids with stars in their eyes for Manhattan. Years ago, I went to college in NYC and hated every minute of it—and I GREW UP in the NYC metro area. I could kick myself for not going to the University of Kansas.</p>
<p>^^hahahaha. Personally, I’m not a big fan of urban colleges either (no fun being poor in an expensive city – being stuck with the dorm meal plan while your dormies go out on the town), but there are thousands of kids that are attracted to Columbia, NYU, Fordham, and other fine colleges in the City.</p>
<p>We’ve had threads in the past year dealing with a situation of a student who was accepted ED at what she thought (in December) was her dream school. Financial package at dream school made attendance possible with parental loans. Then she got a surprise full ride offer from the state U–and in the meantime, she fell out of love with dream school #1 and now had fallen in love with dream school #2, which was not state U. What a mess!!</p>
<p>I guess I’m saying that if you need financial aid (or even if you don’t), ED complicates matters. I’m not a big fan.</p>
<p>^^absolutely true ellem, but then there are also many threads from kids who apply ED and are gratified with their financial aid packages, send in the enrollment card by Dec 31 and are done. Instead of “complicating” matters, ED can do just the opposite. As they say, different strokes…</p>
<p>plainsman-
Your income of over $180K is HIGH INCOME. What you may have is high EXPENSES, with 3 kids and a stay-at-home wife. Many people confuse income with expenses. These are separate variables. Cashflow is affected by your expenses ( e.g.cost of living in your area, number of dependents, your lifestyle choices, etc), but income is income and $180K is VERY HIGH. US census stats show that only about 5.63% of wagearners over 25 have an income of over $100K. Be VERY grateful that you have such a HIGH INCOME. [Personal</a> income in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States]Personal”>Personal income in the United States - Wikipedia) If most people you know make 50-300% more than you , you might consider hanging out with the other 94.4% of the citizens who earn less than $100K, and feel rich in comparison 
Its like going to a college of tippy top bright students where you feel stupid in comparison, even though you too are one of the tippy top students. You are just the middle of the top rather than the top of the middle, of you get my analogy.</p>
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<p>The people you know have more income than you do…at but $180,000 is almost 3 times the average family income in this country. I know there are areas where the cost of living is high OR there are families with high levels of spending. That doesn’t mean that their INCOMES put them in the middle income range. As Jym pointed out…$180,000 income would put you in the top %age of wage earners in this country.</p>
<p>And as I said…even if YOU don’t think you’re high income, there are only a handful of colleges that would agree with you. At most places, a student with family income of $180,000 a year would be full pays in college…even with two kids in school at the same time.</p>
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<p>How does this work? I would think if your EFC is cut in half by having two kids in college that two halves make one whole and your amount wouldn’t change? I have one in college and a rising hs senior. I thought our total EFC wouldn’t change but the student contribution for each kid is tacked on, making it a few thousand more expensive to have two in at once on the whole.</p>
<p>Yes…when only one kiddo is in college, the family college payments at full pay schools will not increase a lot…the difference is the FULL amount will go to one school as opposed to partial payments to two different schools. Same approximate amount of money outgo…but to one place instead of two.</p>
<p>BB–It’s unclear from the WFU FA page if Plus Loans are being counted toward need. If so, then yes, theyare violating the agreement. I haven’t heard this from any other meets full need school. They should be called on it.</p>
<p>So I amend my advice to say, “except WFU”.</p>
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<p>I have and did. Their response was that they had a donation campaign underway to improve finaid packages to eliminate parent loans as part of need. That was ~2 years ago.</p>
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<p>Perhaps. But as I (clearly) stated previously, WF used to clearly delineate their real policy on their CDS reports, by over-writing the CDS instructions. Wake’s CDS’s now show that <100% of students who have need have it met. Of course that contradicts what is stated on their website:</p>
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<p>[WFU</a> | Admissions | Student Financial Aid | Introduction to Financial Aid at Wake Forest](<a href=“http://www.wfu.edu/finaid/aboutwfufinaid.html]WFU”>http://www.wfu.edu/finaid/aboutwfufinaid.html)</p>
<p>(What I found more than amusing in all this, is that WF is BIG on their honor code.) But I am not an expert by any stretch of college finaid policies. If WF does it, there are likely others, IMO.</p>
<p>btw: for anyone contemplating George Washington…:call their finaid department and they will mail you a brochure with step-by-step instructions on how they calculate efc. For non-complex family returns, it will results in a number that is within a rounding error of their calculated EFC. Of course slogging thru their “booklet” is as much fun as completing your tax return. But still, props to GW.</p>
<p>I’m confused. So, Plainsman makes 180K and had a ‘favorable’ EFC (meaning, received financial aid?)</p>
<p>We make a whole lot less than that (and I feel like we make ‘good’ money) with 2 kids - only 1 in college - and our EFC total was more than the first year of college. Meaning, we were expected to pay everything ourselves one way or another.</p>
<p>How is that? I know income vs. expenses are different. I feel like our expenses are high. Still didn’t make a difference.</p>
<p>Our ‘financial aid’ package from the schools only involved Stafford & Parent Plus loans. Funny, I consider financial aid free money, not money that has to all be paid back.</p>
<p>We weren’t surprised at all by the EFC, didn’t expect to get any assistance. However, I don’t quite feel like the EFC was accurate. How does it know that year’s income/expenses reflects for your entire life? We haven’t always made good money.</p>
<p>So…how do you get financial aid and NOT be low income? (Besides Merit scholarships , obviously)</p>
<p>Checkers…some schools have more favorable need based financial aid policies for high income earners than others. It is possible that at least one of Plains’ kids is at one of those schools. </p>
<p>The reality is that MOST schools would not be awarding need based aid to a family with two in college and an AGI of $180,000…but a handful would…just a handful.</p>
<p>^^In addition, some of the well endowed colleges (read: rich) cap home equity in the needs calculation, where others (many/most?) Profile schools do not. Thus, the same numbers could result in vastly different EFC’s depending on college policy.</p>
<p>Of course, publics are usually a lot less expensive and may not meet full need, so it is indeed possible/probable that a well endowed school (aka highly selective) can and will be less out of pocket than the instate Uni for many middle class folks. (Assumes student does not recieve merit aid at public Uni.) Of course, the trick is getting into one of those highly selective colleges.</p>
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<p>Expenses are not taken into account in the EFC calculation. No assumption is made regarding the number of years a family has been making good money; EFC is based on the past year’s income only. If the family has been making good money for many years, presumably assets would reflect that. However assets have a relatively low impact on the FAFSA EFC calculation.</p>
<p>As far as having 2 kids in college at the same time, it can be quite advantageous even for families having a relatively high EFC. For example, assume a FAFSA EFC of $60K, well above the cost of an expensive private. The EFC is split between the 2 kids (I’m talking FAFSA here; kid #1’s EFC= $30K, kid #2’s EFC = 30K. That’s how the FAFSA formula works assuming relatively equal assets in the kids’ names). If kid #1 goes to a public school costing $20K, and kid #2 goes to a private college costing $50K, the EFC of kid #2 could very well result in grants of $20K. This brings the family’s total cost for both kids to $50K, which turns out to be under the $60K EFC. </p>
<p>Some names and dollars have been changed to protect the innocent, but this is basically what happened with my 2 kids who will both be in college this fall.</p>
<p>As far as FA estimators using the “institutional methodology”… it shows us getting a lot more aid (in grants) than i ever dreamed we’d get based on our $160,000 income. I keep thinking that I’m inputting something wrong but I’ve come to think that because we live in an area where our housing costs are very low, we’ve taken out a home equity loan for remodeling, we have relatively no savings (spent a lot of D #1 for college), stocks, etc. that in comparision to most families applying to these schools we are “needy”???</p>
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<p>I don’t think that could be applied across the board. I know for SURE, some school that meets 100% of the need will take 60% of the EFC instead of 50%. So, for a familiy with a FAFSA EFC of $30,000 and have two kids going to college at the same time. One school might ask for only $5,000/year and the other might ask for $18,000/year. In other words, the family could be paying $36,000 or $10,000 with an EFC of 30,000.</p>
<p>^ Of course, I didn’t say this would be true for everyone, I was just providing one data point of FAFSA-only schools. Profile schools and schools with their own formulas are free to divide up EFC among kids however they want.</p>
<p>Your mileage may vary.</p>