<p>I am a little bewildered. My familys EFC is not very high, and we cant afford to pay full price for any school.</p>
<p>I have ultimately chosen a state school, and now I have heard that you end up paying more than you probably more than you would at a private school.</p>
<p>I have not received the financial aid pkg from any state school yet (I applied to a couple), so I am not sure what they will offer, but I assume all loans since I didnt qualify for the state Pell Grant. </p>
<p>So if I end up with a bunch of loans to cover everything, I might as well go to one of the private schools which gave me some money in scholarships and grants, right? I am so confused.</p>
<p>Our EFC is about 8000. Costs are probably going to be about $20k by the time you figure in housing, books, etc. Has anyone gone to a state school and gotten any sort of grants or fin aid and not all loans?</p>
<p>My daughter is in a State U and has a lot of grants but she is Pell eligible. If she was not Pell eligible she would have no grants. All her grant aid is either federal or State, non is institutional from the actual school. She also has good merit aid leaving her 'need' fairly minimal. Without the merit money she would have a lot of loans. She has had work study both years. The first year she declined part of the WS (she had a part time outside job lined up with something related to her major) so ended up with @ $3000 in loans. This year she did the WS and has only $400 in loans. We don't expect her to have much in loans this year either (we hope anyway - they are much slower than usual getting the aid package out this year so we are hoping for no unpleasant surprises).</p>
<p>If you have the stats for a competitive private school you may get some merit money at the State U which makes all the difference. Otherwise which is more affordable will depend on what the left over balance is after non loan financial aid at the private schools.</p>