<p>Looking at the thread objectively, the situation with financial aid is quite definite. From all family economic situations, the cry is the same - “help is needed in making college affordable!” </p>
<p>Planning for funding the college experience needs to start earlier than most families realize. In many respects, our emphasis must be shifted from getting into the “right school” to how is the education to be funded and how do we preserve our assets and retirement nest egg. </p>
<p>Professional help is out there and families should seek it out and engage the services.</p>
<p>To make college affordable is a challenge. There are ways to make it successful and guarantee success for our children.</p>
<p>Ask this kind of question here and you’re sure to get these answers.</p>
<p>The big thing is for your son to not check the applying for aid box on the common app. You won’t hurt his chances if he doesn’t do that. For merit aid you can fill out the FAFSA and institutional or Profile forms if needed and just send to those schools.</p>
<p>Though I wonder, if FAFSA is required at merit aid schools why they need that info if need isn’t a factor.</p>
<p>“if FAFSA is required at merit aid schools why they need that info if need isn’t a factor.”</p>
<p>Fundraising. If you’re not applying for need-based-aid, you probably have a few bucks in the bank. Knowing exactly how much you have in the bank and how much you earn annually provides the fundraising team with high-value targets to call.</p>
<p>I received a large number of fundraising calls from son’s school shortly after he started. I attribute this to filling out the FAFSA.</p>
<p>It really is quite simple. If any of the schools your son(s) is/are applying to require FAFSA for merit aid and that is of interest, you should file. For instance, if you were to go to UMass, you need to file the FAFSA every year if your sons got the Adams or Koplic tuition waiver scholarship awards. And it doesn’t matter at all what your family income is for this type of award. It is a merit award and UMass requires the FAFSA. One of the things some people pay no attention to at some CC threads, is that we are talking about taxpayer money and everyone and anyone can apply for it. We were in the same boat as you and we filed and we are glad we did because some schools required it for merit aid and we never researched it enough that we would have known this ahead of time.</p>
<p>Congratulations on your accomplishments. I don’t really understand why some posters make a bid deal out of your income.</p>
<p>As far as your question whether or not filing a FAFSA hurt your chances for admission at highly competitive schools, in today’s economy kids/parents who can pay full tuition will have an advantage. As someone said before, do not check “Will apply for FA” box on the app form.</p>
<p>Also, from observing how merit aid gets awarded, it is (somewhat) income-based. Given 2 deserving kids, one from low-income family and one from upper-middle, the low-income kid will get it. So, I don’t see the reason for FAFSA at all.</p>
<p>We are in the similar situation (although income is not that high, but we are working on it). D applied to top schools, got admitted to her first choice (Ivy). We did not complete FAFSA and did not ask for aid. Not sure what was that magic combination of factors to get D admitted, but perhaps our ability to pay full freight was that extra tip…</p>
<p>Thanks to those who gave me helpful advice; I truly appreciate those posts. Bottom line, as I understand it, is go ahead and fill out the FAFSA and file it if any schools require it in order to be eligible for merit aid.</p>
<p>I think the bottom line on the merit aid schools is that a lot of merit had has little to do with the student’s actual merit and everything to do with an enrollment management technique that predicts how much ‘merit’ aid will be needed to get the student to enroll. Lots of college use this discounting to make themselves competitive with a student’s state school options.</p>
<p>I do wonder what happens when they see the very high incomes. Do they see these families as not needing the discount or do they see a lot of high income families looking for a deal?</p>
<p>BC, you know you’ve made it when you’re on the development office’s radar!</p>
<p>My experience has been that the merit money has little to do with AGI. It is all about enrollment management. If your student is in the very tippy top of the range of SAT/grades for a school you will probably see some merit. If they are in a major the school is trying to build you will see some merit, if they are in a geographic area the school wants to recruit from you will see some merit. Even when we had a high AGI both of our kids saw some merit money.</p>
<p>I don’t know about you guys, but I know that I do try to give a bit to our alma maters, out of our modest income, in order to provide financial aid for “those who can’t otherwise afford to go to college.” If I found out that the college was collecting my extremely hard-earned money and then giving it as financial aid to people making nearly a half a million dollars a year, I would be beyond livid! Don’t you feel a BIT guilty about taking financial aid that is collected as donations from graduating seniors, young adults in their twenties who are still struggling with loans and rent and the like?</p>
<p>I do know that I sat on a scholarship committee once where a family listed under “extreme financial hardships” the fact that they had an expensive hobby of collecting show dogs and that this had set them back quite a bit (as did their million dollar house, private schools for the children, the bills for the country club, the pricey private tutors and the like.) I also confess that the committee had an absolute field day with the application, making jokes about how it must be very expensive to have to shoe your polo ponies and refurbish your yacht. Quite a bit for the rest of us to wrap our minds around – especially since most of the scholarship money for this particular music scholarship had been collected from music teachers, many of whom make less than 30,000 dollars a year. </p>
<p>Actually, I’m extremely surprised that someone in your financial position isn’t GIVING donations to your alma mater so that they can aid others financially. It seems strange for someone at your level to still be taking, rather than giving.</p>
<p>Ok, so I’ve been thinking about this all day, and I’ve become more and more irritated. </p>
<p>How do people feel like they’re being PUNISHED for making nearly a half mil a year. You shouldn’t get aid because there are plenty of others who need it, and you do not. </p>
<p>If you take away that aid from others who need it, all you are doing is PUNISHING them because you choose to send your children to private school. Besides, there are plenty of private schools (very good ones at that) that do not cost 42k a year. </p>
<p>Yeah, I get that you want what’s best for your kids, and that’s admirable, but so do all other parents. However, you have the means to give them the best of the best and most parents do not. That’s why they rely on both merit and need based scholarships, and like momzie said, a lot of it is collected from alumni and are meant to go to kids that need it.</p>
<p>Yeah, you grew up poor. That should make you want to help out low-income kids even more by not taking money that some people actually need.</p>
<p>To answer - My son is only a junior, so he hasn’t applied yet; however he is at the top 3% or so of his class…over a 4.0 average (taking the most difficult courses offered) and great SAT scores. He is a hard worker and his efforts have really shown. We are proud of all that he’s accomplished. Don’t yet know how that will translate into acceptances, but we’ll see…</p>
<p>To Momzie, I’m done with this. I was not planning on responding to this kind of a response anymore, but yours just made my blood boil. I’m asking about filing FAFSA to qualify for MERIT aid…I’m NOT saying I deserve need-based aid.
And, not that it’s really any of your business, but since you basically accused me with no knowledge of it - DH and I both give generously to our alma maters, as well as numerous other charities. So, maybe your child will benefit from that; I’m sure others have. And to put one more spin on it - we send our children to private school, and pay the same taxes (and a lot of them) that others do who send their children to public school. We do so with no complaint - but we don’t benefit from that service. That would mean that I have been subsidizing others children’s education for 12 years now. Sorry - don’t mean to get on my soapbox and I am no critic of public schools, being a product of ones for my whole life (we chose private for a variety of reasons that I don’t need to go in to here - I know that was a choice we made…) </p>
<p>After all this, I am extremely sorry that I ever posted a question here…I’ve learned my lesson. I would like to thank those that actually took the time to answer my question and tried to help instead of the few that felt justified in attacking me. I appreciate their help and kindness.</p>
<p>I don’t blame you for feeling this way. You are probably new to CC, and unaware that “class war” chastisements arise here fairly frequently, so unfortunately, you set yourself up by asking a simple question. Rest assured there are at least several highly-educated (some from elite schools), lower-income-by-choice parents on this site who have no qualms about taking FA and merit aid for their kids, and see no hypocrisy in doing so. Apparently, their kids are more “deserving” of it than yours.</p>
<p>I would like to add that the OP did not mention here that her son has nearly 2400 SAT scores which, I think, could change things. I am thinking of U of Alabama, of course, but other schools that would be pleased to have a student with such high scores (even if on paper he was not in need of financial aid).</p>
<p>So, OP, I think if your kid wants a full ride, it is out there.</p>
<p>Another thing to keep in mind for anyone, regardless of income and ability to pay is that for many schools if you do not file fafsa for the first year you are then not considered in subsequent years if things change. We were lucky that the savings we had made for our S were available this year, and we were able to pay full for his first year. With the way things have gone, that 529 account is sort of disintegrated. So we have filed all forms for his sophomore year hoping that something (loan?) will come out of it. The year after we will have 2 in college, and will then be in a very tight financial place, as second sons 529 has been decimated!</p>
<p>So filling out fafsa can be a good idea in looking at the future possibilities, of which none of us are certain.</p>
<p>I think all of us here would approach college decisions rationally from a financial point of view. Why not? Our family income has been low enough and our kids high functioning enough that schools with strong need based aid worked for us. But that’s just us. I certainly don’t feel superior about it.
Momzie raises an interesting point. I wonder if private schools that are widely known to use their financial aid budgets in merit aid strategies suffer on the alumni donation end, as opposed to need only schools? I’ll bet this has never been looked at very carefully.</p>
<p>Merit money is for whoever the schools want. Anyone can have whatever opinion he wants, but it is the school that decides who gets the money.</p>
<p>In this area, a number of the Catholic high schools offer merit money in addition to financial aid. Just looking at who gets that merit money makes it pretty clear that need is definitely not a factor in its award. I’ve known very well to do families who have made that award an important factor, the deciding factor in where their child ends up going. So it works with colleges as well.</p>
<p>We did not qualify for financial aid, but we did seek merit money. </p>
<p>Danas, I’ve never heard of any study that analyzed that point, but most alumni are interested in keeping their schools strong in reputation and attracting the most desirable students. That is what merit money does. At my old school, the scholarships are very much tailored to target certain types of students. In our alumni magazine, that seems to attract alumni donations to fund those scholarships. Most of us are more inclined to donate if there is a common chord struck between our own interests and that of a cause. Though there are many who feel that merit scholarships should be token in amount, heavier on recognition than in actual dollars so that the money is funneled to those who need it the most, there are also many who feel that it is worthwhile to build excellence in a discipline by attracting top scholars with merit dollars. </p>
<p>These days I think it is going to be getting more difficult for all but the top name colleges to justify those high costs. I have heard several people say that they just cannot see paying those prices without getting the name/reputation benefit. Things are just too tight these days. I think some schools are going to have to discount their prices more even more through merit awards to get those students that have a lot of choices for them to choose their school.</p>
<p>Just heard a Toyota ad with $1,000 rebates on the Prius. Those things were selling for a premium last year with long waiting lines. If it can happen to Toyota, then it can happen to expensive private u too.</p>
- My son is only a junior, so he hasn’t applied yet; however he is at the top 3% or so of his class…over a 4.0 average (taking the most difficult courses offered) and great SAT scores. He is a hard worker and his efforts have really shown. We are proud of all that he’s accomplished. Don’t yet know how that will translate into acceptances, but we’ll see…</p>