FAFSA questions and schools with high merit aid

We have not yet filled out FAFSA because we would not have qualified for any aid. Both of our older girls got full tuition scholarships and even for the one year that both of them were in school at the same time, our EFC on the FAFSA 4-caster was $3000 above the cost of room&board for the two of them. While our income looks high on the FAFSA 4-caster, it doesn’t take into account the major medical bills we have had over the past several years or that we’ve already put two kids through school.

Our 20yo is going to graduate in May and is applying to grad schools. Grad schools acceptances in her major are around 20%, so even with a 3.95 GPA, it still isn’t a sure thing. My understanding is that as a grad student, she will be considered independent for FAFSA even though she is only 20yo. She has no income. Her scholarship paid for tuition, we paid for room and board, and she took community college classes in the summers to get finished in 3 years. Is there likely to be any issue with her getting loans through FAFSA for grad school? Her major is speech pathology and the clinical hours required make it difficult to have a job on top of going to school. She does not have a car. Our prime concern while she was an undergrad was that she maintain her GPA to keep her scholarship since that was worth a lot more than a minimum wage job would have paid.

We also have a 22yo living at home. She is working at just above minimum wage and saving up to buy a car and possibly return to college later after she figures out what she wants to do (lost scholarship after three years and changed her mind on her major, still doesn’t know what she wants to do). We are paying for her room and board at home along with medical and car insurance and having her on the family plan for her cell phone. Her only expenses are spending money and putting gas in the family car that we share. She has been saving at least 80% of her income, but her job is only part-time. Until she is able to buy a car, there will be transportation issues that will make it very difficult for her to get a full-time job. There is no public transportation.

Our 17yo will be going away to college in the fall. She has acceptances at her top two schools, but even though her scholarships are for >50% of the tuition, they still fall far short of what she needs. Her COA at Hofstra is almost $40k and at Pace is about $36k. She really needs to leave Texas because of her medical condition that makes her very prone to passing out when the temperature is over 80 degrees (year-round in Texas). This just started two years ago when she lost the ability to sweat. She is pretty much confined to the indoors year-round here except when we get cooler temperatures for a few weeks at a time. Her stats are good, but not great. She had a 27 composite on the ACT, has a 4.0 GPA on the 15 credit hours she has taken so far at the community college through dual credit and has a 3.8 GPA overall (unweighted). She is dyslexic and dysgraphic and has a connective tissue disorder that causes her to have constant pain which has been mostly in her dominant arm and shoulder for the past 1.5 years (and also causes the issue with passing out in the heat). She needed to be able to take it on a computer or have a scribe actually do the bubbling for her but that wasn’t approved. She was completely debilitated after taking the ACT and couldn’t use her right arm for several days, so she wasn’t able to take it a 2nd time to try to improve her score. Most of her teachers at the community college made computer versions of their tests for her and the disability office was willing to give her a scribe if she needed it. She didn’t get her official diagnosis from the geneticist until late October. Until that point, we were working off of many separate individual diagnoses for all the various problems caused by the connective tissue disorder. I’m sure that we could get the accommodation that she needs now, but by the time we got the official diagnosis, it was too late. We’ve been trying to figure out the diagnosis for five years.

She has applied for and been admitted to Hofstra and Pace in NY. She applied for Adelphi, but missed the early action deadline. We will hopefully hear from them soon. She has been admitted to UT Dallas (in-state school that is her financial safety).

Are there any other schools that you would recommend where her stats are high enough (overall GPA of 3.8, dual credit GPA of 4.0 with 15 credits, 27 ACT composite) that she would qualify for significant merit aid and has international business as a major and is LGBT-friendly and has a climate that is almost always below 80 degrees from late August through late May?

Your grad school daughter will be able to,take unsubsidized Direct Loans, and Grad Plus loans. Has she already been acceoted to grad speech path programs? If not, she should be applying to places where she might get a fellowship or scholarship. She should also look at your instate public options if you have ASHA accredited grad speech programs instate.

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1678964-links-to-popular-threads-on-scholarships-and-lower-cost-colleges.html#latest

Read the links in this thread. There is info about lower cost schools, as well as places where scholarships are possible. Read all the links. I will say, if your 17 year old is planning to enter college in fall 2016, she may have missed some of,the early application deadlnes for some of these merit awards. Would she consider one of the women’s colleges? I’m not sure she would get merit aid…that 27 ACT isn’t the top of their applicant pool, but it’s worth a try.

Your 22 year old…not sure if you can include her as a member of your household or not. You would need to be providing better than 50% of her support. Saving for a car doesn’t factor into this at all. That is her choice.

Read the responses on your other thread…

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1843771-fafsa-questions.html#latest

I am wondering why she applied to what is known to be one of the most expensive schools in NY and why she is applying to privates if you can’t afford it and if she is not a top student (for merit).

Further, I am wondering about the advisability of having a student with so many “disabilities” attend a school hundreds of miles from home. Will she be one of the students emailing her professors halfway through the semester about how she can’t attend and can’t take the tests and can’t etc (due to depression, disability, pain) while expecting that the professors construct a class just for her. I don’t think mental health and learning disabilities ought to be treated like physical ones because the accommodations simply don’t work in college the same way they would for a physical disability. If you are paralyzed, you can have a wheelchair to get to class but you can’t be a major league ball player. If you have learning disabilities you can be a major league ball player but class is a problem for some. You can get time and a half for taking tests but you don’t get time and a half added to each and every day.

I’ve seen so many students whose parents micro-managed their education through high school move half way across the country, be unable to achieve like peers but expect that the school accommodates them to the extent that they may expect A’s despite not attending class for months or not being able to work under pressure. Then they get through with immense accommodations and emails to instructors asking for various deals, and then apply to even more competitive post-grad programs. And then…

It may be better for your student to live at home and deal with the heat but have your assistance than to move across the country and try to deal with school without help. And it might make more sense to look at public schools if you can’t afford private ones.

Also, keep in mind…those schools in the south likely have all or mostly air conditioned buildings. That is NOT the case in the northeast…including NYC. Most dorms are not airconditioned.

You asked too much stuff at once and obscured the question you really wanted answered unfortunately I can’t follow it all now. What does a grad student have to do with anything for your other children unless you are favoring them?Have her apply to places that will up give more money. It doesn’t matter where you get in if it is too much after merit. Dump those expensive schools, no big shakes anyway, you are living beyond your means and I tldr’d your post anyway. Make a succinct list if you want help. I would try univ of Redlands in CA but iddunno I need a tldr’d of the kid we are talking about, not a long thing about other kids. And how much can u pay?

Agree with BrownParent. You have muddied the waters with a lot of questions.

If you want to know about the 17 year old, then post about that.

I already gave you info about the possible Speech Pathology grad student. That student should be looking for opportunities that are funded at least half the costs. Those programs are out there.

Also, please read the responses on the at least three other threads you have with many of the same questions.

Unless you are planning on moving to wherever your 17 year old is planning to go to school, I would have her stay in Texas. She will need to learn to manage her many issues and going away to an over-priced school is not going to help matters. Sometimes like throws you some serious curve balls. The movies will tell you to press on and everything will work out. Reality means that her dreams may have to be altered to have that happy ending.

If she insists on going out of state, she should probably have looked more at the NW. The temperatures are more consistently mild. The fact remains, however, that she is not likely to get much money from schools and will be saddled with out of state expenses.

I live in North Texas, too. The one working part-time needs to find full-time work. There is a lot of it around here. Either that, or work multiple part-time jobs. You are enabling her. Stop it. If you want to help, set a deadline for her to get a full-time job/multiple jobs and find a place of her own. She is not a kid anymore. Real jobs often offer tuition assistance. She can wrap up a degree while she works. Sounds like she needs a serious dose of reality.

As for the 1st one you mentioned…I don’t know where y’all are in NTX, but my college son worked for $9 an hour just sitting in a small business running the cash register. He earned enough over the summer to cover his apartment and food (he is only 19 and has a demanding major, too).

I don’t mean to come off harsh, but it really sounds like you may have allowed your daughters to rely much too heavily on you and find excuses when life gets a little tough. How are they going to survive when they get real jobs? Do them and you a favor, back off a bit and let them make some mistakes. They may be painful, but they need to learn to cope without mommy now.

We just did a road trip through Texas and the gas station (so much more than that really) Buc-ees starts their employees at 13 dollars an hour with 3 weeks of vacation. And their employees seem really happy.

As to the daughter looking at speech, she needs to attend the most affordable program she is accepted at, since the degree programs are accredited (ASHA).

If you daughter can get accommodations now for standardized testing, you might encourage her to take a GAP year and retake the tests. She needs to take the SAT, because it isn’t as time sensitive as the ACT. (and she should try to get accommodations on both) In addition, it will give her another year at home for her to manage her challenges . Also, to get a more realistic college list. As someone else said, the Northeast can get very hot and everything isn’t air conditioned.