<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>I just have a quick question. I am currently an incoming sophomore at Swarthmore College. Last year I got about $43,000 in scholarship money. It did not include a federal Pell grant. This year, I am eligible for a Federal Pell grant for about $5,000, and my EFC was 0. Nevertheless, I got less in total financial aid resources and my parents are expected to pay about $3600 more this year compared to last year. I would think that because I am eligible for a Pell grant, my parents would have to pay less this year. Could someone explain that to me? Thanks.</p>
<p>Likely because their endowment took a hit like most every other college. They probably don’t have as much money to go around.</p>
<p>Now go make an appeal. The squeaky wheel is the one that will often get the grease.</p>
<p>I thought Swat met full need. This students scenerio does not make sense. I would have them call the financial aid office.</p>
<p>Many full need provided colleges have a student contribution built into their aid formulas. This amount increases each year. Dartmouth, I know, for one has such a formula. It is not easy to get this information on these schools as a rule. </p>
<p>I have found that college expect students to work more, earn more, borrow more as they go on through college.</p>
<p>Pell is entirely dependent on the FAFSA EFC. However, there could be Profile information that Swarthmore deems to warrant less aid, info which was not reflected in the FAFSA. That’s one possible scenario that would cause this.</p>
<p>The other thing…if this student gets the full Pell, wouldn’t that reduce her NEED by that amount…thus the money given by Swat would be less by that amount.</p>
<p>Well, the Swat money could shrink, but the aggregate should not, all else being equal. But the student says the family share went up, indicating that overall, less need was met. that’s why I’m thinking there might be a non-FAFSA change in circumstances.</p>
<p>Okay, thanks guys, for your replies. I guess the answer is that the Pell grant is just based on FAFSA, whereas the financial aid office thought that even then, my family was expected to pay more. I didn’t know that colleges expect more money from parents and students each year. The amount of money expected from my summer earnings and work-study didn’t increase. Just the expected parent contribution.</p>
<p>dchow…does Swat distinguish between the parent contribution and the student contribution? I know that most schools have a FAMILY contribution that includes both. Swat also uses finaid information other than the FAFSA to compute financial aid awards (need based). You say you got a scholarship. Was this a merit award (the $43,000) or was it a need based award. If it was a merit award (does Swat give merit awards?), what were the criteria for continued awards…and was it guaranteed for four years? If it was a need based award, it will be recomputed annually.</p>
<p>Your FAFSA EFC was $0…but your institutional family contribution must have been higher than that.</p>
<p>Was your family’s or your income (or assets) higher for the 2008 tax year than for the 2007 tax year?</p>
<p>Yes, Swat does distinguish between parent and student contributions, on the financial aid award letter. But when they ask for the bill, it doesn’t matter how it’s divvied up, as long as they get the right amount. So maybe my expected contribution is around $1900, but if I get a really high-paying summer job, I can use my earnings to help my parent contribution. The Swarthmore scholarship was need-based. Swat gives very, very few merit awards. I think there’s one for students around the Pennsylvania area. I don’t really know anything about it, but you can find stuff at the Swarthmore financial aid website. Since it’s a Swarthmore scholarship, it varies from year to year. This year it was much, much less. </p>
<p>My family’s income was higher in 2008 than it was in 2007. But I don’t think it went up that much.</p>
<p>My son is at a peer school with similar aid policies. He was not eligible for a Pell grant last year, but for 2009-10 he is because we’ll have a second child in college. In his case the Pell grant did not cause an increase in our family contribution. His summer earnings expectation went up by several hundred dollars (that is automatic and we were expecting it), but all the Pell grant did was to displace the same amount of institutional aid the college would have given him. It’s a wash for us, but probably helps the college a little since they don’t have to pay that amount out of their financial aid budget.</p>