<p>After financial aid and scholarships, I'll have to pay $2,600 a year, which is less than the ~$4,300 for personal expenses and travel...do we actually <em>have</em> to pay this money to Harvard, or do we just pay for tuition and room and board? Does anyone know? And since the $4,300 is more than the $2,600 I have to pay, will Harvard just give me credit to use to spend on personal expenses (e.g. books)? And what does personal expenses generally encompass?</p>
<p>Sorry if this is basic information covered elsewhere. Another thread spawned my curiosity here, and I figured it wouldn't hurt to post.</p>
<p>Personal expenses includes your books, middle of the night burritos or falafels or pizza, dorm room party supplies, umbrella replacement, off-campus entertainment, etc. You don’t need to buy additional food if you make it to the Dining Hall during hours. Books take the biggest chunk out of your budget (although you can sometimes save by finding second-hand books). And it’s my impression that most Harvard-sponsored entertainment/athletics are pretty much free to undergraduates. </p>
<p>My son who is a Freshman will end his first year under that $4200 budget and he has eaten plenty of pizza and falafels and burritos!</p>
<p>Because you have an award for part of the Personal Expenses, my guess is that it would be given to you in the form of a check at the beginning of each semester. Don’t hesitate to ask the Financial Aid office, they’re there to help.</p>
<p>^ That is absolutely incorrect. You will not receive a check at any time for living expenses. As cltdad said, they are simply estimates of what you might be paying during the year. Thus, they are factored into your financial aid award. This is true also of any transportation budget.</p>
<p>Maybe I misunderstood… I thought the OP was saying that his financial aid award included coverage for some portion of budgeted personal expenses and travel… perhaps there’s an expected work component that covers this?</p>
<p>In any case, OP, don’t hesitate to ask the financial aid folks…</p>
<p>@ Mebble - you understood me correctly, thanks for the insight, it really helped. Harvard is indeed offering me more aid than tuition and room and board costs - how will they give the rest of that money to me for my personal expenses/travel? That’s the question.</p>
<p>But I definitely will ask the financial aid officers their take on the matter. Thanks again everyone.</p>
<p>OP, I’m wondering the same thing. I’m going to ask a fin aid officer during pre-frosh weekend. It’d be pretty sweet if they just hand us a check :)</p>
<p>I’m in the same situation as you guys. I think the money for food would be added directly to the account, but I’m not sure about travel and the other expenses.</p>
<p>Well there is a thing called Crimson Cash, which is accepted for on-campus laundry, at the Coop, and by a lot of other vendors in Harvard Square. Some students put money into their Crimson Cash account, but it could (possibly, and I’m totally talking out of school here) be the way that the Fin. Aid office disburses funds for personal expenses.</p>
<p>I found my son’s Financial Aid award letter to be difficult to parse. On the one side, there are all the awards which included an expectation for work. On the other side is what you are expected to pay. My son had personal savings and a good summer job and decided not to work during his freshman year, so he covered the term-time job budget out of pocket.</p>
<p>Your term bill will just be for Tuition, Fees, Room and Board, and Health Services and Health Insurance, which is required. If you already have Health Insurance through your family you’ll need to fill out a release so that you don’t have to pay the insurance part, although everybody pays the Health Services part. The rest of the items on your budget are up to you to manage. You can live pretty cheaply if you aren’t lured by the fast food and merchandise in the Square.</p>
<p>Guys, you are way off base. No one is going to hand you a check. They come up with an estimated budget that you will have to live on. They then award you a certain amount of grants and term-time job (possibly) toward that number. You will NEVER get a check for travel, books, food or other expenses. It just doesn’t work that way.</p>
<p>The question that is being asked here, twinmom, is not whether Harvard gives grants for personal expenses (the answer to this has been quite obvious since the beginning of this thread), but how the grant money awarded for travel and personal expenses is given to the student. It should also be noted that some students’ travel+personal expenses exceed the amounts designated to be earned from their term-time jobs significantly.</p>
<p>twinmom, you’re misunderstanding the question. Some low-income students get enough financial aid to cover all of the tuition and room/board expenses, plus even more to cover the estimated travel and personal expenses. We are wondering how those students receive the travel and personal expense money.</p>
<p>I’ve heard of Crimson Cash (I actually used it last summer while I was at Harvard), and that would be an ingenious way to give the money to us, actually…accepted by pretty much everyone on and near campus, so it would be generally universally useful for personal expenses while at the same time precluding us for using the money for weed or something. Hmm.</p>
<p>twinmom is not misunderstanding the question. She has said unequivocally that “you will NEVER get a check for travel, books, food or other expenses.” This means that no student RECEIVES actual money from the College.* In other words, no student “receives grant money awarded for travel and personal expenses.” Students are expected to pay for travel and personal expenses from the money they earn during the summer and the academic year. What else do you think that money is used for?</p>
<p>*I need to qualify that statement. Some students receive a $100 grant to buy winter clothing. Some students also receive a $100 grant from the Kimball Fund to help out with miscellaneous personal expenses. Finally, in exceptional cases the university will provide grants to cover a portion of travel expenses or emergency term-time costs. But these are rare events and require an application complete with documentation.</p>
<p>twinmom is not misunderstanding the question. She has said unequivocally that “you will NEVER get a check for travel, books, food or other expenses.” This means that no student, under normal circumstances, receives actual money from the College.* Students are expected to pay for travel and personal expenses from the money they earn during the summer and the academic year.</p>
<p>*I need to qualify that statement. Some students receive a $100 grant to buy winter clothing. Some students also receive a $100 grant from the Kimball Fund to help out with miscellaneous personal expenses. Finally, in exceptional cases the university will provide grants to cover a portion of travel expenses or emergency term-time costs. But these are rare events and require an application complete with documentation.</p>
<p>No, even with the money from my work-study job and my summer earnings taken out of the picture, Harvard is still giving me more grant money than is part of the tuition and room/board.</p>
<p>All right, this is probably a really stupid question, but is food included in the estimated cost for “Room and Board”? There’s no way it’s a part of “personal expenses”, right?</p>
<p>Okay, now that I look at my financial aid letter a little more closely, I do have to pay for personal expenses and travel myself, probably out of either “student contribution” or “term-time job”. Still though, the grant money should be paying for at least some portion of the cost of meals.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if I did the math correctly, but I think the only way for Harvard to be paying for your personal expense and travel is if your student and parent contribution combined is less than $1026.</p>
<p>For me, I’ll be receiving $4,000 in outside scholarships my first year on top of my Financial Aid grant. This effectively covers all of my expected student contribution (Fed. Work Study - $2,500 and Student Contribution $1,500 == $4,000)…which leaves a Parental Contribution of $2,600 (which I’m curious about, actually, because I have a parental income of ~$27,000 - shouldn’t Parental Contribution be $0 in most instances?)…Personal Expenses are $3,226, and Travel Allowance is $500. That adds up to $3,726. $3,726 - $2,600 = $1,126 that Harvard seems to “owe” me. The question is, how will Harvard transfer the $1,126 to me? (The scholarships write checks directly to Harvard, to clarify). </p>
<p>Eliana - it sounds like you’re getting a little more aid than I am. Maybe your letter would help clarify better, if you’re willing to upload it.</p>
![http://projecthuman.org/files/Harvard_Financial_Aid_Letter_Ben.JPG[/url]](http://projecthuman.org/files/Harvard_Financial_Aid_Letter_Ben.JPG%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
