<p>My parents make less than 40k a year, and as I've read tuition is free for parents who make less than 40k a year, so why is my FinAid about 7k short? I'm not complaning, I'm just curious. If I call them will they make a change. Also my family owns a bit of property. Would this affect the FinAid?</p>
<p>There is more to college expense than tuition. Without seeing your award letter, chances are that 7k is for student expenses like travel, personal and other misc. expenses that are included in the cost of attendance. Not everyone spends the total estimated cost of attendance each year.</p>
<p>If your parents have a lot of investments, it’s possible that you won’t get a full ride even if their income appears to be below some threshold. I’m talking stocks, bonds, etc. I know for a fact that Duke doesn’t consider the value of the home that you live in in it’s calculations. However, investment property where you and your parents do NOT live might be used in the calculation. I have no idea if this is the case in your situation, but just throwing out the possibility. After all, it wouldn’t really be fair for somebody to get a full ride whose parents have $5 million in the bank but retired early and thus have minimal income. So, financial aid isn’t 100% based purely on salary. If you have any questions, though, it doesn’t hurt to ask the financial aid office.</p>
<p>Do they really not consider the value of your home? That would explain why I got such an outstanding FA package. My parents don’t make a lot of money, but our house is worth a lot.</p>
<p>From the FA policies page on Duke’s FA website, I’m given to understand that your Effective Family Contribution (EFC) as calculated using the FAFSA (for allocation of federal grant and loan funds) do not take into consideration home equity. However, EFC calculated using the CSS PROFILE (for allocation of Duke FA funds) does up to a certain cap that is based on the income level. I have no idea how all of that works out though. </p>
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<p>Source: <a href=“http://finaid.duke.edu/documents/policies/policies_ch6.pdf[/url]”>http://finaid.duke.edu/documents/policies/policies_ch6.pdf</a></p>
<p>So I guess if your parents just bought that really nice house and just started paying off the mortgage then it probably won’t factor too much into the EFC.</p>
<p>Another thing is, I’ve looked over the part of the Tuition, and I’m wondering what the difference is between housing and board? Is this not the same thing? Or am I being really dense? Thanks! By the way, if I have to fly really far to get to Duke because I’m not really close to it, say around $2500, does this factor into my financial aid or does this mean I have to pay the extra airfare out of my own pocket? Oh, this is roundtrip. And does anyone know what ones does in workstudy and how many hours it takes?</p>
<p>cosabelle, just settle down. You don’t need to know everything that’s going on…that’s part of the experience of being a freshman. Also, you could find a lot of this stuff online if you just googled it.</p>
<p>Housing is your dorm and board is your meal plan. If you are an international student then airfare should be budgeted in to your financial aid award. This probably just means that it’s included in the lump sum check they give you for personal expenses. You can see the amount given on ACES under “transportation”. If it ends up costing you more, then yes, you’ll have to pay out of pocket. I don’t know where you live but I bet I could find roundtrip airfare for less than $2500 to essentially any part of the world…so look harder, lol.</p>
<p>In work study you work. Haha, there is no single “work study” job, there are just different jobs around campus that allow you to work there. You might work at the library, or at the Outpost, or in a lab, or for a sports team, or an academic department, etc., etc. Just go to the job fair in the Bryan Center during the beginning of the school year and you’ll be able to find a job there. Everyone loves to hire work study students because they only have to pay them half (the university pays the other half). Hourly wages vary. I think the minimum is like 8.50, so you should probably expect somewhere around 8.50-10$/hour.</p>
<p>Now no more questions for a while…just embrace the unknown adventure that awaits you, haha.</p>
<p>$2500 is indeed possible for some places, however I find that getting tickets from travel agents usually saves a couple hundred dollars off the published fares on the web when I want to travel across the world. It couldn’t hurt to at least ask for a quote. </p>
<p>As for work study, think of it as just like any other job on campus except part of your wage is subsidized by Duke or the federal government instead of coming from your boss. You still have to find a job and work. The advantage is that since it costs much less to hire you compared with a non-workstudy student, you’ll have no problem finding an opening.</p>