<p>My son was recently accepted to Yale. He received a financial aid package of 29K is anyone familiar with Yale is this good? Should I file an appeal.... There has been no significant change in our financial situation but it will be tight to pay for and I will end up consuming all my assets and am concerned I would be able to fund college for girls when its their turn. I am expected to pay approx. 32K again we can scrape and get it but it will consume everything.</p>
<p>You cannot compare your package to anyone else’s unless you have the exact same financial situation! Good or bad is relative. People who are poor can get a lot of aid for but middle and upper income you can expect to pay a large amount, so you need to use college savings, not your retirement or strip your family bare. Otherwise it isn’t affordable. Did you run the Net Price Calculator for Yale and is that inline with the offer you received? Did you get larger offers at comparable schools? Also if it makes the difference, your son can take out student loans each year for 5,500, then 6.500, then 7.500 for the last 2 years to contribute.</p>
<p>It doesn’t seem wise to spend all the family funds on one kid if you have a couple of more to come. The good news is that students who are smart enough to get into Yale are smart enough to do well wherever they go. There are even studies that show that they do. I hope your kid has some affordable options. </p>
<p>Also there is a Yale forum and you can see others are having a bit of trouble with the packages too.</p>
<p>What I would do is to run the NPC for Yale, and play around with it to see what is causing some issues. Then check for anything that might help a little. I don’t know what Yale includes and doesn’t. Did your report an accurate primary home value? Is it a quick sale net of expenses value, not a regular look 'em up value. Would you really get that amount if you needed to sell your house within a month or two? That might be where you can bring some dollars into the fold. What is your FAFSA EFC vs what Yale expects you to pay? Your student can take those Direct loans up to $5500 and $3500 of that could be subsidized if there is the EFC to do so. How much work study is awarded? </p>
<p>Yale, nor any school is going to care a second that you have other kids that need college savings. In fact, anything you put away for them is assessed at about 5% toward your EFC, yes, sibling accounts are assessed too, so that argument isn’t going to get you anywhere.</p>
<p>Did you expect a larger award from Yale based on your income and assets? Yale meets full need, and has extremely generous need based financial aid.</p>
<p>What makes you hope for additional money from Yale?</p>
<p>Yale’s financial aid is based strictly on financial need. They do not offer merit scholarships. It will be pretty difficult to convince them to give you more aid.</p>
<p>If you “only|” received 29k in aid from Yale, then your income and/or assets are very high. Yale gives super aid, often only expects families to contribute about 10% of income if assets are average. If you are expected to pay 32k, then either yale made a big mistake or your income\assets are very high.</p>