They could consider equity differently.
They could lower the % of aid that is in the form of loans. They are playing fast and loose with the definition of “meeting 100% of need” that they tout at every turn. Their fundraising in recent decades has been spectacularly successful…endowment is well over $2 billion.
I’m sorry @moooop that you feel that way. No one said that a college needs to give you all the money free and clear of any responsibility to pay it back. Colleges often provide loans, and even work study amounts that you will need to work in order to pay back.
I do agree with you about the home equity, or other savings. The moment our D was born, we started socking away cash for college. A little bit each year. No way near enough to pay for all of college and grad school, but the equivalent of 2 years worth of college - to help her out. However, I can’t help but feel that someone else that did not save but blew the money on frivolous things, or vacations, will get more financial aid than us. We are almost penalized for saving.
But I have no issue if a percentage is loans and work study. Welcome to the real world, nothing is free.
I’m not saying they need to give me a dime. It’s a ftee market and they can give or not give me whatever they want, and I can accept their offer or move on. That’s what I said in m first post. It’s just that if you’re going to keep patting yourself on the back for meeting 100.% of need, and you’re going to do that by dishing out a bunch of loans, then don’t think that people aren’t going to notice.
^^ you make a fair point, mooop, but just understand that counting federal loans is a standard industry practice. There are few no-loan, meets-full-need colleges.
agree with blue. maybe the best way to say it is that even though they officially meet 100% of need, they are not especially ‘financially friendly’. you’ve got a range of financially friendliness among the 100%-meet-need schools, and the ‘no loan’ schools are at the top of that list. The ones that consider home equity and rely heavily on loans and large work-study amounts are at the bottom.
Dear moooop (and other readers) : Your post brings us back to the definition of “meeting 100% of demonstrated need”. As I have written many times, Boston College is doing itself a major Public Relations body-blow by not CLEARLY defining that sentence fragment. Successful applicants interpret those words to mean a chance at 100% scholarship … or a major mountain of cash assistance which is far from the case.
Every year for the last decade, the post-acceptance disappointment on financial aid is palpable. The only sure way to have the funds for a Boston College education is to put away $10,000 net cash per year from the time your child is born until they are 20 years old. Twenty years of net cash savings is what it really takes.
@moooop If you are bright enough to get into BC, you are bright enough for places like the Claremont Colleges, Williams, Middlebury and Wesleyan that have excellent financial aid programs and will not saddle you with loans. You could consider going to a public university and then transferring.
The NPC estimate of 8-9k should have been regarded as a best case scenario.
The difference between 1300 and 8000 is 6700. For a school that costs $65k, it’s pretty much the same amount of financial pain
You “agree”? Schools give out only as much merit money as needed to achieve their institutional targets. They don’t give it out because students think they deserve it.
Popular schools in popular cities generally don’t give generous merit aid, because they find that PLENTY of parents are willing to empty their 401k accounts and/or borrow heavily to fund it.
And my top choice for a car is a Bentley GT Continental convertible, but I drive an econobox. That’s life.
Pick one of the affordable choices and move on.
Merit scholarships are not given to reward students for doing well in HS…they are used to change enrollment decisions, so that schools get the applicants they want the most. Selective, popular schools like BC don’t need to discount tuition to attract top students who are willing to pay full freight.
just to update everyone on my bc appeal after a month long process bc increased their grant by almost 6x (from 3k to 18k) but I still have two schools that are cheaper (one by 5k and the other by 25k). I’m just glad they increased there aid and I’m posting this for anyone in the future who might have a situation similar to mine
@klingon97 I think you got this backwards. I think what you meant was that if you got admitted to the claremont colleges, Williams, Middlebury and Wesleyan then surely you could get into BC. Each of those schools you mentioned has an acceptance rate WELL below BC’s. BC’s acceptance rate is three times higher than Pomona’s. It’s approximately twice the rate of Williams and Middlebury.
@travisn10 I also want to appeal my financial aid offer. How did you do it? Did you call or email them? >-)
This happens at a lot of schools. Our DD was thrilled to get into Georgetown, but the FA was not feasible. If she were an only child, we might have given her the green light, but she has siblings. She went to a great school that provided a much better FA package. It is life.
there is a form you have to fill out
We had an EFC of 30,000 and they gave our son $3,500 per year loan. If they had gotten near our EFC there might have been a decision to make. $3,500 isn’t a joke, it’s an insult. Peer colleges gave $20,000+. I’m wishing we had read the BC FA threads before we wasted our App fee and test score fees.
Is that in merit aid? With the exception of a handful of Presidential scholarships, BC is need-based only. And that puts BC on the border: most schools ranked above it are need-based only, while schools ranked below BC offer merit aid, but do not meet “full financial need” (yes, as BC defines it, which includes home equity).
Tulane, for example, provides nice merit scholarships, but limited need-based aid, so for many, the merit is all that they will receive.
BC just has a different financial aid philosophy.
Is that philosophy, little to no merit and little to no need-based aid, while telling the world “apply here, we meet 100% of need” ? Sorry, but BC was such an outlier to all the other privates that I just needed to let future CC’ers understand this. I love BC and wish my son could have gone there but it’s not worth full pay, no school really is. (I’m out, dog pile me if you want)