<p>Has anyone had experience appealing a financial aid decision at Oberlin? We received no aid other than an unsubsidized Stafford loan and we can't afford the cost. Since our child was admitted ED, what do we do?</p>
<p>Have you run a NPC for Oberlin? What are the numbers that you are getting for a FAFSA estimate? Even more importantly, what can you afford? </p>
<p>I ask the first two questions, because they give you some idea of what Oberlin’s formula says your family should be paying and what the federal government says you should be paying. With that information, if Oberlin is not meeting those numbers, you have some basis for a discussion and appeal. If it is a situation where your family numbers are such that these formulas say you are not entitled to financial aid, that your family income/asset levels are such that you should be able to pay the full cost, then your student is not going to get aid. Schools do not give aid just as they feel like doing so, but by formula with income and assets determining need. </p>
<p>If you cannot affford Oberlin and the calculators are saying you should be able to do so, then you let OBerlin know that without X in aid, your child cannot go there, and request to be released from the ED commitment if the school cannot come up with the aid.</p>
<p>You’ve now gotten an early warning that your child is probably not going to be eligible for financial aid. If you have a non custodial parent situation where that parent has income/assets that have to be counted but s/he won’t pay, you need to look at schools where you can get a waiver, or where the NCP info is not used. You also should look at schools where you student is a top candidate, way up there, and that has scholarships that will bring the cost down to what you can afford. </p>
<p>Make sure there are some schools on the list that will take your child and that are affordable. It looks like your family does not qualfy for financial aid. That means loans or scholarships.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your very detailed reply. What do NPC and NCP stand for? Where should I look for the calculators that you mention? Is it family income that matters the most in the calculation? What about home equity? Are families expected to borrow against their homes? What about living in a high cost city, which we do…</p>
<p>NPC = Net Price Calculator (do a search on the school website to find it)
NCP = Non-Custodial Parent (some schools require NCP info; others don’t)</p>
<p>FAFSA-only schools do not consider home equity. Profile schools do . . . but how they treat home equity varies from one school to another.</p>
<p>Here: [Oberlin</a> NPC](<a href=“http://new.oberlin.edu/arts-and-sciences/admissions/finances/npc.dot]Oberlin”>http://new.oberlin.edu/arts-and-sciences/admissions/finances/npc.dot)</p>
<p>Family income is the main factor in determining ability to pay. If your family income is over $100K, you will see a rapid increase in % of income you are expected to pay towards your child’s college. At around $150K, I believe, you won’t get financial aid from most schools. I may be off some on my numbers, but you get the general lay of the land here. You have a certain asset protection amount determined by age and then you are expected to pay about 5.6% of your assets towards college. Your home equity is used as part of your assets but some schools cap the amount by % of annual family income. I don’t know Oberlin’s formulas and caps. Make sure that your home equity number is offset by any liens, mortgages and in use credit lines against that value. It is your NET home equity. High cost of living cities and locales are NOT taken into consideration.</p>
<p>NPC or Net Price Calculator is an estimate only, as to what the school is likely to expect you to pay. Since you have the exact number from Oberlin already, and that all you got was the unsub Stafford means they expect you to pay full freight since that loan is available to just about anyone and does not come from Oberlin but from the federal government. They do not expect you to qualify for any government aid in terms of subsidies of the loans either from what your award package is. But you can run the numbers through the Oberlin NPC and see if you come up with something different.</p>
<p>NCP is a Non Custodial Parent and that occurs in cases of divorces, separation, or non marriage of the students parents. The Custodial parent only has to fill out the FAFSA for government aid purposes, but schools like Oberlin also require the form CSS PROFILE which i am pretty sure you filled out which does also ask for the non custiodial parent’s financials. For example, if a student’s parents are divorced, the one he lives with the most is the custodial parent and only that parent needs to complete the FAFSA. But if applying to a school like Oberlin, the other parent also needs to fill out the CSS PROFILE in addition to the custodial parent, and both parents’ financials are taken into acccount for any financial aid.</p>
<p>The school doesn’t so much expect that families have to borrow against their homes, as they recognize the fact that someone who owns a house that is an asset has that asset over anyone who does not have a house that has any equity in it, and can tap that resource. Many people say that EFC (Expected Family Contribution) stands for Every Friggin’ Cent (and some say "Friggin’ is too nice). Then you get to the CSS Profile and they go after the silver in your teeth figuratively and the roof over your head, literally.</p>
<p>Oberlin is not unusual in how they calculate financial aid among the category of schools that tend to meet most or all of the need. In other words, you got a pretty generous read of your situation and are highly unlikely to get anything different in terms of financial aid at any school unless you have a NCP or high home equity situation skewing your numbers where a school that uses FAFSA only and decides to give your student close to full need is in the picture. I don’t know any FAFSA only schools that guarantee to meet full need and most of them don’t, but if your student has high stats in terms of test scores and classrank, the chances increase as to getting full need even in schools that don’t guarantee or give it in most circumstances.</p>
<p>But the reality is that in an ED scenario, a school like Oberlin is giving you everything they can. Schools do not tend to play games in ED. My guess is that your family does not qualify for financial aid unless you made some gross errors in filling out the financial aid estimate form. But a student who is accepted at a school like OBerlin is highly likely to find some school willing to come up with some merit money for him. To find that kind of money, you need to look at schools that give merit scholarships in large amounts and where your kids stats put him at the very top of the student pool at those schools.</p>
<p>Thank you all so much for taking the time to lay this all out. This is extremely helpful.</p>
<p>Our DS was also accepted ED1 to Oberlin.</p>
<p>We completed an early financial aid estimate process with Oberlin prior to the ED1 application deadline.</p>
<p>It involved completing the CSS Profile and sending the Financial Aid Office at Oberlin a copy of DS’s HS transcript, SAT, ACT scores.</p>
<p>They returned, within a few days, still before the ED1 deadline, a letter detailing an estimated financial aid package, so we would have an idea of whether it was within reach. The estimate that came with the acceptance letter was quite similar.</p>
<p>Our DD received very generous merit aid at Oberlin–greater than need-based awards at other schools where she was admitted. She did not apply early decision and I don’t know when merit scholarships are awarded for early decision applicants, but you might want to call and see if your child is likely to receive that.</p>