Financial Aid at Union Surprisingly low

Colleges and Universities A-Z Union College - New York
1

<p>My niece was just accepted at both Union and Lafayette. She received no merit scholarships from either school, but did receive financial aid grants from both schools; however, the discrepancy was huge. Union offered less than $10,000, while Lafayette offered a grant of $27,000. Hobart, which is not as well endowed as Union, offered her $20,000.</p>

<p>I urged her to apply to Union because in the past, kids I've known who have gone there received very good financial aid awards. Has Union's policy changed? She was accepted at 7 schools, received merit scholarships from most of them, and Union offered the lowest scholarship/aid package (by at least $10,000) than the other six schools.</p>

<p>Has anyone else had this experience with Union? Does anyone know if the school's financial aid policies have changed?</p>

2

<p>Ditto for my daughter for Union compared to other liberal arts colleges. I called and they will consider an appeal. They wanted to see her other offers. Their finaid committee will be meeting April 16 to consider appeals.</p>

3

<p>She’s going to pass on Union - not worth going through a review process when the difference is that much, especially when she is already in at Lafayette and some other good schools. I was just wondering if Union is no longer putting out good aid packages, because I have two kids who’ll be reaching college age in the next two years, and was going to urge at least one to apply to Union.</p>

4

<p>Ditto again, most likely, for my daughter. We may do the appeal, and we are planning to go to an open house for admitted students–my daughter likes the love, and it’s a once in a lifetime experience. But she will probably go to the school which she thinks she prefers, and has offered 3 times the aid.</p>

5

<p>My s got in and did get merit award however the school is nearly 57K and it doesnt put a dent. I will appeal, s likes scholar progam a lot.</p>

<p>Lafayette gave no merit award at all. I was told to be happy he got in, very competetive this year.
I had him apply to both feeling the merit award money would be decent. Otherwise they both would be unafforable for us. Perhaps the climate has changed with the economy and all.</p>

<p>Thankfully he got some decent money elsewhere lehigh, northeastern and rpi. Sometimes I think there is no ryhme or reason to this process. Just a crap shoot.</p>

6

<p>" Just a crap shoot."</p>

<p>Indeed, my daughter got waitlisted at a school ranked in the 80s (US News) and got accepted with decent money by a school in the top 30.</p>

<p>I’ve heard rumors of kids getting rejected at their safeties because the school realizes it’s a safety and knows there’s little chance of them attending.</p>

7

<p>That stinks. I sure hope the FA tide turns next year cos he definately wants to apply to Union and we’d need the money truck to seriously pull up if we even wanted a shot. He’s trying to play football there. Anyone think that would matter?</p>

8

<p>As far as merit at Lafayette, there isn’t anything other than the $20,000 Marquis, right? There are no other levels of merit money there. It’s a very competitive selection.</p>

9

<p>JoBenny -</p>

<p>If the football coach is interested in him, have the coach run interference for you to make sure that you get the aid that you need. The coach has only a small number of slots he can get past admissions (I’m guessing that the number is in the 15 to 25 range), but if your son is one of those, the coach will do whatever he can to get him to go there, including going to bat for him at the financial aid department.</p>

10

<p>Good to know. THanks for the info! We’re still trying to navigate the college football thang as well…but we’ve been told while D3 can’t give athletic scholarships per se, like you said, they can definately grease the wheel in the financial aid department. And at Union, that wheel is gonna need a whole lot o’ grease! LOL</p>

11

<p>Send me a private email, and I can give you more info about the recruitment process. My friend’s son was a recent football player at Union, and I was a football player for a top academic, non-scholarship school. It’s a complex game, because the coaches will approach many kids, get them all excited, and dump them. The caliber of Division 3 football is much better than most people think - far, far better than high school.</p>

<p>D3 schools can’t give scholarships, but they can fully meet the need of a player, even if they don’t fully meet the need of a regular student. It also seems that some D3 schools seem to reserve their best merit scholarships for athletes. After college, I played on a semipro team with a guy who had been cut by an NFL team and had gone to a D3 school. He said he had a four-year, full merit scholarship guaranteed to him (he was pretty smart, probably above average for that school, but I think the fact that he was 6-6, 268 and ran a 4.6 40 had something to do with it, too).</p>

<p>The best way around this is to make sure your son has many options. You can never tell which school is going to ultimately give your son one of their spots, so he should apply to many schools (unless he decides to go early decision - if they don’t meet your need when going early decision, you are allowed to bow out).</p>

<p>I just did a count. My niece applied to 16 schools, was admitted to 8, and had financial aid or merit scholarships that ranged from $9500 (Union) to $27,000 (Lafayette), so the net costs ranged from $48,000 to $28,000, not counting the State U, which gave her $5000 in merit money, but had a lower full tuition rate. Applying to 16 schools was a lot of work, but the differences in aid were worth it, and has brought four private schools to within $4,000 to $7,000 of the cost of the state university.</p>

<p>Another bugaboo with non-scholarship athletics is that you can’t tell if the coach realy considers your son to be much of a prospect. If he can easily gain admission, the coach may pursue him without giving up one of his admissions slots. You’ll never know if he passed your son’s name to admissions, and the coach may think he has a marginal chance of playing.</p>

12

<p>A word on Union athletics and FA…</p>

<p>My child and three other friends are all athletes and recruited for three different sports. No one is attending. Two got less than $10K in FA, another $20K, but all loans and mine not much (but not too surprised). </p>

<p>One is an Olympic prospect and another is nationally ranked…coaches couldn’t do anything about FA. Too bad as they all liked the school very much.</p>

13

<p>All the above kids are either IB or STEM students with stellar academics, so that wasn’t an issue, either.</p>

14

<p>How on earth can Union profess to meet 100% of need? I just ran the numbers on the net price calculator and Union comes in at least 20K more expensive than every other school we’ve looked at. (that’s even with her highest projected grades and scores.)
Scratching Union off the list.
It’s too bad, it seems like it would be a really good fit for DD.</p>

15

<p>Colleges that say they meet !00% of need, do so as defined in their bizarro world.</p>

16

<p>when I went to union most of my friend’s parents could foot the entire 40-50k bill</p>

<p>Didn’t really know anyone on FA, except kids who were on sports teams and got “merit” scholarships and kids whose parents made <60k</p>

17

<p>On appeal, Union increased my niece’s financial aid offer significantly, to about $21,000. </p>

<p>She ultimately decided on Lafayette, but it was close. If Union had met Lafayette’s financial aid offer, she probably would have gone to Union.</p>

18

<p>Does anyone know the stats for Union’s ED international applicants?</p>