Hello! As ED deadlines loom, I was wondering if anyone could share their experience in terms of the financial aid granted by Cornell in comparison to any cost calculator you completed prior to application. Thanks so much!
Still in process but I am expecting nothing as much as anything would help.
Parent of first-year, no business ownership or other financial complexities. The financial aid award was very close to that estimated in the NPC.
Not a fan of the way Cornell calculates financial aid. In our case the expected parent contribution is slightly more than what FAFSA estimates. On top of that Cornell asks for a student contribution of about 15% of the EFC. Then they subtract out Stafford loans, Perkins loans, and work study to arrive at what they will provide for a grant. None of the other colleges that our kids either applied to or attended included loans and WS in their FA calculations
Ours was almost exactly the same as the cost calculator, within a few hundred dollars both years.
I think Cornell’s EFC was a little higher than our FAFSA EFC for our son (2 in college this year), but they put him in a special program that covers most of his student loans and they let outside scholarships cover the rest and work study which brought our actual out of pocket costs back down to about our FAFSA EFC for him.