<p>Could any current students with 100k-125k income tell me what their Swarthmore financial aid packages looked like?</p>
<p>Thanks so much!</p>
<p>I'm not sure how appropriate this question is to ask, since everyone's financial situation is so different, and income is only one factor in the bigger picture - I'm not sure how helpful that would be. Do you have questions about what different kinds of support financial aid awards? Or how people work with the office on their aid packages? Or...?</p>
<p>No, I just kind of want a ballpark. I think it will be useful.. </p>
<p>Or, alternatively, can people tell me how Swarthmore's financial aid compared to other schools they were accepted to?</p>
<p>Swarthmore's need-based financial aid is among the strongest in the country. It is one of the dozen or so schools that has gone totally no-loan effective 2008-09.</p>
<p>Here's a link with some financial aid stats:</p>
<p>It is totally useless to ask what aid package somebody else got. Aid packages are like snowflakes. No two are the same.</p>
<p>my parents make about 150-170ish depending on their bonuses. last year they made about 150. i think about $23-25k in grants, about 2k in work study, it was my second best package. however, everyone's situation is different. i have two siblings in private schools so that might have changed it.</p>
<p>There are any number of financial aid calculators on the internet that would give you a pretty good idea.</p>
<p>are you freaking kidding me?!?!
my parents make about $140k and we got about $7k in grants, and my mother is currently in college.
i have a friend in a similar situation with fin aid. many i've talked to here agree that their "no loan policy" is really misleading. it's true that everyone's package is different--especially at swat, where they ask for lots of extra info--but you might just be UNPLEASANTLY surprised, too. i'll have about $150k in loans to pay off after this education.</p>
<p>holy cow.</p>
<p>Seconded. It doesn't seem like they take special circumstances OR cost of living into account. If you're in the unfortunate position of living in California, tough luck. Transfers beware--they send the financial aid packages out really late. Compare with your other schools...when Swat tuition goes up, the aid doesn't follow.</p>
<p>In a recent conversation I was having with Jim Bock, he seemed a little frustrated at how people feel deceived by the whole no-loans thing--Swarthmore is not giving any more loans. Period. </p>
<p>How people decide to cover the part of the cost Swarthmore doesn't pay is up to them--how in the heck would Swarthmore actually prevent you from taking out loans?</p>
<p>I don't get financial aid. So if I wanted to take out a loan to pay the $160k+ cost of Swarthmore, do you think they should be covering it?</p>
<p>There are, no doubt, individual students unhappy with loans--and, sometimes, rightly so. But if you look at the number, Swarthmore gives out more money to more students compared to all but a very small number of other schools.</p>
<p>the problem is that they spun this "no loans" thing to make it sound as if students would end up receiving more aid. i don't know how or why this happened, but the majority of new students/specs i've spoken to felt similarly misled. i don't remember the exact details, but during my first visit to swarthmore last spring, i recall financial aid being discussed by our info session leaders. they told us that swarthmore is just soooo great with financial aid and the financial aid office GUARANTEES that you won't graduate with more debt than some particularly manageable figure...i can't remember what, but i know it wasn't more than $15k. i was amazed! i called my parents immediately after the info session and told them about this. since then, i haven't heard anything about this magical figure. i don't even know what those two students could have been referring to. is this something the admissions office tells them to do?
arador, i have NO CHOICE but to take out a loan. i don't "want" to take out a loan. but my parents cannot afford to pay HALF of their take-home pay every year for my tuition. that's insane. i don't know how financial aid decided that they could afford to contribute that much. they just can't! additionally, i'm going to be the one paying back the loan, not my parents, although that figure was decided upon based on their finances.
aside from all this? i love swarthmore. it's great. it's the complete opposite of my old school in every way, which is precisely what i was hoping for. i just hope i can still remember how much i love it when in a few years i'm trying to pay back $140k of loans.</p>
<p>In a sense, they did get more aid--instead of $10,000 in loans, you'd receive $10,000 in grants. Which means $10k less that is accumulating interest, and $10k less you'll have to pay back. And I'm sure they'd guarantee you wouldn't graduate with more than 15k in debt ... <em>from</em><em>Swarthmore</em>. As I wrote above ... how exactly can they control how much debt a person decides to take on?</p>
<p>But yea--it is a confusing thing to say the school is "loan free," --and it has been amped up to almost be a heavenly solution to all financial aid problems ... but the total cost to the college isn't all that high (~1.27 million / year), so it is hard to think that actual impact on most students will be that huge, particularly when spread across the ~700 students receiving financial aid.</p>
<p>Persoanlly, I think Swarthmore's policy is fair and the loan-free issue was not confusing to us at all. Swarthmore was not the best offer we got - but we had no expectations that we would not have to pay towards D college education. </p>
<p>I am always amazed that people can make in excess of 100K and not put anything away in 18 years towards a college fund! Unfortunately, in this country, university is not a free ride...so how do you justify making $140K a year and there has been no preparation for college tuition?</p>
<p>End result is the student has to take on the burden of the tuition cost. But that was a decision made long ago by the family. I personally would not let my child take on that much debt.</p>
<p>You can justify making $140K a year and not being able to save much for college when you live in extremely expensive cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, etc. While $140K may seem like a large income to much of the country, in these cities it is quite meager. Just because FAFSA says it is not meager, doesn't make it so. NYC, for example, costs three times what most cities cost for living expenses. So, if you make $140K and live there you can understand how you would not be able to save much. The reality is that even $200K is very middle class for some areas of the country that are very expensive to live in.</p>
<p>my family didn't make $140k all these years. they put some away, but until a great thing happened to us five years ago, they made a third of this! swarthmore did not take that fact into account at all.</p>