??
Your EFC with 2 in college was $4k each.
Your EFC with 1 in college should be at least $8k
Did you include your college fund?
Did you include YOUR savings?
I don’t understand why you have a need for prestige.
You have a need for funding. Everyone on this platform is giving you savvy and knowledgeable advice for being able to attend a university on a limited income.
Your stats are not high enough that you will get a “prestigious” university setting with merit or need based aid.
First of all, you aint got the money, and secondly, what the heck is wrong with attending an in-state school? The education is what you make of it. If you go to a school thinking it is second rate, or not good enough for your standards, then you won’t graduate.
After you graduate and have diploma in hand, no one will care where you went to school when you apply for jobs.
If you keep chasing unrealistic goals, you will be sorely disappointed.
Thank you aunt Bea. The concern for funding is completely justified. Prestige is not as high of a priority. The unrealistic goals are reach schools and I see no reason to not at least apply and see what financial aid I could receive. Although, with your advice I have decided to cut out some out of state options and include more in state schools. I will be content with an in state school, but I would like the opportunity to aim higher if possible with more of an interest in breaking out of Utah than just going to a school for its name. Thank you for all the help!! It is plenty helpful considering I was unaware of all the extra implications that come with going out of state.
I don’t think you need any more instate schools than U of U or USU. I assume BYU must not be on your radar. You just need match schools you can pay for. Lots of high stats Utah kids don’t go OOS. You would almost have your Utah offer already, no?
No not BYU, I have already been accepted to USU and I will not hear back from U of U until February because I applied to their honors college. Are there any match schools that are affordable in neighboring states?
Through wue, you have Western Washington, Washington State, both very good.
You could apply to asu Barrett, see how much merit they come up with - they can be quite generous for stats.
Agree with @MYOS1634 that ASU Barrett could be an excellent choice - run the scholarship estimator here and apply - https://scholarships.asu.edu/estimator
I’m a bit unclear on budget here:
At one point you had savings and earnings of about 12K = 3K per year for four years.
Plus your mom contributing 300 per month, 3,600 per year (assuming she keeps setting money aside in the summer as well as the school year).
That’s 6600 per year without a loan, or 12,100 per year with a maximum 5500 federal loan for freshmen.
You cannot afford 150% of in-state tuition at a WUE school. For merit, you would need a full tuition scholarship minimum. The schools you need to look at are the ones on the full tuition scholarship list: http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
There are some other schools on that list that will give scholarships for a 30 ACT. Then you still have to figure out travel, books, room and board for 12K. That’s still not necessarily easy. Even if your EFC is 6900, your net price at an out-of-state public university will likely be above that. Most public colleges do not meet 100% of need. You can appeal based on those medical bills, but don’t count on a successful appeal: public schools will prioritize their own residents first.
I’m assuming that your offer from USU is already within that 12K budget, since it’s low-cost for in-state students. If not, I think your 30 ACT + high GPA will get you full-tuition at the non-flagship public U’s if you apply before December 1st. I put a couple scholarship links in my earlier response, and other campuses should have similar charts somewhere on their websites.
Some non-flagship OOS universities will NOT have the resources to give full tuition scholarships to OOS students.just FYI. These schools have a mission to provide funds to instate students first and foremost.
Since we’re on the fifth page, can you recap your budget and your stats (gpa/tedt scores) below? Thanks.
- 4.3 UW GPA
- 30 ACT
- Utah resident
- parents are divorced
- family income (mother & stepfather): $85k/year (mom's income: $34k, stepdad's: $51k)
- dad refuses to fill out noncustodial CSS forms
- OP hasn't said who is willing to pay or given a specific amount that they've committed to contributing
- OP worries she'll be paying for most of her college on her own
- family struggles with costs
- mother is "very bad" with money
- expenses: $2k/year child support
- medical bills: 12k/year
- no assets, rent a home
- household = 6 people (only OP will be in college)
- EFC: $11k
- institutional category: $8k EFC
- resources: $1800 from a summer job & ~$10k in college savings
Wow thank you. It really helps to have everything again in one post. Will try to think of possibilities.
I don’t think an ACT 30 from an unhooked student can count on Barrett or much merit from ASU. Barrett has become very competitive and unless you’re a URM, higher test scores are typically expected.
I think focusing on schools that give HUGE merit for an ACT 30 are needed…more than full tuition. I would NOT trust the mom’s household to be able to help much or at all on a regular basis and NCP dad won’t help at all.
EFC is also 6,900, NOT 11k. Yes, Dad won’t help at all with any college costs and my mother is very unreliable. Might it be difficult to pay for even USU or the U? What about occidental university?? Ive found online that they cover 100 of need? They also have a +40% acceptance rate
Occidental requires the noncustodial profile and financial contributions from the noncustodial parent.
USU is about 5K less than the U, before scholarships. Do you know if you qualified for a scholarship from there? If not, yes, I would look for an even cheaper school as a financial safety. It’s maybe barely affordable without aid.
The EFC with $85,000 income would be higher than $6,900
Occidental requires the Profile, and the non-custodial parent Profile. The school will use the income and assets from both households to,compute your financial need. Since the fafsa only uses the custodial parent and spouse, any school that adds in the non-custodial parent income and assets is going to have a HIGHER family contribution than the fafsa EFC.
You will not receive need based aid to cover your family contribution…anywhere.
That’s a great point by thumper1. If your EFC is $11k, that’s the minimum you can expect to pay.
<<<
What about occidental university?? Ive found online that they cover 100 of need?
[QUOTE=""]
[/QUOTE]
As mentioned above, Occidental will require your dad’s info, and that won’t work out for you.
There really aren’t any schools that a Utah student can attend that will meet 100% of need based only on FAFSA.
Besides, even if the school “met need” based on FAFSA, your family won’t/can’t pay its EFC. There will ALREADY be full loans in your aid pkgs so you won’t be able to borrow to cover. That said, there aren’t any full need schools that only use FAFSA so you need to rely on schools that give you HUGE merit (more than full tuition).
Is there a public Univ that you can commute to?
Please apply to Truman State Univ. They may give you large merit for stats.
I’m also concerned about your “new” EFC. With that income and only ONE student in college it seems that the EFC should be higher than $6900. Even if that’s true, your mom can’t pay it.