<p>Hi I am a senior finishing her last batch of college apps.
How generous is the financial aid for someone in my income bracket (150-160K) ?<br>
The money decides where I will apply.
Thanks!</p>
<p>My suggestion is that you stop posting this on lots of forums, and go run the net price calculator that each college offers on their website. Your parents will need to help provide the information. Quite a few colleges use the College Board provided calculator (so if you go to the college financial aid website and click on their link, it will take you into there). That means you don’t necessarily have to re-enter all the info once you put it in once. That will give you a much clearer picture based on your family’s financial situation – takes into account siblings in college, savings in your parents’ and your name, any trust funds, etc.</p>
<p>As intparent states, it’s best to just plug your numbers into the NPC for any school you are considering. Here is Duke’s:</p>
<p><a href=“Net Price Calculator”>Net Price Calculator;
<p>That being said, you should know that the formulas to calculate your expected family contribution (EFC) for both the Federal Methodology (FAFSA) and Institutional Methodology (CSS Profile) are heavily weighted towards current income. A pretty accurate rule-of-thumb is that your EFC will be approximately 1/3 of the parent’s income. So a family making $150K per year will have an EFC of roughly $50K, assuming a reasonable amount of assets. So at Duke, with a cost of attendance (COA) of roughly $60K, you might be eligible for a $10K financial aid package. Also keep in mind that Duke will build all FA packages first with a Stafford Loan ($5000) and work study ($2500), so at best you’d probably receive $2500 in grant aid.</p>