Financial aid offers

Paying for College
1

<p>Now that everyone probably has gotten their financial aid offers, I thought a thread explaining what colleges were better/worse would be useful, especially for current juniors. I know all the colleges I applied to had fairly similar financial aid policies, but they did not have very similar offers. </p>

<p>My family is very low-income-i live with my father, who make a bit less than $20,000 per year, and my mother pays no child support but made around $20,000 last year also. We own our home and land, but it isn't worth too much. I have an older brohter in college, with basically full scholarships.</p>

<p>Financial aid as follows: I calculated the cost of the school (tuition, fees, room and board) minus all grant aid.
Amherst (where I'll be going): -1,0xx will cover all direct costs plus books, supplies and about $50. No loans.</p>

<p>Swarthmore: 5,xxx basically affordable, pretty big expectations for my earnings, both over the summer and work-study. reasonable loans.</p>

<p>Wesleyan: 5,000 pretty similar to swarthmore, but more loans/less work</p>

<p>Reed: 4,400 reasonable, combination of my earnings and loans.</p>

<p>Oberlin: 10,xxx HUGE loans, merit award i hadn't expected didn't help much </p>

<p>Colgate: 1,xxx small loan, not too much work (i think it would have been more loans, but I was an Alumni Memorial Scholar)</p>

<p>Bowdoin: 7,500 also high expectations for my summer work, and more loans than I'd like. Actually would have been better b/c of National merit (changes loans to grants) but I decided not to go there.</p>

<p>State school (WVU): merit scholarships plus state/federal grants would have covered everything.</p>

2

<p>2004 was a rough year for my family... I think our income was ~$10,000.</p>

<p>Amherst - expected student contribution is $820. Work study for $850 a semester. No loans.</p>

<p>Swarthmore - expected student contribution is ~$1,200. Work study for $1,000 a semester. Originally, $2,625 in loans, until I was named a Swarthmore Scholar, which cancelled loans for four years.</p>

<p>Wellesley - same as Amherst. First a $1,600 loan, but after receiving tax forms, it was reduced to $600 loans.</p>

<p>SUNY Binghamton - $5,000 loans. Then a hodgepodge of $10,000 resulting from federal, government grants, being a University Scholar, random merit things, etc.</p>

<p>According to Amherst, if your financial situation changes where you get an outside scholarship for money, it'll reduce your loan portion.</p>

<p>But for Swarthmore, the outside scholarship will be divided as follows: 75% to replace loans, 25% to replace the school grant.</p>

<p>Amherst is definitely a generous school; Swarthmore, while heavily endowed, is stingier.</p>

3

<p>Swarthmore's fin aid policy regarding outside aid is that the first $500 goes to reducing self-help, after that 50% of the remaining goes toward reducing the school grant, 50% to reducing self-help.</p>

4

<p>Ursinus (yay for unknown names!): $25,000 merit scholarship, about $5,000 loans and work study combined.</p>