<p>My daughter got her FA offer from Seton Hall...a whopping $1,000 per year. She was offered a $90,000 merit scholarship as well but that still leaves us $110,000 short for a 4 year degree from SHU!! Are these people insane??? Who would spend that kind of money on an average private institution??? She has already declined their offer for admission.</p>
<p>We got our package in the last few days too. When we got the acceptance letter in Dec we were excited about the $18K a year scholarship - but we got nothing else added into the final package except the regular student loans of 5500, leaving us with a 15K gap over our EFC. Oh well, this one is off the list.</p>
<p>Here’s the hard reality: You are an adult and your parents are not responsible for you any more. They do not have to house you, feed you, permit you to do anything with anything of theirs. The legal cord is cut. However, their finances are still used to determine how much financial aid you can get from college. It’s an unfair, stupid system and I wish it would be challenged, but at the moment that is the way it is. </p>
<p>If it is really unbearable for you to continue the way things are going, look for some alternatives in terms of living arrangements. With full time + work over the summer, you should be able to find a room share in a college area somewhere for pretty cheap , Look for full time work, yeah, you are still going to barely be able to afford it, but that is truly the way it is in life for most people. You then go to school part time and see what kind of aid you can get that way, but you go to a cc, a local school.</p>
<p>Be aware that the average college student in this country is in his/her 20s, goes part time and works at least part time, often ful time and gets through college, if s/he does, little by little over a long, long period of time. That you have the luxury, and yes, it is a luxury of having a place to sleep and some amenities and can go full time at a private school, puts you at the top of the heap in terms of privileges. Yeah, it does get better too. </p>
<p>My kid got all 4 years paid and still gets hand outs and help out of college, but gets bitter when he sees a lot of his friends, many from well to families living in very nice places, even with low paying jobs, supplemented by family money whereas he is pounding salt barely getting by. One doesn’t have to look far to see those better off than you are. When you are hammering, all you see is the head of a nail. But talking ito anyone who deals with young adults in transition as you are, trying to get independent, most have it a lot worse </p>
<p>Look into the military and other programs that may give you some structure and support , though think long and hard about what you have to give in return. You don’t get something for nothing, not even from family, as you are finding out, and they are usually the most generous.</p>
<p>hhbomb: *My daughter got her FA offer from Seton Hall…a whopping $1,000 per year. She was offered a $90,000 merit scholarship as well but that still leaves us $110,000 short for a 4 year degree from SHU!! Are these people insane??? Who would spend that kind of money on an average private institution??? She has already declined their offer for admission.
*</p>
<p>It’s rather disengenuous to say that SHU only offered you $1k per year in aid when they also offered you a $23k per year scholarship. All of that goes towards “need”. You were probably also offered a $5500 student loan. So, likely a total of nearly $29k per year in aid. </p>
<p>What was your EFC? </p>
<p>$110k TOTAL for a four year degree from a good private is not outrageous (minus the student loans). That’s probably comparable to what your state school would cost. It’s actually a good deal for a private school.</p>
<p>*My daughter’s need-based grant was a whopping $1,000. On top of her merit scholarship of $23,000 per year we would still owe $26,000 PER YEAR for SHU. Needless to say, we told them to stick that offer where the sun don’t shine. She’s also been admitted to DePaul and Richmond. Both of whom have offered FAR better FA offers. I have no idea how SHU keeps its doors open…
*</p>
<p>*My daughter got her FA offer from Seton Hall…a whopping $1,000 per year. She was offered a $90,000 merit scholarship as well but that still leaves us $110,000 short for a 4 year degree from SHU!! Are these people insane??? Who would spend that kind of money on an average private institution??? She has already declined their offer for admission.
*</p>
<p>It’s rather disengenuous to say that SHU only offered you $1k per year in aid when they also offered you a $23k per year scholarship. All of that goes towards “need”. You were probably also offered a $5500 student loan. So, likely a total of nearly $29k per year in aid. </p>
<p>What was your EFC? SHU, like most schools, does not promise to meet need since it doesn’t have the funds to do so. It’s not being mean. A school doesn’t demand that anyone to pay any certain amount. If you can, then great, if you can’t, decline.</p>
<p>$110k TOTAL for a four year degree from a good private is not outrageous (minus the student loans). That’s probably comparable to what your state school would cost. It’s actually a good deal for a private school.</p>
<p>For a lot of people, paying $2XK per year is a good deal. </p>
<p>Congrats on the other offers, but dinging SHU for a very nice offer seems rather ungracious.</p>
<p>A true FULL RIDE is when you are given grants for the entire official COA of the college. The term gets used very loosely. A loan is not the same as a grant, not at all. You are just given time to come up with the money, and when a loan is subsidized, you may have no interest while in school or lower than any other interest you can find anywhere. </p>
<p>A Stafford Loan comes from the government and if you get one of those in your package, it doesn’t come from the school. You could get that same loan at any school as long as the cost to you justifies it (you can’t borrow more than COA). However, a lot of schools, and SH seems to fall into this category, packages this loan as part of their financial aid from them. Nope. </p>
<p>The private loan or parent loan should particularly not be packaged as financial aid because the school absolutely has nothing to do with it other than providing cost figures for it. You or your parents may not even be able to get such a loan–you have apply and be approved. You even have to find places to apply many times. </p>
<p>Though Work Study is usually packaged as part of the finanical aid deal, you are not guaranteed those funds either, and you don’t get them unless you earn them and there is no guarantee of the job or hours. It just says that the school will let you work for that much under the program if you can find it.</p>
<p>The problem with getting Stafford Loans and Work study as part of a package and put towards your need, is that you then can’t use it to pay your EFC. I don’t like the way SH puts together fin aid packages because it is not clear what one is getting.</p>
<p>Hbomb1970, in the end, it doesn’t matter that much if a scholarship is considered merit or fin aid. It’s all cash money as opposed to self help. It’s great your DD got more from other schools. But depending on what your EFC was, that is not a bad package from a private school that costs close to $50K a year. You are getting nearly half the cost covered. But if it doesn’t cover what you can afford, it is not useful to you, I admit. Congrats on getting some sweet deals. </p>
<p>SH keeps its doors open because there are a lot of families who are willing to pay the cost to them to send their kids there. For now, they are taking in enough to keep going. I’ve been predicting for nearly 20 years that these costs cannot keep going up at the pace they have, and I’ve been wrong.</p>
<p>For anyone else in a similar situation, remember there are also options for joining the National Guard or the Reserves as an enlisted for college aid and some cash. It is much less demanding of your time. I believe the college aid now varies based upon the service and how much they want you. </p>
<p>Just remember that they have the right to call you up for a year or more of active duty at any time, but the current environment and politics makes it look like that is unlikely to happen.</p>
<p>hbomb - did you already receive FA offer from DePaul?</p>