Financial Aid Package

[Keilexandra]

<p>

@standrews

In general, with-loan schools that offer merit aid, even small amounts of merit aid, may be better than no-loan schools. The reason is that scholarship money usually reduces loan and work-study first. A $10,000 scholarship can eliminate the loan and work-study altogether. The same applies for outside scholarships or grant money offered by some states.

Actually, I would say that only SOME schools will apply institutional merit aid toward loan and WS. On CC in recent months, I’ve seen lots of FA packages where the kid gets a $10k merit scholarship but is still packaged with 5k Staffords. And many more colleges will replace institutional grant dollar-for-dollar when it comes to state grants (treated differently than outside scholarships).</p>

<p>I got really excited when I read that URichmond–which is need-blind and full-need–doesn’t require PROFILE. It appears that they do require a supplemental aid form asking for non-custodial parent info. I only skimmed over the form, not sure about home equity (which is not included in FAFSA). <a href=“http://financialaid.richmond.edu/forms/PDFs/1011ProsSuppApp.pdf[/url]”>http://financialaid.richmond.edu/forms/PDFs/1011ProsSuppApp.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>radannie, here’s a list of loan-limit pledges, though it may not be fully up-to-date: [Project</a> on Student Debt: Financial Aid Pledges](<a href=“http://projectonstudentdebt.org/pc_institution.php]Project”>http://projectonstudentdebt.org/pc_institution.php)</p>

[Stupefy]

<p>

I don’t mean to sound rude, but it has been a little frustrating to find people with similar incomes to ours who never saved much are qualifying for aid because they have no assets, when we skipped vacations and saved like crazy since our children were born.

I agree, it seems counterintuitive.
So those who work hard to earn more (my mom went through 4 years of part-time law school to be able to increase our income for college) and scrimp to save more are actually decreasing the amount of aid they receive from colleges. Hm.</p>

[mythmom]

<p>But they are increasing their options. Having means gives freedom. Need sensitive schools admit full pay students at a higher rate, and this trend will probably continut.</p>

<p>I saved the in cash for half the kids college education and planned to pay the ogher half from current income.</p>

<p>My husband’s business crashed (for many reasons) and I needed to use the money to bail it out.</p>

<p>FA has been an important factor in affording college for them.</p>

<p>It would have been my pleasure to pay for them to go to school. I wish I could have. We were extremely fortunate that they were both accepted to need-blind schools with excellent FA. Our outcome could have been very different.</p>

[JohnAdams12]

<p>mythmom, this is a very important statement, particularly with students that don’t have the stats for the better, richer schools…</p>

<p>“But they are increasing their options. Having means gives freedom. Need sensitive schools admit full pay students at a higher rate, and this trend will probably continut.”</p>

[GTalum]

<p>My D was lucky enough to get in all the schools she applied. All but 2 were “no loan” schools. One “no loan” school put our contribution at $26.5K. The other “loan” school put our contribution at $16.5K plus loans of about 6K. It looks like the loan school is the better deal.</p>