<p>Hello everyone... Please bare with me as I'm new at this forum.</p>
<p>I was wondering if someone is able to give me some advice/suggestions in regards to Penn State. My daughter has been accepted to one of their campuses for the fall of 2008. They just finished sending us the awards letter and to my surprise, they did not give her any aid. We have never gone through this process and I dont quite understand the concept.</p>
<p>Her EFC is of 3304 and she only qualified for $700 of a grant for each semester. I called their financial aid offices, but received no help. Tuition + room/board for Penn is $27,000.00 per year. I thought, they were suppose to offer her in school grants or something of that nature. Instead, the aids dept just kept telling me to deal with it or consider the other schools for less money.</p>
<p>My question is, I read some where on the net, were Penn State had just started a new program taking effect in the fall of 2008 where they claim to help more students with their financial need, has any one come across this article???</p>
<p>2nd. How am I suppose to pay for her tuition? I'm a single mom trying to make ends meet and trying to provide my child with a good education and the opportunities a Penn degree will provide her. What kind of loans can I apply for? Is a private loan better??? when would I have to start making payments on such loans? we are on a very strict budget... I mean, colleges and universities should really spend more time trying to assist parents and making this transition smoother, instead they send you this letter and let you deal with the in betweens on your own....</p>
<p>Thank you for taking the time to read this thread......Any and every advice will be very appreciated.</p>
<p>Based on the COA of $27000 I am guessing that you are OOS for Penn State </p>
<p>If you read the post below, you will discover that all of us "out-of staters" are unhappy with our awards. Most posters are finding that they will be unable to attend because of this. Penn State doesn't have the endowments some schools have so they don't have the ability to give great aid. My son was given a small (very small) scholarship that was independent of need and we still can't attend. </p>
<p>I am however surprised that you were not offered a subsidiZed or Perkins loan. with an EFC of 7000 we were offered $3500 in loans. I'm guessing that the $700 grant is your Pell grant</p>
<p>Most State schools do not have large endowments like the private schools and do not give large institutional grants for financial aid. My daughters State school for instance has an institutional need based grant of something like $1000 and that is only awarded to students who have not received any of their merit awards. For State schools most aid they award is federal aid. Federal aid is quite limited. The grants available through federal aid are:
1. Pell Grant. The max for 2008-2009 is 4731 but it is based on your EFC and with an EFC of 3304 you would qualify for a Pell grant of @1381 for the year. The Pell grants is not a limited funds grant - you get what you qualify for.
2. SEOG grant. The federal maximum is $4000 but each school is awarded limited funding so set their own maximum and their own rules for awarding it. At my Ds school it is $2000 max and it is only given to students with a zero EFC.
3.ACG. $750 for a year. You have to meet certain academic criteria.</p>
<p>The remaining federal aid would be either loans or work study. I am surprised you were not offered a subsidized Stafford loan - the annual max for a freshman is $3500. The other subsidized federal loan is the Perkins which the max is $4000 a year. However Perkins is a limited funds loan (the school is given a certain amount of dollars a year and once it is awarded it is gone). Subsidized loans are in the students name and the interest is paid by the Govt till they finish/quit school. But even if you were offered the maximum subsidized loans you would still have an enormous gap that you need to fill with parent loans.</p>
<p>Has your daughter applied to your own State school? It may be much more viable financially. OOS State Us are very expensive and do not usually offer much in the way of aid.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for the information. She did get offer the 3500.00 in loan, which I gathered is the max for the school.. She is an out of state student. She did get other offers, however, the financial aid packages remaind the same and the difference is cost is of $6k per year....</p>
<p>I guess, like the rest of the parents, we all have the same complaints. There is just not enough to go around for everyone to benefit. The reality is that the finaid forms give you no room to deduct everyday expenses such as rent, insurance, and so forth to better qualify for assistance. </p>
<p>As far as loans are concerned, if any of you had the experience, would you be able to tell me which are best? At this point, I'm at a loss for resources and don't want to make any unneccesary mistakes.</p>
<p>by the way, someone from US News contacted me in regards to a story he is writting concerning the troubles of financial aid and Universities, does anyone know what this is about?</p>
<p>My son was also accepted to Penn Sate-Altoona. Penn State sent him the FA package last week.My EFC is low but savings are high. Based on those numbers Penn State awarded less than 25% of COA. My last meeting with Penn State people in Fort Lauderdale, they did mention that people that goes to PSU usually finance with upwards of 65% on loans.. that is impossible. We are waiting for the pack from VA Tech..We hope it to be a little better.</p>
<p>Sorry I'm going off topic for this thread, but Vtech has an online FA estimator. Based on their estimations we decided not to apply there. I hope your actuall news is better than our estimate was.</p>
<p>I received my financial aid letter also and I was given $17,000 in aid including grants, scholarships, and loans. My EFC WAS $0 and I'm really disappointed because I need more money than that to attend.</p>
<p>There is a very sad moral to this story. One cannot rely on EFC calculators to provide detailed information about financial aid policies at any particular school. In order to properly plan, one must contact each school individually.</p>
<p>Of course, that is no help at this point. I can only imagine how disappointing this situation must be for you and your daughter, but if no other school has offered your daughter the necessary financial aid, I would suggest that she consider taking the next year and begin the college search anew with special attention to financial aid issues. In the interim, she can get a job to save money and/or attend community college with the idea of transferring credits to a four year school.</p>
<p>Michina20-
With a cost of attendance of $27k, I am assuming your D is not going to be attending the University Park campus. The cost of attendance at UP this year was almost $33k and is expected to increase next year. Also in some majors, tuition is actually higher for juniors and seniors than it is for freshmen and sophomores. Please take this into consideration when estimating the amount of loans you may need.</p>
<p>If OOS students are not offered "reasonable" aid / grant / scholarship, how the Us expect OOS students to come? If OOS students don't come, the Us will have lesser attendance, and thus will perhaps shrink in earnings. The in-state students are awarded most grants / aid / scholarship which means the Us will have less revenue from them. Thus, the Us will be further dependent on state-funds. This will restrict the students' movements across states, less of sharing, less Us attracting OOS and thus in circles. Perhaps this is already happening.</p>
<p>Only those seeking private colleges (ofcourse those who can afford) will see no / less difference between private and OOS Us and they will be able to attend.</p>
<p>Hello - D applied to Penn State Univ Park too. They gave her alot of aid but it still left a gap of about 20K. We are also OOS. </p>
<p>If I knew then what I know now, I would not have let daughter apply to any OOS schools unless we were certain of merit scholarship. It's a waste of time otherwise.</p>
<p>Thank God for the private colleges - and God bless the college counselor who told us to mix it up, because they (the private colleges) have given us the best FA packages so far.</p>
<p>Joix,
"Thank God for the private colleges - and God bless the college counselor who told us to mix it up, because they (the private colleges) have given us the best FA packages so far."
I am curious to know some more about the private college, which college, and what / how to "mix it up"..really would be of great help. If you prefer you could send me the info through pm too..hope you don't mind sharing.</p>
<p>mixing it up just means apply to your state flagship school (that's a financial safety and in our case also an academic safety), apply to 1 or 2 OOS (only if they have something special to offer...an honors program, a particular course etc...or your child has something special to offer them...if not forget it), apply to private colleges (but check first what their endowement numbers looks like - unfortunately we did that AFTER we applied to some private colleges that did not give us good FA). </p>
<p>We applied to alot of Catholic schools and were told that they give good FA. We are a Catholic family and D attended a Catholic high school (if that makes a diff to FA). The best FA packages we have got so far were from Catholic colleges and quaker schools. </p>
<p>I hope that gives you enough info to work with.</p>
<p>If you have very good stats and are prepared to attend a less selective school (St. Peter's, Immaculata, etc.) a surprising number of full tuition scholarships are available.</p>