<p>On the "A Guide to Yale College, 2011-2012" publication, the section in the back discussing financial aid says that the contribution of aided families with income above $130,000 will average %15 of income. Is this actually true? By this guideline, a family making approximately $200,000 would be expected to pay $30,000 per year?</p>
<p>It also has a chart showing that a family making $180,000 per year with $200,000 in assets would pay approximately $27,000.</p>
<p>I'm in the process of applying to about a thousand scholarships, and my parents don't seem to think we'll get any financial aid (which means no Yale for me :( ). However, reading that gave me a spark of hope, so I was wondering how accurate that statement actually is. </p>
<p>I can’t speak for parents with that kind of income as we are in the bracket that is not expected to contribute, but I would expect that even with a $200,000 income, you would get SOME aid from Yale. Since it is based on COA which is currently around $55,850, if your parents were expected to contribute $30,000 (15%) and you were expected to contribute the minimum of $1,500, that still leaves about $24,350 per year that I assume Yale would cover. See link below:</p>
<p>I can tell you that of all the schools my son applied to, Yale was the most generous in relation to financial aid and he is currently attending without any loans.</p>
<p>Y is very generous, however, the charts they show are EXAMPLES, and are based on certain family circumstances (there is often fine print that explains). Also, remember that while income is the most important factor, assets are also taken into account and can raise the 15% estimate substantially.</p>
<p>Thanks guys, I’ll show my mom the calculator, as I don’t know exactly what our income is (they refuse to tell me, but from what I’ve gathered I can get a general idea). </p>
<p>One more quick question: is financial aid based on income after taxes, or before? I’m assuming after taxes, but…</p>
As far as FAFSA goes, their formula includes AGI (before taxes) but gives reductions for taxes paid in determining EFC. In the examples that Yale shows, they are referring to AGI.</p>
<p>P.S. The bottom line is if you have all your required fin aid documents in on time, you will receive your award summary from Yale before you have to commit to attending. I believe my son received his in the mail a week after his acceptance.</p>
<p>I have heard that Yale is relatively generous with aid packages. Are these packages consistent in size, however, over the four years of attendance? In other words: If a family’s financial circumstances stay basically the same, what guarantee is there that the financial aid amt will stay the same? Merit aid (at other schools) is usually a guaranteed renewable #, but as far as I can tell there is no guarantee of how Yale (or any school, for that matter) will view your need from year-to-year. A little scary.</p>
<p>Any insights from families who have gone through this would be much appreciated.</p>
<p>Just as an FYI, I went thru the Yale Financial Aid Calculator (it wasn’t available last year) using my information and it seems pretty accurate. My EFC was within $3 of what the calculator estimated and the scholarship amount was also within that same margin.</p>
<p>I would say if your financial situation stays the same then your award would not change drastically. However, if you had two students in college and one of them graduated or your AGI went up, that would change the award. Even with tuition/room/board increases, the award is based on COA so the award should rise as those costs increase. The only jump is the student’s summer contribution which goes from $1,500 freshman year to $2,750 each year after. The $3,000 self-help contribution stays the same.</p>
<p>P.S. Yale reevaluating the scholarship is no different from other schools that rely on FAFSA for considering EFC. At least Yale doesn’t use student loans as part of their package. My daughter’s college considers loans as part of the school meeting 100% of the need.</p>
<p>^ In addition to what KDog says: Yale, if it accepts you, will do all it can to get you there. Once there, they will do their best to make sure you can afford it. Like kdog says, if you have an older sibling who graduates, Yale correctly assumes some funding may come available and may reduce its grant to you. </p>
<p>Correspondingly, let’s say you had twin young sisters a year behind you. In your freshman year, your family is paying one tuition. In your 2nd year, your family is facing three tuitions – Yale will take that into account as well – and in most cases, would increase your FinAid package. Of course, your family would have to submit invoices for the twins’ college costs.</p>
<p>Agree with kdog that the only useful thing to do here is use Yale’s net price calculator. It would be great now that these things are on-line if they required you to check a box on the application that you have reviewed this site before submitting the application since it should not be a shock how much or little your college costs will run approximately.</p>
<p>Just for kicks I ran the calculator to see how little income you needed to have to be full pay for two kids at schools in the $55K range each… It looks like $275K in income with $300K in assets will be full pay for two kids. It would be very difficult to pay $175K pre-tax dollars out of $275K each year out of current income. That is why families in this income range need past, current, and future earnings (savings, salary, and loans) to make this work. That 15% figure bandied about only has meaning in a narrow income range.</p>
<p>D1 was a soph transfer, so she was at Y 3 yrs. The first year was my top earning year, the 2nd year I was retired part of the year and so my income was less, the 3rd year I was fully retired and my income was lower still. Assets stayed about the same all three years. Each year our FA package increased with my decrease in income.</p>
<p>I’m very confident that Y calculations are consistent and that there’s no bait and switch in their FA offers.</p>