Financial Aid question

My daughter was admitted to FSU with a full out-of-state tuition waiver, plus the Freshman Scholarship. She also was admitted to the Honors Program at FSU. She is trying to decide between FSU and the University of Michigan, which is in-state for us, and she just found out that she received a $8500 grant from UMich. We are visiting FSU on Monday, as she really just can’t decide.

Before she received the grant from UMich, FSU was cheaper - now UMich is cheaper. Should I try to get an appointment with the FSU Financial Aid office on Monday and talk to them? We haven’t received any news on FA yet from FSU, other than the two scholarships she’s already received. It’s kind of hard to compare the two without knowing what FSU will offer in the way of grants or work/study.

And in case you’re wondering why FSU - my husband and I are both alumni, and my family is originally from Tallahassee, so we LOTS of family still there - my hubby and I are both rooting for her to pick FSU - but in the end, we want her to go where she’ll be happiest.

Any advice here would be greatly appreciated!!

FSU has provided a huge scholarship. Not sure they can do any more.

Yeah, that’s what I was wondering. Does anyone know if they ever give grants as part of their FA packages or is it mostly loans?

Unfortunately, you likely won’t hear from FSU about a tentative financial aid package until late April- and that aid package can (and probably will) change over the summer as budgets and such are finalized. Yes, they sometimes do give other grants as part of the financial aid package, but don’t count on it (or expect it).

If there’s a weak point at FSU, it’s the Financial Aid department. Their communication is crappy, and there is the potential for your kid to not know their full financial aid package until it’s actually disbursed (this happened to me more than once as an undergrad, and still happens to others). Talking to them isn’t going to change anything, either; they give what they give and the attitude basically is that you got what you got and you better like it.

Once you visit FSU, you will have to sit down with your daughter and talk it out. You will have to go with what information you have at that time, not what you hope to be the information you get eventually, and ultimately come to a decision.

Honestly though, if UMich is cheaper than FSU, I’d suggest opting to attend there (and I love FSU). You have to remember too that cost for travel is (obviously) a lot higher to travel from FSU. For example, just a cursory glance for round-trip flights for around the time of winter break are about $400 round-trip for Tallahassee to Detroit (though I don’t know what airport you’d fly into in Michigan).

Of course, sometimes the change in scenery is well worth the extra money. It would depend on how much the difference is that you’d have to start weighing the benefits vs. the extra cost.

Pasbal, thank you for your response. At least I know not to waste my time with the FA department when we visit - she already has enough planned for the day - meetings with 4 different departments. And yes, we’ve already been discussing the travel issue. For this trip, we’re driving to Chicago, and flying from there to Atlanta - we got $128 flights! My dad lives in Atlanta, and he’s driving us down to Tally. We have lots of family in Tally and the surrounding area (my parents graduated from Leon High and both are FSU alums), so we also don’t have to worry about hotels. BUT I can’t expect my dad to want to drive to Tally every time my D needs to come home. So, some big decisions will need to be made in the next month!

So, I finally received the FA package - other than the scholarships, they only offered unsubsidized loans. When my oldest D applied to FSU three years ago, they offered both subsidized and unsubsidized loans.

So, UMich only offered subsidized loans - obviously we would much rather have the subsidized loan. If I call FSU and tell them it’s between FSU and UMich, and the only thing holding my D back from FSU is the type of loan they offered, do you think they would consider changing it?

Like I said above, what you see now isn’t necessarily the final aid package.

Likely, subsidized loans will be added down the line. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you when that is.

Now that you have visited FSU, does your daughter have a strong feeling about which college she would prefer to attend? It seems like such a different proposition to go to school in FL versus Michigan, it seems one option would be much more appealing than the other. We are northerners, as well, my daughter is actually paying less at FSU than she would at our state flagship, but she wouldnt have gone to our state flagship even if it was free, she wanted to go to school in FL, then she fell in love with FSU when we visited. If she dosent have a strong preference, it seems going to a local school would be simpler and cheaper for you and for her.

She’s still uncertain. We’re visiting UMich this upcoming week. She really enjoyed her time at FSU - I think what makes it so difficult is that UMich is considered such a distinguished school up here - many call it a “public Ivy” - so she often gets responses such as, “Why would you give up going to such a top-notch school just for warm weather?,” which of course has nothing to do with why she’s looking at FSU. And I think she would love to not go to a school where she knows lots of people (most of the top kids in her class will be attending UMich). Hopefully by the end of the next week, she’ll have her answer. Oh, and I hate UMich’s campus - too spread out!

Hmm, we have some heard similar comments, people who aren’t familiar with FSU don’t get it. And not too many people in our area are familiar with FSU. My daughter wanted an adventure, she felt college is a perfect time to try something new. the first month was an adjustment but now she is super happy, and is definitely surrounded by bright academic people. weather is pretty nice, also, she happens to love palm trees, she posts pix of “ham mocking” with her friends, they tie hammocks to the trees and chill out there. it’s a great lifestyle.