Financial Aid question

Our EFC came back at $35,403 which is absolutely crazy. I am a mother but I graduated from grad school (about 8 years ago) and have over $100k in student loans that take up a large part of my income so while I might make $90k a year, I pay $15k a year (out of my take home) on my own student loans.

Here is my question. My daughter will be going to college next year and of course i do not want her to take out crazy amount of loans to pay for her education and quite frankly, i cannot take on anymore student loans due to my situation.

At least one school that she has applied to has offered her very generous merit aid that would cover tuition and books leaving the cost of attendance that she would owe about $9500 a year because i am pretty sure she will not receive any need based aid based on our EFC.

What is the amount of the Federal student loan that undergrads can take out each year (not the private loans)? Is there a link somewhere where i can find this information? Is it $5500? or does that too depend on your EFC?

https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/types/loans/subsidized-unsubsidized#how-much

(It does NOT depend on your EFC)

thank you!!! @ClaremontMom


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At least one school that she has applied to has offered her very generous merit aid that would cover tuition and books leaving the cost of attendance that she would owe about $9500 a year because i am pretty sure she will not receive any need based aid based on our EFC.

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good! Glad to see that she has merit options.

Can you help pay for some of the 9500 per year not covered by her student loan?

Hopefully others reading this thread will see the impact of borrowing $100k. It sounds like much/most may have been for grad school, but we have students thinking this is ok for undergrad. Obviously it’s a problem even if the loan is for grad school.

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Our EFC came back at $35,403 which is absolutely crazy. I am a mother but I graduated from grad school (about 8 years ago) and have over $100k in student loans that take up a large part of my income so while I might make $90k a year, I pay $15k a year (out of my take home) on my own student loans.
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With an EFC that high with that income, it sounds like you’re a household of 2 people, 1 parent/1 child. If so, the calculations can be quite harsh.

@mom2collegekids to be honest, i decided to go back to school and could not afford to quit my job (still had bills to pay) so i worked full time and had to finance by BA loans and my grad loans because of course if you work full-time and have a husband that works too (and mind you, we are MIDDLE CLASS at best and NOT RICH), you qualify for no financial aid (ugh). I took out only tuition loans!!! so 4 years of undergrad and 3.5 years of grad (law school- super expensive) and yes, i graduated with 100k in student loans. YIKES!!!

@mom2collegekids i’ve already told her that if the best offer she gets what she has now, her dad and I will do what we can to pay for half - maybe set up a payment plan with the school so that she only has to take out the $5500 her freshman year. After her freshman year, she doesn’t have to live in the dorms and hopefully, things will be a little cheaper for her and we can just pay her contribution to rent assuming she gets roommates and she can save up money during the summer to help pay for her “spending money” to avoid any loans. we have a son too but he is not college age yet- he’s only in middle school.

@Jenn1976

You say you make $90,000 a year. What about your husband?

Your daughter will be able to take the $5500 Stafford loan, but most likely it will be unsubsidized (that is dependent on the EFC).

The school still sounds like a good option.

@thumper1 our combined income was 147k

With a combined income of $147,000, I’m surprised your FAFSA EFC sounds about right.

Just remember…most colleges do NOT meet full need for all accepted students. That FAFSA EFC should be viewed as the minimum you will be expected to pay.

So merit aid…not tied to income…sounds like a good idea!

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our combined income was 147k
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Ahh…why didn’t you state that from the beginning? Your OP made it sound like your EFC was based on a $90k income!

Anyway…glad that your DD has some full merit scholarship options. How much can you and your husband help her with the remaining $10k (minus 5500 for a student loan).

She can earn a few thousand in the summer too.

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/education-credits-aotc-llc

And you might qualify for AOTC

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She can earn a few thousand in the summer too.
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Yes, but that money will likely go towards personal expenses, etc, while in college. The mom has really only included tuition, room, board, books in her estimate. And it sounds like the R&B estimate may be low…may only include weekday meals.

If mom did undergrad and law school, while married, while commuting/living at home, she may not realize the add’l expenses associated with “living away” at college.

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her dad and I will do what we can to pay for half - maybe set up a payment plan with the school so that she only has to take out the $5500 her freshman year. After her freshman year, she doesn’t have to live in the dorms and hopefully, things will be a little cheaper for her and we can just pay her contribution to rent assuming she gets roommates and she can save up money during the summer to help pay for her “spending money” to avoid any loans. we have a son too but he is not college age yet- he’s only in middle school.
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Sorry I missed this response above when I posted 20 minutes ago (too late to edit).

Good!

Soph, Jr, and Sr years may be cheaper in an apt, or may not be. Depends on what school she ends up attending. Some college towns have pricey apartments in the “safer” areas.

Hopefully, when your middle school aged son is ready for college, you’ll have your student loans paid off or you’ll be earning more money. At a minimum, you’ll have one less person to support at that point since DD will be launched by then.

Moving off campus is cheaper except when it’s not.

Be careful of assuming that apartment living is cheaper than a dorm. Apartments in most places run for a 12 month lease. Your kid is living there for 8 or 9 months- so needs to either find a subletter to pay rent when she’s not in it, or you swallow the vacant months. You need to pay for utilities. Cooking your own meals is ALWAYS going to be cheaper than eating in a dining hall, except that a lot of college kids do not cook- they eat fast food, or do the takeout from the supermarket, plus need to go grocery shopping for toilet paper and lightbulbs so the annual budget for food somehow isn’t quite as low as the plan made it out to be. Kids eating in a dining hall don’t buy gigantic bags of taco chips and tubs of salsa at the supermarket- kids “cooking” in an apartment tend to spend a lot more on these snack impulse purchases.

The true savings is to work as an RA, but at some colleges those jobs are REALLY competitive.

My daughter lives off campus this year and it is a lot cheaper but only because of the meal plan. To live in the dorm cost about $8000/yr and her rent/utilities in the house are about $600/mo, so $7200/yr. However, the required meal plan for living in the dorms is about $4000/yr and of course she would also spend money on fast food, pizza, and even nice restaurants. There is no way she spends $4000 on food. The freshman meal plan was $3000/sem. No way she ate that much.

My kids lived off campus their last two years of college. It was a headache subletting DS’s place in the summers. And really in Boston, it wasn’t any cheaper than living in the student apartments on campus, or the dorms.

DD shared a house off campus with SIX others…yes, seven total. She paid $800 a month to share a bedroom, not including utilities. Again…an expensive real estate location (east Bay Area, CA).

So…YMMV in terms of saving money.

One of my kids lived off campus in a dumpy apartment (which I guess was good practice for the series of dumpy apartments after graduation!) There were hidden costs which were irritating-- and forget getting back the security deposit after moving out.

My son is sharing a two BR apartment with three other kids. I haven’t seen it, but it must be pretty dumpy, because his share of the rent is under $400/month! But he likes it because it’s really close to campus. This is in Denver. Also, they didn’t make him pay for 3 months while he was abroad.

So this is much cheaper than the dorm was.