<p>so far i have recieved packages frm DUKE and SWARTHMORE</p>
<p>duke is offering for two semesters 21k scholarship plus 2k workstudy plus 5k perkins loan.
but the cost including room, board and everything is 54,000. soooo, where does the rest of the money come in? how do we make the difference? they say the parental contribution (i guess thats like EFC) is 25k but are they for real???? thats like a third of our income.</p>
<p>swarthmore costs like 52k and has offered me 30k merit aid plus work study for like 8k
and NO LOANS, like their policy says. but whats the point of no loans if u cant hustle up the rest of the money?</p>
<p>this is all so confusing and depressing. help?</p>
<p>$8K in work study seems very, very, high, especially for a school as hard as Swat.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, a third of income is about right for EFC. They also expect there to be college savings in addition to income. </p>
<p>You, like everyone else, are also entitled to an unsubsidized Stafford loan of $5500 for freshmen year. Your parent’s can apply for a Parent Plus loan to meet the EFC.</p>
<p>Swat sounds like a good deal. You can make a few thousand summers, take Stafford loans borrowing no more than $20K total for the 4 years and leave your parents with a modest contribution.</p>
<p>may I ask how you got merit aid at Swat? I believe they only have a very few of those from trusts from specific regions in the USA to hand out and they generally have a no merit aid policy…</p>
<p>Those schools use the Profile along with FAFSA to determine need. They look at your home equity and other assets (some schools even count the value of your cars). So they are not expecting all your EFC from current income, but from savings and loans. If parental EFC is 25,000, and they expect a student contribution, then these schools met full need. Your problem is that you don’t agree with the EFC. BTW, most top schools will expect a student contribution from savings and a student contribution from summer earnings and a work study job. Most of this information is available on the school’s financial aid website. I remember Yale and Brown had four or five specific examples that detailed how this all works.</p>
<p>I agree that $8000 doesn’t sound right for work-study. Perhaps they meant student contribution of $8000, including work-study? That sounds about right.</p>
<p>$8000 is almost double the highest WS I have heard mentioned before. They must have some high paying WS jobs. Isn’t there a maximum number of hours a week you are supposed to work in WS. For some reason I am thinking it is 20 hours a week but I am not sure where that number got into the recesses of my mind.</p>
<p>They may offer summer workstudy positions. I have heard of that. But I’ve never heard of that much WS awarded either. Unless the student can commute to school, the WS is going to require living near the college which can negate any summer earnings because of the living expenses.</p>
<p>When we toured a few years ago, we were told Yale work study jobs paid $11/hr. i didn’t think to ask at Duke. I THINK my son gets $8-$9/hr at Brown. My DD gets a little less at RIT.</p>
<p>My daughter goes to a State school and gets $9.54 an hour. The WS jobs range from minimum wage upwards. She works off campus at a govt lab (which probably explains the odd wage amount). She works around 12 hours a week which is a nice amount and enables her to earn her $3400 WS award. $8000 would require too many hours!</p>
<p>I dont even thing a student could work 8000 worth of workstudy and still go to school, In NY thats 1066 hrs of work. Most students dont even finish their 1600.</p>
<p>workstudy gets the states minimum wage.
Its not your parents job to pay for your college. Get emancipated, file independantly, and get your own medical insurance,</p>
<p>50K in student loans vs 5K in health insurance + 20K in stafford loans. </p>
<p>I have seen work study jobs for more than minimum aid and I have seen schools that permit the funds to be used over the summer too. But I have never seen a one year award for that amount. Also a school like Swarthmore is highly unlikely to have a freshman work that many hours. I think Erin’s Dad may be right. BUt I did not think you could award federal money over 4 years since unlike university grants, you have to make federal need and eligibility guidelines each year.</p>
<p>WS jobs cannot pay less than minimum wage. They can, and often do, pay more. My daughter’s WS is well over minimum wage. It pays more than most of her friends that have off campus jobs. Her school does have some WS jobs that are minimum wage, but most are higher. Hers is probably about the highest. </p>
<p>
You can get as emancipated as you want, pay your own bills, pay your own insurance. For financial aid purposes you are still a dependent un till you are 24 (or married, have a child etc). </p>
<p>
I am pretty sure you are correct. FWS is based on each years ‘need’ as determined by the FAFSA EFC. I also don’t think a school could or would award more than the upcoming years WS.</p>
<p>brainygotback: I can help answer the part about Swarthmore. Our pay scale ranges from $8.20 (lowest pay) to $8.80 (top pay) per hour. The recommended maximum hours of work-study is 8 hours/week. So at the very most, the recommended amount would be around $70/week. I think the usual amount for work study for freshmen is around $1,470 a year or something like that, and a bit more for sophomores and up. There might be a mistake with the award letter. Nobody will expect you to get $8,000 a year by work-study alone.</p>
<p>About no loans at Swarthmore: In the financial aid letter, Swarthmore doesn’t give loans, but you can still take them out. There should be an application for student loans in your financial aid package.</p>
Not if you can answer one of the 7 or 8 questions on the fafsa to qualify for independence. If you get emancipated, your parents have no connection to you anymore, and thus you are independant.</p>
<p>Dr. horse, please do not post that without posting the seven questions. It is NOT at all easy to qualify as independent. Students post about this continually on this forum and several very knowledgable adults keep trying to correct this misperception. Here is a direct paste from FAFSA website: </p>
<p>Being considered an independent student is not merely a matter of being responsible for your own educational expenses. You must meet at least one of the following seven criteria to be declared an independent student for the purposes of the FAFSA: </p>
<p>Be 24 years of age or older by December 31 of the award year;
Be an orphan (both parents deceased), ward of the court, or was a ward of the court until the age of 18;
Be a veteran of the Armed Forces of the United States;
Be a graduate or professional student;
Be a married individual;
Have legal dependents other than a spouse;
Be a student for whom a financial aid administrator makes a documented determination of independence by reason of other unusual circumstances.</p>