<p>I have a dilemma regarding Financial Aid. My dad makes a large sum of money, about $200,000/year, and luckily for me, he said he will pay for half of my undergrad education. On the Common App, should I not check the box which says "Do you intend to apply for financial aid?"? I would like to know if I should still apply for financial aid because if I get into an Ivy League School, I will have to pay about $80,000 out of my own pocket for my education, and ideally I'd like to be without the burden of debt.</p>
<p>Basically, I want to know if I should check this box and maybe some ideas of how I can raise 80 K if I get into an Ivy League (don't offer merit-based scholarships).</p>
<p>Yes, you should check the box and apply for financial aid.</p>
<p>I think you are underestimating the cost of school, however, as full cost of attendance at those schools is around $60,000/year.</p>
<p>As for coming up with $80K or $120K or whatever the balance your dad won’t be paying amounts to, generally speaking it’s not possible for a student to do.</p>
<p>Off course you need financial aid. Your father will only pay for half of your education expenses; what about the other half? Who will pay for it?</p>
<p>How you coming up the 80K for your Ivy education?</p>
<p>I was wondering if Ivies will give me financial aid, since my family income is much higher than other family incomes who typically receive need-based scholarships. So you guys are saying that Ivies will still give me aid, correct? Thanks for the help btw :)</p>
<p>With a family income of $200K you will NOT get need-based assistance. The schools will not care how much your father is willing to pay; they look at assests. Otherwise every parent would only be willing to pay a small amount!</p>
<p>You need to look at schools that are less expensive and that offer merit scholarships that are based on your grades and/or test scores. Hopefully that will get you a smaller 50% that you are responsible for. Or is your father willing to establish a dollar amount that he is willing to pay each year? If he’s willing to pay half the cost of an Ivy, or about 25-30K, is he willing to pay that same amount, which would completely cover the cost of many schools if you have merit money?</p>
<p>You need to know exactly what his agreement is - straight half or dollar amount.</p>
<p>You will not be eligible for FA. COA is 60K/year now. If your father is willing to pay 30K/year, you’ll end up with 120K debt by the time you graduate, assuming costs stay the same. The only way for you to come up with 120K is by taking out student loans with your parents as co-signers.</p>
<p>Your family income is in the doughnut hole category - not rich enough to be full pay, and not poor enough to get FA.</p>
<p>If you are an Ivy calibre student, there are many schools next tier down that would give you merit aid. You are going to have to a wider net to make sure you have both financial and academic safeties.</p>
<p>You will NOT be able to “raise $80K” if you get into any Ivy league school. What you’ll have to do is turn the school down!</p>
<p>At that income level, I’d guess that Harvard might be the only one to give you any financial aid at all . . . and it would NOT be enough to cover your share of the expense. It wouldn’t even be close!</p>
<p>If your dad is willing to pay $80 - 120K for your education, then you need to be focusing on schools that will give you generous merit-based aid. If you have the stat’s to to get into an Ivy, this shouldn’t be a problem.</p>
<p>As someone has already suggested, run the Net Price Calculators for the schools you’re interested in. If your anticipated cost at the Ivies is significantly more than you can afford, I’d save the application fees and look elsewhere.</p>
<p>So here’s the deal with my dad, to clarify some things.</p>
<p>My dad will pay 50% of my total cost at college BEFORE any type of monetary aid. Say an Ivy costs 200K for 4 years, he will pay 100K. The other 100K I will have to come up with- be it student loans, outside scholarships, etc. If I can get, say 25K in aid/scholarships over 4 years, I will only have to pay 75K. Similarly, if a school originally costs 200K for 4 years, but the school gives me 100K, my dad will give me the other 100K.</p>
<p>Not sure any school would go along with that. Schools will calculate your need according their methods. They will not give you 50% in scholarships or FA just because your father only willing to 50%</p>
<p>The Ivy League schools do not give merit aid, which means you will not get money from them. Most idependent scholarships are for one year only (there are some that are renewable, and those are a real help). </p>
<p>Your best financial bet would be to look at good schools with generous merit aid. To use my kid’s example: she attends a school that costs about $40,000/year to attend. If she were your sister, she’d get $20,000 from your dad. Thanks to her high school grades and SAT scores she gets an 80% tuition discount. She also has two outside scholarships. If she were your sister, that would result in several thousand dollars in free spending money after all expensese were paid.</p>
<p>That’s a WHOLE LOT better than graduating $75-100,000 in debt!</p>
<p>In general, for a school wth a “need-based aid only” policy, the only times you see finaid at that income level relate to large families, unusual conditions that strain the budget in ways the colleges think are legit, etc. Not, eg, the extra car payments or higher mortgage. I always remember a brochure we got, with one example of a family at 180k getting a good package- the fine print showed they had 6 kids, 3 in college.</p>
<p>Outside scholarships tend to come in small amounts- 1k, 2k. It needs research before you count on them. The biggest ones are highly competitive. So, if you have the stats, best is to aim for merit aid- there are threads you can search for that suggest colleges.</p>
<p>To answer your question, Ivies claim to be need blind. Admissions may see you checked the box, will see your parents’ professions on the CA, but won’t be (shouldn’t be) privy to your actual financial details. That stays with the finaid folks.</p>
<p>In everyone’s opinions, is it better to come out of an Ivy League college with, say 100K in debt, or go to another school and come out with, say 20K in debt?</p>
<p>The Ivies I am looking at are Penn, Columbia, and Brown.
Other schools that I am looking at are UCLA, USC, UC Berkeley, Cal Poly SLO, UT (Austin), and U-Mich (Ann Arbor).</p>
<p>I’m applying for engineering, and I want a prestigious school with a social scene as well (don’t really like the Berkeley social scene though, for those of you thinking it’s a no-brainer). I am also a Southern California Resident with National Merit.</p>
<p>How much can I expect to pay at these other schools vs. Ivies?</p>
<p>I’m not sure what your dad is thinking . . . maybe he’s relying on what things were like when he was in college. Sure, once upon a time, an offer to pay half the cost fo college would have been a great deal for a kid. The kid could have covered his share of the expense with a good summer job and a part-time job during the school year. But times have changed . . . and your dad’s expectation that you can pay half the cost of your college education is not only unrealistic, it’s setting you up for some really hard times after you graduate. Borrowing $100k or more is, for most students, simply not feasible. At best, it would dramatically limit your options after you graduate . . . because that loan repayment has to take precedence over EVERYTHING.</p>
<p>So, my question is, does your father really know what he’s getting you into? Does he understand that student loan debt is NOT dischargeable, even if you declare bankruptcy?</p>
<p>If he’s saying that he’s willing to pay one-half the cost of ANY college, regardless the tuition, this sounds more like a life lesson that he’s trying to teach you, instead of an actual financial constraint. I’d suggest you sit down with him and get a clear answer to how much he can actually afford to pay. Get a number, not a percentage. And get a commitment from him that he’ll pay that amount no matter where you get into school. And, at the same time, you can make a commitment to him that you will do your darnedest to get admitted to schools where you’ll get generous merit aid.</p>
<p>As already noted, it sounds like you’d qualify for merit aid - if you apply to the right schools. But you and your dad need to get on the same page first.</p>
<p>because if I get into an Ivy League School, I will have to pay about $80,000 out of my own pocket for my education, and ideally I’d like to be without the burden of debt.</p>
<p>This is ridiculous.</p>
<p>Your chances for outside merit are SLIM. Outside merit is often for SMALL amounts and ONLY for frosh year. AND, outside merit often requires a “NEED” component and you don’t have that.</p>
<p>you’d be lucky to get maybe $2k total in outside merit…IF YOU"RE LUCKY!!</p>
<p>It is a horrible idea to borrow much anyway for undergrad and not necessary.</p>
<p>YOU can only borrow the following amounts without a co-signer…</p>
<p>frosh 5500
soph 6500
jr 7500
sr 7500</p>
<p>Is your dad willing to co-sign bigger loans? (that would be foolish, but is he willing to do it).</p>
<p>What is your career goal?</p>
<p>If you have the stats for ivies, then you have the stats for merit at OTHER schools.</p>
<p>You will NOT qualify for FA at any school.</p>
<p>* If I can get, say 25K in aid/scholarships over 4 years, I will only have to pay 75K*</p>
<p>ha ha…“only” $75k??? That is about 3 TIMES the amount of debt an undergrad should have. Undergrads shouldn’t graduate with more than about $27k of debt TOTAL. $75k of debt is ridiculous. Way too much.</p>
<p>You want to graduate $20k in debt, not $100k. Period. No discussion. If that means giving up “prestige,” then so be it. That $100k of debt could be the end of any chance you’ll ever have to live your dreams. It’s not worth it.</p>
<p>You need to re-think your school list. The UC’s will put you over $60k in debt. The OOS state schools such as U-Mich will be too expensive also. And the Ivies, as already discussed, are out of your price range.</p>
<p>You need to look at schools like Alabama that give guaranteed merit aid. Or any of the many, many engineering schools that give competitive merit aid. Start doing some research!</p>
<p>Money IS a factor, and you have to plan your applications accordingly.</p>
<p>P.S. None of these schools will actually put you “over $60k in debt,” of course, because you can’t actually borrow that much! Unless your dad (or someone else) is willing to cosign for you, you’ll be limited to federal student loans. And those will NOT pay for the schools on your list. Not even close.</p>
<p>Rough numbers: 60k COA, Dad pays 30k, you take a 5500 freshman student loan and are $25k short. Huge.
So, I’ll emphasize a point others made: without a co-signer, you cannot borrow what you’d need. Second year, chances you could add another roughly 25k will diminish. </p>
<p>In contrast, suppose you can get generous merit, let’s just say 20k. So, Dad pays 30k, merit kicks in 20k, you take the 5500 student loan, get a good summer job and maybe work on campus. As you look at colleges with good merit (schools that would like to win you,) you play with the numbers, see what’s most feasible.</p>
<p>If engineering is definitely what you want to do, Ivy League schools are not the best schools, and certainly not worth mega debt.</p>
<p>The best engineering schools in the country are schools like MIT, Stanford, Cal Tech, Georgia Tech, Michigan, Illinois, etc. (Please nobody get your feelings hurt if I skipped over your school.)</p>
<p>If you are going to be NMF, that gives you the possibility of large merit aid at some fine engineering schools.</p>
<p>^^BobWallace you beat me to the comment I was going to make earlier but got distracted. OP if it’s engineering you want and cost is a consideration there are better choices for engineering than Brown etc. that would give you merit money if you’ve got the stats to get into Brown/Columbia/Penn etc. To be frank I didn’t even know Brown had engineering and my previous company hired hundreds of engineers every year - but from Georgia Tech, Michigan, Purdue, Illinois, Case, RPI, Rose and a dozen other unis that have good engineering programs.</p>
<p>Your goal should be to graduate with as little debt as possible. With your income, you will not receive need based aid at any school. You could receive merit aid but not at those Ivies as they don’t give merit aid. At the Ivies, your family would be expected to pay the entire cost of attendance. </p>
<p>Are you instate for CA? Will your dad pay the full cost of attending a UC (which would be half the cost of attending an Ivy)? Or will he only pay half of THAT cost? Is your dad willing to be the cosigner on your college loans, because you will not be able to take loans above the Direct Loan amounts without a cosigner.</p>
<p>As noted by others, for engineering there are options where you could get merit aid. U of Alabama would offer you very generous aid as a NMSF majoring in engineering. The reality is that you need to attend a school with ABET accreditation. You might want to look at schools like RIT and RPI, or Case Western…good merit would likely come your way.</p>