Anyone know how umass’ financial aid is? Are they generous with their aid?
I wonder if UMass determines whether or not they have a chance of getting a particular student to enroll, and adjust aid accordingly. First two kids of ours were top 10 in their HS class, and UMass gave them very little aid. Last kid was around 17th , and got lots of aid. Our family financial situation did not change at all during the process.
Was your efc high? That may have been the reason why. @MADad
@MADad Are you talking about merit aid or need-based aid? If merit, then the EFC wouldn’t matter. But it is strange they weren’t offered as much, unless their scores were lower. Some schools are known to defer kids who are likely to be using the school as a safety but I haven’t heard of merit awards reflecting that. Also, 17th is still awesome and maybe they don’t take into account exact rank within top 5-10%. Finally, maybe they were able to allocate more funds to scholarships this year.
EFC goes down when more than one in college at same time also…
Nearly every in-state student I know gets somewhere in the $2-3K range and then the merit aid tied into MCAS for another $1800. Seems that many OOS students get enough $$ to bring them in the same ballpark as in-state.
get 2-3k in need based aid? @NEPatsGirl that seems awfully low. I am hoping for atleast 10k in need based aid. I am in state.
All you can do is apply and see what happens but UMA is notoriously stingy with in-state students, everyone I know in the lower middle class range (lets say less than $60,000) had COA at $16-20K.
My range is around 64k and the net price calculator estimated that i will get around 9,500 in need based aid and i have the mcas thing so all i can do is hope that the net price calculator is right & the financial aid officers are feeling generous.
@NEPatsGirl forgot to tag you.
I have one son at UMass as in-state and we got NOTHING for aid other than a federal loan. My D will be attending a NESCAC school in the fall and will be paying LESS than what it will cost my son. With two in EFC goes way down for the private school but I am not holding my breath that we get anything from UMass
do you mind sharing what your efc is so i get a better understanding of how much aid I will get? @mcr976
My EFC was just under $6000 and if I remember correctly COA was about $18,000. D was in their top 25% for stats, was accepted into the honors college and offered a spot in BioTap (I only say this to reconcile with the short merit awards). While she chose to attend elsewhere, there is no question that UMA is worth every penny of the $18K it would have cost us IMHO it was just not the best fit for D. I really hope it comes in at/under your budget 
@NEPatsGirl my efc is just a little over 6000 so I am expecting my COA to be just around what your daughter’s COA was. I will most likely end up taking out loans for umass since i want to attend there. Thank you so much for all the help! Hopefully i get more need based aid than what I am expecting, would be a nice surprise
Best of luck!
To reply, we are firmly in the middle class, two older kids went to private colleges for less $$ than UMass would have cost (due to merit aid). UMass offered them minimal merit and lots of loans. Third child is attending UMass for what the two older siblings spent on private schools. #3 got lots more merit aid from UMass, despite a slightly weaker “resume”. Two older kids had better grades. better SAT’s, and better EC’s, yet significantly less merit $$ from UMass.
No college, even UMass ever matched our EFC. Always ended up paying more.
The only colleges that i’ve seen match the EFC are the ivies
Same here as MADad…D is going to a private college for less than the cost of UMA and had four other offers that came in at or under the same price tag as UMA (again due to chasing merit aid).