Wondering if anyone else has dealt with or has this problem
received my financial aid decision on my spire account earlier this week.
it really was nothing and even in combination with academic scholarship money i cant afford the school
any advice? has anyone called to negotiate ?
What are you going to negotiate? Your other thread says your an OOS student from DE, so you won’t qualify for state aid. You have a 25 ACT/3.5 UW GPA, so I don’t think they’ll offer more merit. If they offered need based aid, you’d have received that in your package.
If the school is unaffordable, you have to look at other options. Did you apply to any schools in DE?
“Wondering if anyone else has dealt with or has this problem”
Most students have dealt with the problem that many schools are unaffordable. It looks to me that UMass is unaffordable for you. I agree with @austinmshauri. You need to go somewhere else.
Where else have you applied?
We were also disappointed in my son’s financial aid package. OOS as well and didn’t expect them to meet need but they didn’t even come close! Not planning to appeal. There is no point. We are not ruling it out though. He really loved the school and if he absolutely wants to go here we will make it happen even if we have to take out parent loans. He has also gotten into his financial safety, in state, so that is always an option, and still waiting for the FA from his other top choice, plus several regular decision schools, including my alma mater which is an elite private school famous for giving very generous aid (a stretch for him to get in though). Did you apply to University of Delaware? My son liked that school and is applying regular decision.
@DadTwoGirls @austinmshauri umass has stated to meet 80% of need so that’s what i would call about. i have seen other schools forms where people have “negotiated”. i was specifically referring to the FAFSA not merit aid. also obviously i have looked at delaware because i live here - and it’s a great option but i want to go out of state. i am looking at other schools but i was wondering this year peoples results with the FAFSA. thank you for your responses and i may be ignorant about this process i’m trying!
I don’t think they promise to meet 80% of aid. Not sure where you saw that. It might be the average need met. So someone needing very little aid might have it 100% met. Our EFC is $2,900 and our aid package was only $23,000. Wirh COA of $47,000 that is a $21,000 gap. The only basis for an appeal is if your circumstances have changed. Also, our aid package included the $10,000 merit scholarship which surprised me. I wonder if we didn’t have the merit scholarship if the need based grant would have been higher.
PS it is the average. https://www.umass.edu/umfa/scholarship
Note that it is the average percentage of need met of INCOMING students. That means students that actually enroll. This does not account for those thay do not enroll possibly because they couldn’t afford it!
The FAFSA is an application that is used to determine eligibility for a ~$5k/year Pell Grant. You can’t negotiate Pell eligibility. You’re either eligible or you’re not.
People who negotiate aid generally have packages from peer schools and ask the college’s to “reconsider” the packages. They don’t use the term “negotiate.” How much do you need to make the school affordable? You may get a couple thousand/year, but they won’t cover a large gap.