financing Columbia college study

Paying for College
1

Any advise will be highly appreciated!

Good News: I am accepted to Columbia college (NYC) class 2020!
Bad News: I’ll need to come up with $42k/yr (for COA $72k) to make it happen
Worst News: My parents could only come up with $11k/yr from their income + saving … $31k short every year for four years

details of the offer: Columbia grants = $26k; Fed grants = $4k (EFC 128); that’s all.

both my parents didn’t speak english well, let alone went to colleges. I’ll be the 1st in our family. of course, I will ask Columbia, but want to get some ideas 1st.

btw - Columbia does NOT offer “student loan?”

I really appreciate your suggestions or ideas, particularly from people who went through this before.

Many thanks!

2

Congratulations on your acceptance. Unfortunately, any college that requires you to borrow $30k/year to attend is too expensive.

Where else were you accepted?

3

Columbia does have student loans, they just don’t put them in your packqge, you have to request them.

But an efc of $128 and you are expected to pay over $30k per year? That doesn’t sound right at all.

4

Did you run the NPC before you applied? If so, you would have gotten a pretty fair idea as to the net cost to attend Columbia - and if the difference was that significant, why did you apply?

If your parents can only come up with $11K per year, then I am guessing either they have a business income that is fairly substantial, or there may have been a mistake when you filled out the NPC.

Have you contacted the FA office at Columbia? They offer very significant financial aid to most students - but there are still several who are asked to contribute based on what they can afford.

Every year there are mistakes made at almost all colleges - even the ones with hefty endowments. If a mistake was made on their end, they can correct it.

If you can share what your NPC estimate was, we may be able to offer assistance in helping you prepare to talk to them. Remember, they want you to attend, you are a first generation student, and Columbia generally has the resources to help make this happen, especially if it was their mistake. If it was your or your parents’ mistake, and it turns out the package is correct, then it means your parents are not willing to contribute their fair share - which is fine, it is their decision after all how to spend their money - but they should have had that conversation with you before you applied.

I hope this just turns out to be a mistake on the school’s part that could be corrected.

5

I will print CSS and FAFSA first and go through every numbers with your parents to see all the numbers are correct. And then run NPC to see the financial aid estimate.

6

Are you an international student?

7

COLUMBIA is a school that meets 100% demonstrated need. If COLUMBIA feels that Op can pay 42k there is something in students financials that leads them to believe that they have considerable income:assets

8

@nycLou

  1. Are you an international student? I'm guessing not since you mention an EFC which is a FAFSA term.
  2. Did your family complete th CSS Profile and submit it to Columbia?
  3. Does your family own a business?
  4. Does your family own real estate other than your primary residence?
  5. Does your family own rental properties.
  6. If your FAFSA RFC is $128, your Pell Grant would be over $5000 for the year....not $4000.

Something isn’t right.

Agree with above posters…check your FAFSA and Profile forms for accuracy. It sounds like it’s possible that something was incorrectly entered on the Profile if your FAFSA EFC is really $128. Check every entry.

Also…you CAN take out a $5500 Direct Loan.

9

Good morning! 1st, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank EVERYONE who was willing to help by providing their input/comments and asking questions.

Please let me answer/clarify some of your questions here:

  1. I'm US citizen and became "naturalized" in May last year (2015);
  2. FAFSA; CSS; TAP (NY resident) all completed and submitted;
  3. My mom is a nurse aide (w2 = $38k) and my dad sells bathroom scales at amazon.com (1 man biz working at home);
  4. We owned a home (mortgaged $300k, paying $2k/mth) with no other real estate or rental properties; and
  5. I'm also admitted to Cornell, Brown and Stony Brook (full ride).

Almost everyone here was asking me “international student?” That led me to look at something - my FAFSA saying “I’m NOT US citizen!” I spoke to SSA yesterday. For those who became “naturalized” citizen later in their lives, here is the lesson, or at least something I could could contribute to this forum. Go to SSA to update your citizenship statue ASAP! Then run your FAFSA. The key is to update citizenship with SSA 1st, BEFORE running your FAFSA!!!

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and their computer system does NOT talk to SSA system. You will need to bring your original paper and all documents personally to your local SSA and apply a new SSN (same number, but different system inside). Then, run your FAFSA! Once I ran my FAFSA, all my personal info was “locked” and I can ONLY change the schools in my list. That means in FAFSA, I’m not citizen forever.

I’ll explain this to Columbia and hopefully they will understand.

Again, I really appreciate your ideas. If you have more, please keep them coming!