<p>Most schools do not meet full need for accepted students… so, even if the FAFSA EFC is 0 a school may not meet your full need. You may well receive enough to make a private school, like Syracuse, affordable. You may not. This is why people are suggesting applying to a few SUNY schools, and other schools that will give guaranteed merit for your stats.</p>
<p>OP, you may find some financial aid and/or merit packages from private school or out of state school with high stick prices that make the final price for you less than what SUNY would cost. Or not. It depends on luck for a good part of this as well as your specific stats and financial situation. </p>
<p>The schools that would have been the absolutely least expensive for my son and for my cousin’s son, both having graduated the same high school year, were private colleges within commuting distance. Both my son and his cousin got full tution awards from such schools which would have made them less expensive than even community college. Since neither of them were PELL eligible, my son did not qualify for TAP and my nephew’s state had no grants for college kids on the state level, any grant money they were to get had to come from the colleges themselves and the local state schools did not offer anything. So for them, the most cost effective colleges were those local Catholic schools. Even if they boarded at those schools, the cost would have been the lowest. After than came the state schools. </p>
<p>My nephew was eligible for financial aid but none fo the schools cost what his EFC was. They all wanted more. like a lot more. So State U was the best deal for him if were not to commute from his parents’ home. He did get a small grant from his state U which made the net cost would have been the least from there. A private college did give him a financial aid packaged that was more generous, but the cost was far more, but still doable, and he did go there, as he preferred it. But it was not the least expensive option on the table for him, and he is taking out loans whcih he would probably not have had to do had he gone to one of the state schools and if he and his parents paid out of pocket what they are paying now. This was the best deal in his mind even though it was not the least expensive, but in the middle of the pack in terms of pricing. His first choice school which probably would have come up wit the best aid package did not accept him. This was second or third choice, but the highest on his desirablity list athat was still what he and his parents considered affordable. So it’s not just price that determines the best deal for a student.</p>
<p>I think what everyone is saying is, include SUNYs and guaranteed merit schools as a backup, then shoot for the moon with private schools you love.</p>
<p>@Thumper said “Hopefully you are instate for Pennsylvania. If so, why not add Pitt?”
U Penn is private (Ivy) and has great financial aid.</p>
<p>@Collegebound1111 – DS is in a similar situation to you with regard to financial aid, except he is quite certain about majoring in computer science, which made a list easier to generate. Our approach was as follows:</p>
<p>1) look at ratings of computer science (US News and a couple of others) for CS, and rule out anything below our flagship (which he visited and liked, though it is a little big). Price is about $22k per year with automatic 1/2 tuition merit scholarship.
2) Rule out all OOS publics unless they give full aid to or merit to OOS.
3) Rule out all OOS private schools requiring a foreign language for CS majors (Duke, BU).
4) Rule out all OOS private schools he has no shot at (Stanford, MIT, CMU CS).
5) Run net price calculators on the rest and read CC and start throwing out others.
6) Result is 9 schools: 4 reach, 4 match (3 with merit chance) , and the state school.</p>
<p>Maybe this helps, I don’t know. Or if anyone has comments on the approach, I have kids behind DS.</p>
<p>Daddio…oops. Right UPenn. Not PSU!</p>
<p>The OP is a NY resident, right? </p>
<p>As noted, we know how much his parents are WILLING to pay. We do NOT know how much the colleges will calculate they CAN pay. </p>
<p>All he has to do is get accepted at those competitive schools.</p>
<p>If lower income, would,he be TAP eligible? I don’t know a thing about TAP…but if eligible, this would be a plus for those SUNY schools. I agree that one or two SUNY schools,should be added to the list. As an instate student, they are within the price point the OP says his parents can pay.</p>
<p>Daddio, great list for you. In OP’s case, eliminating those OOS schools that do not have full tuition awards may not be necessary since there is a baseline that is payable by family. If OOS costs $35K, for example and there are some $10K awards that the school has but not full ride, it’s still a viable option and can make the school almost as affordable as a SUNY for the OP. </p>
<p>TAP is like for family income under $80K or so, but the amounts reduce as the income goes up, so anyone near the limits is not going to get a whole lot But with a full cost of aboaut $20K at the SUNYs, even a couple hundred bucks is a nice piece of change. </p>
<p>My son’s friend at a PA state school is from NY and he did get about $10K in merit money which makes it close, though not quite as inexpensive as his first choice SUNY would have been, but eminently doable. Worth the extra to him and family. A private without a whole lot more money would have been a financial hardship involving a lot of loans.</p>
<p>How is University of Virginia, University of Richmond FA wise? The information I have says these colleges would meet 100% financial need. I ran NPC and they are as follow: </p>
<p>Virginia 29K - 4k for work study = 25K</p>
<p>Richmond 24.5K - 1.5k work study = 23K</p>
<p>If you ran the NPC, you know how those schools’ FA is for you. No one else’s opinion matters.</p>
<p>This is my fourth child to be going to college. My EFC is low - a few years back it was 0 - and I’ve successfully navigated the finances so far. But my kids do have strong stats.</p>
<p>Our approach was a little more organic. I don’t use the NPC. I don’t find it has a strong correlation with what is actually offered. </p>
<p>First, to echo KatMT–the most important thing to remember is that a) most colleges do not or cannot meet full need and b) the way they meet the need can be entirely through loans as opposed to grants. Since I didn’t want my children to graduate with $50,000 or more in debt if they could help it, getting a need based grant as opposed to a loan was top priority.</p>
<p>What we did was to physically go onto each college website and look at
a) their financial aid mission statement – this helps see their attitude toward it. For instance, some colleges are ‘need blind’ others are not. Some colleges state they are committed to helping students graduate with no debt, but this is increasingly rare (it was more common a few years back). Some colleges will simply link you immediately to private lenders. This is a bad sign as it means grants are unlikely and they don’t have a lot of internal support for financial aid.
b) Look at stats on what percentage of their student body has their need met fully. This includes loans but it gives a good idea of their ability to pay.
c) Look at their endowment.</p>
<p>What we did was to treat finances just like acceptances, and divided schools into matches, reaches and safeties. </p>
<p>As another poster says, OOS public universities are eliminated unless you can get a scholarship or unless its OOS tuition happens to be a great deal even OOS. (Some states have In State deals with other states–make sure you know whether your state does that.) Basically for publics, in state or not, they almost never give substantial need based grants except of course for Pell Grants (government grants) but these, while great to have, are not a large percentage of tuition/room/board. What a lot of people do who are in real financial need is go to community college for two years, then transfer to state, and with a combination of Pell grants and working, graduate with $20,000 in debt. The economy is pretty bad and colleges are expensive.</p>
<p>My own kids wanted to do the four-year colleges, & were blessed with strong stats. I did make my children apply to our in-state university (Rutgers) but it never gave any money. It is $25K/year. SUNY and CUNY are far, far better deals, among the best in the country–many very strong universities at fabulous prices. You are very lucky if you live in New York. </p>
<p>My kids applied to well endowed privates that have a policy of giving generous need based grants. This strategy has been very successful and my children (so far) have gone to prestigious colleges at a much cheaper cost than in-state public. <em>However</em> because of the economy, colleges are much less generous than in years past. </p>
<p>They also applied to OOS schools, public or private, that were less expensive than our in-state. I can’t really give you a list as my kids had different interests. </p>
<p>Beware of Work Study calculated into college tuition/room & board. My kids all work, but this money goes entirely into their incidentals, such as computer paper, laundry, coffee out, tickets to a show, mandatory trips, etc etc etc. Also,some colleges are less amenable to work study than others. I know several students in NYC colleges that have a very tough time landing a work study job. </p>
<p>Just to give you an idea of how it can be, my oldest D was accepted into RISD, with a financial aid package that basically said, “Congrats, you and your parents can now borrow $55K/year.” This was the year my EFC was $4000. Rutgers offered her nothing. Several schools offered her $3000 or so. But she was also admitted into Williams College, and the financial aid has been so generous that she will graduate without debt, and the cost is much less than our in state. </p>
<p>Finally, remember that many people have very difficult financial circumstances and the colleges try to meet this but there are just a lot of people who are unemployed, with no assets, and the colleges themselves have been hard hit. Try to be prepared.</p>
<p>All that being said, my kids still applied to a few schools they really wanted that had a reputation for not giving much aid. Sometimes, if the school really wants you and they are private, they will offer you a strong package. It’s also negotiable at the very end–some colleges will be able to match another offer. It depends on the college (usually not publics), their endowment, and how much they want you. My oldest son got nearly a full need-based ride to NYU Tisch years back. This school stated outright that it had very little money and didn’t give much in grants, yet he got this grant. Anything is possible but balance financial reaches with safeties.</p>