<p>My college counselor says that a california shool would be likely to give mone to someone in GA like me. Do schools include the cost of air travel in financial aid?</p>
<p>Included in the estimated COA is a little bit for transportation. It is estimated, and the same whether you are coming from Riverside or Zimbabwe. One size fits all. Example, USC estimates $580 a year for transportation. Put in perspective, that is about 1% of the total annual cost.</p>
<p>So your counselor is not exactly right. Since the transportation costs are not keyed to where the student is coming from, your aid will not be any different being from GA going to CA. Emory likely estimates something similar.</p>
<p>Au contrair! I've been an admissions/financial aid expert for 28 years and have been able to negotiate increased travel allowances for clients traveling internationally and from coast to coast. Your counselor is 100% correct!</p>
<p>Yes, correction. If you can show your circumstances require far more travel expense than the default estimate, and the school really wants you and is looking for a justification to increase your award anyway, then the school can make this adjustment. </p>
<p>The standard is two round trips per year. In the example of USC, you would have to show that YourtownGA-LAX-YourtownGA, times 2, is substantially more than $580.</p>
<p>We tried to get an increase to DD's finaid...and one of the things we presented to the finaid folks was the increased cost of travel (because we live on the opposite coast). They offered her additional loans. So...she only comes home at Christmas and the end of the year. Even so...the schools estimated travel to be less than $600 for the year...that pays for 1 1/4 round trips.</p>
<p>Check with the schools since each college is different. I know of one NE school that provides a much bigger travel allowance for kids from the west coast and even larger travel $ for internationals, than it does for local, NE kids.</p>
<p>My friend from India gets two round-trip tickets each year. The college books the tickets, buys them, and sends them to her. She also gets some extra money to travel to visit relatives in the States for Thanksgiving and Spring Break, but she was able to find rides and used the extra money to buy better winter clothes than she brought with her.</p>