So. I got a financial aid offer of $18, 200, which consists of 50% loans, with my acceptance.
I just redid the calculator and put in the same numbers as the FAFSA etc.
It gave me a package of $56,100.
What??
So I called the Fin. Aid Office and, according to them, it’s because of limited funding and that they try to reach the calculator’s deal but can’t sometimes.
Ok, but I didn’t even get $20,000 off.
Again, what?
Forgot to mention the school: Boston University
You broke my heart, BU. You describe me as “high need” and this is what I get?
Break their heart and go somewhere else that made itself affordable.
It’s just cruel, honestly. Who likes reading “high need” like a confirmation that you have $0. And then, to add salt to that wound, they give me like $10,000 actual ‘free money’. The rest is loans.
I might just head over with my mom and start begging or something…I can’t believe a school like BU doesn’t have enough funding for students who are actually poor but doing well in school. Honestly.
“I might just head over with my mom and start begging”
that would be a fruitless, frustrating waste of your time.
“I can’t believe a school like BU doesn’t have enough funding for students who are actually poor but doing well in school.”
Believe it.
time to turn your attention to colleges that you CAN afford to go to without tens of thousands of dollars in loans.
BU does not guarantee to meet full need. You mention that you weren’t even sure you would be accepted at all on your other thread addressing this. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1878587-is-this-is-financial-aid-at-bu.html#latest
Time to move on to a more affordable option for you.
When exactly did you complete your financial aid forms and submit them to BU?
OP, if what you describe is accurate (and I have no reason to believe that it’s not), the biggest problem here is that BU’s Net Price Calculator is so out of whack. They need to fix it so that it gives prospective students a much more accurate idea of what their net price will be.
@aimingforthesky BU doesn’t have a lot of incentive to give you more money. I think it’s AWFUL that they’re so far off of their net price calculators – presumably, you wouldn’t even have applied if you’d thought you’d only get $10k. They wasted your time and money. Be annoyed, but they don’t guarantee to meet full need, so there’s not a lot you can do.
You have other options, right? Because right now it’s looking like $200k in loans if you went to BU, and that’s clearly insane (and probably impossible).
I’m very surprised that the BU net price calculator was THAT off. The school has had more transparent (although not generous) financial aid policies since my kid went there.
Have you checked every LINE of your Profile for accuracy? Is there a chance that something was entered inaccurately?
Was everything complete including your link to the IRS Data Retreival Tool by the deadlines or earlier?
What was in the NPC for the $56k in aid? If it was $40k in parent plus loans, maybe they are the same results. If it said $56k in BU free money, show them the results and ask why they are so different.
I did the NPC for my daughter and the last line read "Your OOP is… $0! I was thrilled until I looked above and saw full loans for her and $25000 for me. Not exactly $0 at it would come out of my pocket someday.
He already did this. You can read about it in the first post.
I’m sorry. That stinks. I knew they were not full need met, but thought they were more able to provide than >50% of need.
Where else is on your list?
@HRSMom I still have not heard from Northeastern, though their deadline was just April 1. I’m pretty sure they meet need based aid very well. Other than that I have UMASS Boston, which will most likely give me no aid - at least not merit (I’m a transfer and they have almost nothing for us).
@twoinanddone $56,100 is what they call “BU need-based Scholarship”. Apparently, that didn’t actually apply. Also $5,500 in loans. That did apply. Yay…
If it were slightly off that would be completely understandable, but this is no where near slight. I think BU should change some things here, it’s honestly misleading. I could have saved the $60-75 application fee to be quite frank.
I can give complete breakdown of the numbers if someone is interested.
My FAFSA and CSS Profile were processed a couple days before the deadline, btw.
This may be part of the problem. BU’s NPC may be set up specifically for incoming freshman, although if that’s the case they should provide a visible disclaimer (maybe they do?) so as not to be misleading.
BelknapPoint is right, that really changes things. Even if a school guarantees aid to freshmen it might not to transfers.
I agree that this is a ridiculous result if you were not warned ahead of time that they will not meet need.
Most schools do not meet need anyway. EFC should be treated as the minimum out of pocket cost unless you got a lot of merit scholarships.
He was warned ahead of time that BU does not meet need for every applicant; the school’s website makes this very clear. The problem is the discrepancy between this policy and the results provided by the NPC.
On the BU NPC page under “Important notes about the Net Price Calculator:”