Of course, the whole phrase “meeting full need” is misleading, since the definition of “need” and the expected student contribution varies by school. See http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1675058-meet-full-need-schools-can-vary-significantly-in-their-net-prices-p1.html for an older discussion on how different schools vary on “meeting full need”.
What’s wrong with these schools? Seems like you have three good bargains to choose from.
There is nothing wrong with those schools, although OP means UMass-Amherst, UMass-boston, UMass-Dartmouth. All very good options.
There’s no entitlement to attend the school of your choice because you worked hard. That’s life. Get used to it.
Schools like BC BU NYU GWU know they’re in coveted cities and are notorious for being lean on FA, because they can CONSISTENTLY count on lemmings to open their wallets wide and go into deep debt to fund their “dream school”.
Thank you all for your advice, I sincerely appreciate it. I’m not purposely trying to come off as entitled or hostile–they are just a product of anger and my bad habit/difficulty in moving on. In the up coming weeks, I will consider all of my options carefully and make a final decision. I will try to make BC work, and I should be thankful for the generous aid, seeing as many wish to get a package as generous as mine.
@thumper1 We can pay the 7k contribution. Its just that we subtracted the COA-the grant and it came out to be around 21k, a third of our income. Our income BARELY covers the mortgage, food, and other living expenses, thats why we were so surprised with the cost. And for the other schools, I thought that the $50k was a total grant I didn’t need to pay back, but it turns out its the grant PLUS loans, work study, etc (50k is the total “aid”). Thats why I initially thought they were all affordable at first glance.
And yes, @ReturningFavor, it absolutely is a learning process, thanks for understanding.
@mikemac It was 25k. They gave me 4k more and its 21k now after appealing. @suzyQ7 I decided not to appeal because it would be a waste of my time. Again, it is hard for me to move on, that is a bad habit of mine. So I said to myself that I had to get into Brown, but then I fell in love with a school that loved me back. I learned to move past Brown a while ago. I am certainly happy with BC, dont get me wrong. But the cost just shrouded that happiness in anger.
@Madison85 I will most likely be closing it soon because eBay’s commission charges are in the increase, and I cannot keep up with the demanding costs.
It is a hard lesson for a kid. Especially if the reality of his/her situation was not clear until this point.
The parents had a duty to help the student understand the true financial picture.
If the parents themselves haven’t gone through this process before, the student should have sought out help from a guidance counselor.
Yes, “financial difficulties” feel unfair…but it is the way of the world. MONEY is needed to go to expensive schools, travel, buy a house. Your financial difficulties will have to be faced. If you feel you are that strong of an applicant, apply to schools that will agree and will give you 100% merit aid.
You need to find a way to lower you expectations that you are owed exactly what you WANT. Instead you need to be realistic about what you can afford.
It is difficult to learn that, I had to learn it when I was applying to schools as well. I thought that there was this big pile of “college savings.” Not that I ever asked. Or that my parents mislead me. It was just an assumption I made. There was nothing. So I did what I needed to do, took out the loans I needed to take out and put myself through my undergrad, grad school and law school. This is on YOU now. Make the decisions you need to make and move forward.
Good luck!
I think the poster should be furious at self and family for only learning about how aid works after the fact, instead of before the fact. Unfortunately this happens to many people and this type of post repeats many times each year when people find out they can’t go where they got in. But it seems to me the poster did get a good package, just expects to not make any family sacrifices for a fancy school. And short sighted on safety schools if you don’t like any. Remember the last year a kid got into all 8 Ivies but went to Alabama because the tuition was free? Dual income professional couple so likely the cost would have been high.
-All public and privates add back current year retirement contributions to income. That is straight up done on the FAFSA.
-Virtually all publics and privates include federal loans in the package and they are one way to meet the cost, especially if you want to go to an expensive private… It is not a ‘reward’ but an award because no one but the govt would lend to a student otherwise.
-There are only a couple no loan schools. There are a few more than don’t give loans for 60k income and below.
-All colleges expect some student work contribution
-almost all short sighted and immature kids make the foolish statement about wasting time working hard
and forgot
- Private school using CSS Profile EFC will always be higher than FAFSA EFC (with a few exceptions). They also consider more of the family financial profile. Yes there is actually FAFSA method EFC and Institutional method EFC and even there is a rarer 3rd method EFC. Confusing yes.
You think you are too good for UMass-Amherst but you are in plenty of like company. You aren’t going to be in remedial classes like lower performing kids, you will be in more challenging classes. And you will have tough enough competition you may have a hard time keeping a med school worthy gpa. I suggest you don’t max your family out financially if you have a really affordable option this good. You will need 6 to 8k just for med school tests and applications. Who is going to come up with that Sr year plus your family contribution? Eyes on the prize and all.
27% Score of 30 - 36
3.78 Avg GPA
54% GPA of 3.75+
OP, read post #74.
It shows you how to make things work. BC did meet your need - they made it possible for you to attend. 21k isn’t your family’s contribution. You are expected to work for college and take a loan. You parents are supposed to complement what you earned and borrowed.
You now have ten days to decide: are you ready to continue working in college, and borrow the federal amounts, and attend BC ; or are you going to attend UMass Amherst Honors (I assume you got honors) basically for free ?
Most people would feel blessed to have such a choice and you earned it through your hard work. Now, you have to choose.
One lesson from this thread is that the NPC is only good as the numbers you enter. Failing to add retirement contribution back in as instructions indicate is what caused the seeming blind side.
@BrownParent I’m not going to throw the family under the bus. The father is putting a very healthy percentage of income in retirement which tells me something about self-discipline. If he is working two jobs, there is not much time to research this process. I don’t even see an indicator of the parents misleading the child as to how much they can pay. That seems to have been made clear. I think this is the first opportunity for a soon to be young adult take responsibility. The parents may have known the numbers would work at the UMass schools and everything else was to the student to research.
OP, lots of posters here went to state schools, had higher marks than you, and have gone on to lead successful lives by many standards.
Agreed @Sportsman88 I wouldn’t necessarily blame the parents. I haven’t seen any suggestion that they didn’t do their part in the process. They obviously completed their FAFSA properly regarding their retirement account because once the OP included that info on the NPC it came up with the same figure that BC is offering . The only thing that they may have been “guilty” of is not having the financial discussion before OP applied to school, but I’m not convinced that they didn’t and OP applied where he felt entitled to go.
I suggest the following:
Run the net price calculator for BC with the added income of mom and retirement contributions, so about $100,000 to see how your net price will increase. Also I think BC figures in home equity quite heavily.
When you figure your net price just use the direct billed numbers, tuition, fees, room and board minus the grants. Then see if remaining costs can be covered with family contribution, student loan of about $5,500 and student work earnings. (Work study is earned during the semester, not available when first bill is due).
If your family will have a hard time paying the $7k (or whatever the number ends up being) then you have to rethink.
Every year tuition and other costs go up, you have med school in mind.
You don’t need to attend BC to go to med school.
You need to get a high GPA in challenging med school prerequisites. That can be hard to achieve even at state schools because you are competing against hundreds of other students and there are only so many As given out.
I would pick the Umass school that has a good reputation for premed advising, has some easy access to hospitals.
Keeping the eye on the price as someone else said is right.
“and my mom will have to find a job that will only pay her $30k regardless of how many years she has experience”
OP this made me laugh. It’s exactly what I’m doing - working 40 hours a week from home for about $30k while my hard earned MA sits unused on a shelf. I do it so I can pay for college for my D while being there to take care of the other kids/house etc. I could easily shout that it’s not fair because I worked so hard for my advanced degree but because I’m adult I do what I have to do and am just grateful that my kids will have the opportunity to go to college. I know you worked hard. Read some other posts about kids with perfect GPAs and perfect SATs or ACTs and hundreds of community service hours that are passing up Ivy league educations and going to public schools with a full ride because it’s the responsible and financial savvy thing to do. And they’re grateful.
^^ yes that is a good way to look at price too–direct billed and what is left where he can cut costs, like buy used texts, move off campus jr and sr year (where allowed) be frugal about travel home and personal expense.
But I am not ‘throwing family under bus’ just trying to point out that he is furious about is non crappy aid and he should me more furious at himself for not selecting more variety if he hates the safeties and just assuming fafsa efc is his efc. I said there are confusing things unfortunately, but he has a lot of assumptions and an irksome POV.
Actually…BC gave the OP $47,000 in grants according to a post upstream. Plus the $3500 Subsidized loan plus $2500 work study. EFC is $7000 (school will NOT award aid to pay EFC). Right there you have $60,000. Add to that the unsubsidized $2000 loan which this student COULD take…and you get $62,000.
And if you add in the STUDENT contribution…well…this school DID meet full need.
Summer job? Parent job?
This is a great package.
What are the billable costs (tuition, fees, room, bboard) for BC per year? Things like costs of books, transportation and personal expenses are in the control of the OP and could be reduced in terms of actual costs.
And again I ask…what did Holy Cross give the student for aid? Betting it’s about the same net cost.
yes it is very ‘non crappy’ aid, he is also irrational about that point. But now he has to decide if the loans are worth it. He made it clear that normal student loans are crappy aid.
This school costs upward of $60,000 a year…and the OP is upset because he has to take $5500 in federally funded loans…and work a job?
This is quite the deal for this school.
Student loans ARE crappy if you are going to med school. But the reality of actually going to med school are always very low for any student (Less than 25% of kids starting freshman year of college as premed end up applying to med school after college. and 50% of med school applicants are SHUT out of every med school they apply to (many times these are dozens of schools). If OP had to work incredibly hard just to get a 3.7 and 31 ACT, he will find the work insane to compete with others in the hard science classes for a 3.5 at UMASS or BC.
UMASS makes MOST sense for Med School (no loans after undergrad) But if the OP ends up not going to med school, and switching to another major, will he regret not taking those loans to go to the more prestigious school (BC). Prestige is clearly valued by the OP, so the loans may be worth it to help with the ego factor.
Congratulations OP, your emotion brought out ALL the big guns on this thread. Like it or not, you have lots of sound advice here - listen to it. Well done and best of luck!