<p>So i just got my f.a aid package from umass and I will have to pay 9k a year. This was more than I expected. My gpa is 3.8 and i scored a 1970 on the sats. Did I get a good deal or did I get the short end of the stick? I was just wondering since the average debt at graduation was only 24k for a umass student and with this I will be at 36k...</p>
<p>BTW, if I took a gap year then I will just try to strengthen my resume and apply to different colleges next year.</p>
<p>Average is not mean. Is your package primarily grants and merit scholarships, or need based? Are you eligible for the Abigail Adams and did you give UMass the letter from it?</p>
<p>The Abigail/John Adams scholarship is only good toward tuition, which is around $1000-$1200 at UMass. The fees, even for in-state students are over $10,000 (I want to say close to $14,000 or so.) OP, I think you got a pretty good amount. I sounds like you would mostly be paying for room and board. Are you paying 9k a year including your Stafford loan, without a Stafford, or in addition to the Stafford? (You don’t pay the Stafford right away, but do include it in what you are Paying, since you do have to pay it back.) I think you got a pretty good deal. Did you get into any other, more affordable schools?</p>
<p>All my awards were grants/need based. NO MERIT. And I already got a tuition waiver so I don’t think the Abigail/John Adams scholarship is any good for me. And what is a Stafford loan? I don’t recall ever seeing that but I’ll look it up right now. And the other schools I got into were private colleges and they would all cost more than umass.</p>
<p>EDIT: Oh ok, I see what it is now. Yeah I included all loans in the amound I have to pay.</p>
<p>Average is not mean</p>
<p>Since when? When most people say the “average” they mean the arithmetic mean.</p>
<p>It depends. The average doesn’t mean that you are going to get exactly that - it’s an average because roughly half of the students have some amount above that in loans. Will you have to borrow the entire $9K, or can you pay for some of that out of work-study funds or out of pocket? And is that $9K for required fees and room and board, or is this including personal expenses and books - things you can cut down on?</p>
<p>I do not know the breakdown, does the 9k for EFC include health insurance that you can get a waiver if you are in your parents plan? Whether you get better options next year would depend only if you get merit aid because your EFC will be the same.</p>
<p>The average debt at graduation numbers are quite meaningless really. First, it doesn’t usually include debt parents must take on, only the student’s own debt. Second, if student A got a lot of scholarships and only has $10,000 in debt, and student B got no scholarships and has $38,000 in debt, their average is $24,000. But student B still has $38,000.</p>
<p>So you probably did not get the short end of the stick. You just had an unrealistic idea of what the “average debt” statistic means.</p>
<p>The 9k is everything I have to pay for that first year(5.5k in loans and 3.5k in cash). And I think I did not qualify to get merit aid because I finished my fafsa after the priority deadline. But can I still get merid aid next year?and would it be based on my performance in high school or my first year grades at umass?</p>
<p>UMass gives little merit aid to in-state students. I think my daughter’s $2k was the max. But I wouldn’t take cc’s word for these questions. Try to talk to UMass finaid office. You might consider getting some gen ed courses out of the way in a commun. coll. next year as well to save money while still making progress.</p>
<p>If you take out the Stafford loans and you and your parents work on the $3.5K, it’ll work out to what is reasonable for a student to take out in loans. I don’t know if this is an “average” or not, but it is the maximum a student should be taking in debt. With some parental backing, that usually can be managed. Anything more than that is something the parents should undertake unless they cannot get loans at all, in which case, $4k more is available in Stafford after parents are turned down for PLUS.</p>
<p>You’re not likely going to get a better pkg if you do a gap year. Nearly all schools will put loans in. </p>
<p>You don’t have to pay much at all. how much will your parents pay? how much can you earn over the summer?</p>
<p>How much did you get in grants?</p>
<p>How much loans?</p>
<p>How much work study?</p>
<p>What is the COA breakdown of the school?</p>
<p>What is your EFC?</p>
<p>For 2011-2012 the tuition at UMass Amherst is $1714, the fees are $10898. However engineering majors pay an extra $320/year, and if you have to buy UMass health insurance, this is a ridiculous $2776 year.</p>
<p>In addition, first-time freshmen pay about $500 in extra fees.</p>
<p>So make sure all of this is figured into your package.</p>
<p>However: you can save $1400/year at UMass by taking a triple dorm instead of a double (and the word I’m getting from DS is that there will be a lot of triples next year, you could wind up in one anyway) as campus housing supply is getting tight due to increased enrollment (a 2500 bed dorm comes on-line in 2013 which will help ease things a bit).</p>
<p>In future years you can save even more by moving off campus and getting off of the meal plan. Buy used books or use library copies, get a job, yada yada.</p>
<p>Bottom line is that’s a very good package for UMass.</p>
<p>
I know for engineering students there are a plethora of scholarships you can apply for for your sophomore and later years, and virtually all of them both academic and need-based. They look only at your performance at UMass.</p>
<p>I don’t know if this is true for other majors, but if you do really well there may be other scholarships available. </p>
<p>What would you be majoring in?</p>