<p>*Mom2college, my husband does work part time at several jobs but with what I now know, I wonder if these jobs just increase our EFC and therefore add to our college debt. *</p>
<p>Just my opinion, but once you have an unaffordable EFC, then working more doesn’t add to the problem.</p>
<p>If you’re saying that if your H didn’t work at all, your EFC would be very low, that depends on what your assets are. You say that you don’t have much in savings, but does Rice look at home equity or maybe some other assets you may have? </p>
<p>How much did Rice expect you to pay each year? (if I’ve overlooked that in a prior post, I apologize)</p>
<p>I think she needs to apply to some OOS schools that will give her big merit for her stats.</p>
<p>The problem with outside scholarships is that they’re often for small amounts and only for freshman year. They also can reduce your aid from your school. For merit to reduce EFC, it has to exceed “need.” </p>
<p>I think that’s what another poster meant when she wrote that people chase merit or FA. Other posters misunderstood when they posted that their child rec’d FA and merit. Yes, but that probably didn’t reduce EFC, which is what you’re after.</p>
<p>labelness, take a good hard look at A&M. Eggson had similar stats (lower ACT, but higher SAT) and was offered good merit aid there. I dont recall the exact $$, but it would have been very affordable for us. He was not interested in engineering, and ultimately chose a small LAC instead.</p>
<p>We know many current and recent engineering grads and we would have been very happy if he chose this path. </p>
<p>UT is another excellent option, but in my limited experience, there is less merit aid offered. YMMV</p>
<p>Basically, once you get over $70-80K, 47% of every extra dollar of income gets added to your EFC, minus an adjustment for the taxes you pay on it.</p>
<p>Assets, after a small exclusion, are added to EFC at a rate of 5.6% for parents’ assets and 20% for student assets.</p>
For a kid going into engineering, some amount of student loans are generally considiered reasonable - at least up to the Stafford limits.</p>
<p>In addition, internships and co-ops can pay pretty well. You could have your kid co-op for two semesters, and he will very possibly make enough to fund his last year by himself. It’ll take him 5 years, but gets him through without crushing debt.</p>
<p>It’s not a risk-free strategy, but it is not crazy either.</p>
<p>If you are totally against loans, WPI may be out of reach. If you haven’t already, talk to WPI’s FA office and see if they can do anything more.</p>
<p>Labelness - IMO - having an annual income of around $80,000 - $120,000 is the worst place to be - and is exactly where so many families are. You make too much money to receive significant FA and you make too little to be able to afford $30,000 - $50,000 per year out-of-pocket. </p>
<p>If she is accepted at UT-Austin - that’s what I would recommend - even if you have to pay for it - it’s about $18,000 per year in-state - right? That’s not too bad. I would also leave Rice on the table as a transfer option later on if your finances improve and if you still feel that would be a better choice. But who knows - she might love UTA.</p>
<p>Our guidance dept pointed out to us that EFC is very heavily based on your income. The amount of savings you have doesn’t move the EFC that much, but changes income make a significant impact. </p>
<p>If your H’s last year’s income was a one-time thing, you should point that out to Rice. Perhaps a few years previous tax returns would reinforce that. </p>
<p>Echoing that if your D is in the top % that gets into UT or A&M, they are truly great options. Many of us in other states would like to have flagships of that quality and reputation.</p>
<p>Reiterate to your D that all her hard work wasn’t “only worth $4k.” That hard work got her admitted to a very well regarded university, and it will get her admitted to other great schools as well.</p>
<p>The actual formula which FAFSA uses is complicated, but you can get a quick estimate by using one of the FAFSA calculators online. Here is one. You can run it multiple times, plugging in different income numbers. Remember that this doesn’t tell you what any specific school will offer you, but it will give you some idea of how a given change in income might affect your college bill.</p>
<p>I disagree that that income range is the worst place to be.</p>
<p>Many low income students don’t quality for need blind colleges, and thus are just completely rejected out of hand by admissions.</p>
<p>The worst place to be is unable to afford a public with no other options than CC and finding books etc. there to be a stretch.</p>
<p>Of course being wealthy is always the place with the most options.</p>
<p>I also disagree with the poster who said that 34 ACT is not high for Rice. It’s not extraordinarily high, but it is high. 30 - 34 number means that only the top of “average” pool has 34. It does not mean that 50% or anything close to that do.</p>
<p>I’m sure that Rice will reconfigure awards for future years if income is a one time deal. However, I’m not sure they will for this year. However, a talk with FA is a must. They do not want to lose their ED kids.</p>
<p>As my kid’s school put it when I inquired about ED when we needed FA: If she so clearly wants us and we clearly want her, we will work hard to find a solution."</p>
<p>Some posters here will say that’s pie-in-the-sky. We were fortunate to have good results and enough FA for kids to attend their number one choices. But I think FA should be given a chance to come through.</p>
<p>After that, I think the Texas publics are a very good deal.</p>
<p>I notice all the schools discussed are Texas schools so I will suggest Trinity University in San Antonio as a school to look into. Engineering is offered (am I wrong? I thought I noticed that this is a desire.) 86% of the students receive FA, merit scholarships are offered, and your daughters stats are high for Trinity.</p>
<p>I think this schools has a lot of offer as well in an environment more similar to Rice’s than a large research U.</p>
<p>labelness - Did your D already fill out the ApplyTexas scholarship application? Do you have any local A&M clubs in your area? Many offer schlarships to local students wanting to attend Texas A&M.<br>
[Find</a> an A&M Club](<a href=“http://www.aggienetwork.com/clubs/findmyclub.aspx]Find”>A&M Clubs - Find a Club)</p>
<p>The Muhlenberg piece was amazingly frank. Though it pains parents, it’s always important to realize admissions and FA decisions are made by people, not machines. Despite the colleges’ public protests to the contrary, there are always situations where some students are enticed more than others. Sorry. Fortunately, it says nothing about our kids’ chances of becoming mature, well-educated, happy young adults headed for successful futures. </p>
<p>Please know that, in the end, she’ll probably blame R more than she blames you. She’ll convert to finding them at fault for not matching reality to their nice printed info about max loans, the average aid given a family with $100/120-160k income, etc.</p>
<p>One of the lessons here is how important it is to really “interpret” what colleges mean when they say, “meet 100% of need.” Meet it how? And for whom? It takes a lot of reading-between-the-lines. Rice leads with a blurb about how the cost of college is “an investment in your future.” That would be a mini-flag to me. (It’s a sales pitch.) More important, IMO, than their own blurbs are figures re: % of student on aid and average grant. “Package” is a very misleading word. And “average package” is doubly so. It can reflect aid to families with a large number of children in college, legacies, athletes, special recruitments, etc.</p>
<p>That being said, if your income bracket and asset level reflected on the FA forms did not get the FA a college purports to give, do question them. Also, if the income bump was a one-time thing, be certain they know. If you can, offer to send proof that the BP work is done and the expectation is only occasional captaining jobs. Good luck.</p>
<p>If your daughter was applying to Rice for their engineering program, I would recommend looking into Rose Hulman if she would be willing to go to school in the midwest. It’s got the feel of a smaller engineering school (vs. a big state school), they are looking for accomplished women, and they do a great job of finding well-paying internships in the summer for their students. They also have some very nice merit aid available.</p>
<p>I echo the best wishes for your daughter. All of her hard work in high school was worth far more than $4,000–she learned how to succeed and that’s worth a ton!</p>
<p>“Meet 100% of need…” the key word in that phrase is NEED. Who defines need? The college, generally, based on your EFC. “Need” is generally defined as: Cost of Attendance minus EFC. </p>
<p>The second word that’s important in that phrase is “meets.” “Meets” doesn’t mean grants or scholarships - it can mean loans and work/study. And work/study does not guarantee that the kid will be able to earn a minimum amount of money.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, many parents read “Meets 100% of need,” to be, “Will provide grants/scholarships to lower our price to whatever you think you can afford to pay.” But that’s not what it means. :(</p>
<p>It is possible to get both merit- and need-based aid at the same time. However, it is NOT possible (with a few obscure exceptions) to “stack” merit- and need-based aid. So if your EFC is 35k and the school costs 50k, the most the school will give you is 15k in gift aid–if you receive a 5k merit scholarship, then 5k will be subtracted from your need-based aid. The only way to avoid this is to get a merit scholarship that gives MORE than your need, effectively making it a merit-only situation.</p>
<p>I think the issue with Rice is that you DIDN’T make around $80k this year… and the formula doesn’t distinguish between one-time money and normal annual earnings. But FA officers may make an adjustment; it’s up to their professional discretion. At the least, they should be able to tell you what aid package you could expect for the second year with $X income.</p>
<p>Rice is in the top tier of meets-full-need schools by virtue of its loan-cap promise (for <$100k, I believe). But then you still need to pay your EFC.</p>
<p>Laf, that WAS me. Again my definition of what “needs” I thought needed to be met did not coincide with the FA formula. But saying that, I entered this mess without doing my home work. I swear I am going to encourage every parent I know to come to this resource and get educated. It has been an invaluable experience that I wish I had done hmmmm years ago!!</p>