Making $1-2,000 dollars is not going to meaningfully affect your EFC. Especially if some of that money is spent on application fees. A summer job might be worth considering - enough for your application process but then it would be done before you went back to school and you could focus on your studies.
To reiterate what others have said, a family income of 95K (with 3 kids?) is not considered high income by elite private schools with large endowments. When you’ve got your list narrowed down, run the EFC calculators and you might be pleasantly surprised.
Christian colleges might be worth a look-see, although it looks to me that you might prefer larger schools. For example, a friend of ours (also with a Nigerian dad!) got a great deal at Anderson University (merit + need) and her grades and test scores were quite a bit lower than yours.
@MYOS1634 Thanks for the refresher. But could you explain what defines a “meet need” college? Because I think looking for a school that does meet need and provides merit aid will be my best chance at an affordable college. (Since my sister got a HUGE merit aid package from Abline Christian University(like 33k) but that didn’t cover tuition and all she needed was about 10k in FA. Since she didn’t get it, she couldn’t afford it and i don’t want that to happen. thats why I like to make sure I can try to get some FA. But IDK if that happens only at Abline or if its everywhere.) So Schools ilike Case Western Reserve (with a lot of FA and MA) would be ideal since they make it easier for a full ride. Or am I being alittle unrealistic in finding many colleges like that?
@mamaedefamilia Thank you for sharing. I just want to go to a school that has alot of different classes to choose from (so alot of majors) since I will be coming in with a lot of college credit and would like to exempt somethings. But do i look like I will qualify for any federal aid? do I have a decent chance?
With a family income of $95k and an EFC of maybe $5000 your federal aid would be a few hundred of Pell grant. The student loan if you want/need it of $5500. Possibly a texas state grant instate.
Depending on number of siblings going to college at same time or income going down that might change a bit, but can’t be counted on.
You said you could get a full ride at Prairie View, maybe at Howard and Florida A&M, that’s merit based.
Some schools like Lehigh, Lafayette might offer merit and need based aid, would depend on what they think your family can pay/stats. Try and run their net price calculator.
I suggested Pitt because they have mechanical engineering/materials science and with coop program you would get job experience and make some money.
They have some named diversity scholarships (possibly full ride) that a first gen, urm, female (?) engineering student from Texas might qualify for. I think it would be worth a try.
As long as you have other options you can for sure afford and would be happy to attend.
Oh alright I understand now . I’m sorry now that I think about it that has been repeated several times. Thanks @mommdc. I should add more schools to my list that may offer me a lot of merit aid as opposed to a financial and merit aid combo. I think I get it now. Thanks for the help!
Essentially, you’ll need to apply to a lot of different schools: some met-need schools (they define need, but if they admit you they promise they’ll give you enough to attend - only about 80 schools out of 3,700 do that, the others “gap”).
it doesn’t. An issue is that many meet-need universities don’t have MechE. But OP is a junior, so I figure it can’t hurt if s/he starts running NPCs on a variety of colleges to see what the results are, then look through the affordable ones to see if his/her major is offered or if a possible major is offered. This way, OP can think of many different possibilities ahead of time, and have a good targeted list by the time summer after junior year rolls around.