High family income yet in a tight spot.

Paying for College
1

<p>I've read that families who have multiple children attending college and make over 200,000 sometimes receive financial aid. Can anyone give me an example of how this has happened to them? Describe their situations and what aid was offered? Specifically to private colleges with selective admission? (University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago, Stanford University, etc...)</p>

<p>Also, can anyone tell me about the UPenn visual arts program and if is aid offered for that in particular? I'm aware that the college is "need-blind," but I'm just curious.</p>

2

<p>First…need blind has nothing to do with financial aid. It means that your ability to pay is not considered when your application for admission is considered.</p>

<p>Second…remember that college is a four year plan. Make sure you can pay when you DON’T have multiple kids in college at the same time.</p>

<p>Of the schools you listed, Stanford does offer need based aid to higher income families. If more than one student is in college, this would be considered. However, Stanford accepts about 5% of applicants. So…it is not a school to be counted on for admission.</p>

<p>The caveat on these generous schools (HYPS) is that the family needs to have “typical assets”. So if you have high assets, you could be out of luck.</p>

<p>U of Chicago has generous need based aid, but even with two in college at the same time, with an income of $200,000, you aren’t going to get a large amount of need based aid.</p>

<p>I don’t know about Penn.</p>

<p>Here is my suggestion…each college has a net price calculator on their website. I would suggest you use that. Put your numbers into the calculator and see what you get for an estimated net cost. Just keep in mind that if the parents are self employed, own a business, are divorced, or own real estate other than the primary residence, the NPC might not be particularly accurate.</p>

<p>How much aid would you hope to get or need?</p>

3

<p>My husband and I together make around $200K. We have 2 sons in college and we do not qualify for any financial aid. We are full pay for both colleges and since our income is over $160K, we cannot write off any college expenses on our taxes… Good Luck if you can find some FA.</p>

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<p>Very few universities offer very much, if any, financial aid to families in your income bracket. Notable exceptions include HYP but I’m not sure where their cutoff is.</p>

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<p>Thank you all for your input.</p>

6

<p>What you can do is run the FAFSA EFC estimator using your financial info and entering 2 kids in college. That will give you an estimated EFC for you (if your kids have income over $6K that year and any assets, the student EFC will be there too, but for now, let’s assume zero assets and no excess income for the student).</p>

<p>That EFC for the family excluding student financials comes to about half the EFC you would have for one child in college. Bear in mind that in many cases, the FAFSA EFC is the LEAST you will be expected to pay. You are not eligible for federal aid (other than PELL which is for very low income situations) until you pay that EFC, and that includes any subsidization of loans and work study. </p>

<p>When we ran the numbers some years ago, our EFC showed that it was theoretically possible for us to get financial aid if we had two kids in college at the same time. Both kids would have to be going to top priced schools with COAs in the $60K range, and getting no merit money at all. In our case, that did not happen as one did get enough merit money that we were not paying our EFC for him, and the others went to state school where the sticker price was low enough that that half of the EFC well covered the price. </p>

<p>Not that it would have mattered. The one at private school would have had to have had a PROFILE filled out which likely would have had another spin on the picture, names expecting a payment of 60%, not half of the one student contribution which would have been less generously calculated in this case, and the state schools in the picture were highly unlikely to meet full need anyways. </p>

<p>But what it meant was that if the costs were at the top COAs for two kids, both of them would have been able to get subsidization of their Direct loans, and depending upon the school, maybe some workstudy money. </p>

<p>I am not familiar with UPenn’s visual arts program. If it is a part of the regular UPenn offerings for the mainstream of their undergraduates, my understanding is that it doesn’t matter what the program is; financial aid is calculated equally for undergrads. UPenn is need blind for admissions for such undergrads and guarantees to meet full need. The reason I am caveating this is because some universities have “schools” within them, and types of programs that do NOT fall under the umbrella of their main undergraduate college, and in some cases, the need blind and full need guarantee does not hold for the such. General studies, adult, weekend programs are examples of the such. Waitlisted students, transfers, are other such examples. I suggest you call Admissions at Penn and ask outright if those applying to that specific program are admiited on a need blind basis and if full need as they define is guaranteed for those accepted., so that there are no misunderstandings. </p>

<p>As Thumper suggested, the NCPs are you best bet to see how you will fare, that is, if you are not in a situation unusual to them.</p>

7

<p>I know several families over 200k who attend Penn. If there’s only one in school, they will not get aid at all. Here is what happened to one family I know - I don’t know exactly how high their income is. .</p>

<p>Son A went to Northeastern on a full tuition merit scholarship. The family was only on the hook for room and board. Son B went to Penn. He had been recruited for crew and the coach did ask what he could do to make it possible for son B to go there and son B told him he needed a discount. Son B received about 20k in financial aid. Two years later, son C went off to Penn State - son A had graduated so there were still two in college. The family expected a much better aid package from Penn because now they were paying about 20k more for son C than they had been for son A. However, their Penn bill actually went up a little. </p>

<p>A few caveats: I don’t know the impact of being on a recruited sport (I do know it’s not supposed to matter in the Ivy League). I also don’t know if the household income went up - from the way the mother tells the story, it sounds like it was basically the same. </p>

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<p>Ivy League schools are prohibited from giving athletic scholarships. Your friend’s kid had financial need or he would not have gotten aid from Penn. </p>

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<p>It’s difficult to say what the story actual was anecdotally. Penn would not give an athletic scholarship; the ivies do not do so. So the aid would have been need based. Awards do fluctuate according to income and not necessarily in proportion either, as certain threshholds can make a bigger difference. That there are now only two dependents–the college grad from Northeastern might not be a dependent any more for FAFSA purposes will affect the EFC also, and the student parts of the family EFC would vary according to individual student’s income and assets. That’s even with income being exactly the same which is unlikely. Some fluctuation generally occurs from one year to another.</p>

<p>I knew a family who had a daughter at a state school, and a second who went to Duke. There was a nice fin aid package from Duke with two in college. When the one girl stopped going to college, the cost for DUke nearly doubled even though the cost of the first daughter was not all that much, especially as she was commuting. Now days, some schools are checking out the actual costs for the siblings in college at the same time, but at that time what was expected from the parents was straing out formula, and big changes could happen like that. </p>