<p>Cost/effective often means a cheaper school.</p>
<p>If you can get your stats up ACT 30/SAT 1340, or higher ACT 32/SAT 1420, some schools will desire you enough to provide merit aid. Higher stats will also have you eligible for honors program - which may be important getting the right kind of opportunities at a public university.</p>
<p>Posters already gave OOS publics that might work with your $25K budget. You may find a private that will give you a better education for $25K. </p>
<p>On the other thread, Kiara was given advice and I even private messaged. If poster on this thread is the same or different, it doesn’t matter to me - however if you are the same poster, do not continue to keep asking the same questions and expect different answers.</p>
<p>I would also spend some time/money visiting schools that will work out with desirable program and work for both eligible to be accepted and also working with $25K out of pocket. If Kiara, she has a busy summer planned. However if you do not direct energy to something important (ACT/SAT higher score) you may not ‘find’ the better opportunity. Spending time and energy on the wrong path. Money spend improving your score via test prep and tutoring will pay off. My DD went up tremendously in both departmental and university automatic scholarship at our state school (and she would have gotten the same deal with OOS at this school, UA in engineering, although if needing to take more than 16 hours/semester or more than 8 semesters, OOS will pay more for their education at UA).</p>
<p>While FAFSA doesn’t count assets in a retirement account as available for college expenses, they DO expect that money you contribute in the current year towards 401(k)/medical/dependent care spending accounts IS available for college expenses. Those $$ get added right back into income. </p>
<p>So many well intentioned people are throwing numbers and FAFSA topics (parental v student income, parental assets v student assets, treatment of retirement plans, etc) around left and right that OP’s head must be ready to explode. As far ahead of filling out a FAFSA worksheet as possible, I again would recommend a book like “Paying for College Without Going Broke" by Kal Chaney published by Princeton Review. It will provide an easy to read and fundamental understanding of the college financial aid process on the various FAFSA topics (income, assets, etc,) and will offer worksheets and may offer practical ways to maximize one’s aid even at this late date. When I say late date I mean that it appears OP is like many families and hasn’t done much long term financial planning as to college. If the process is still the same as when my S applied some time ago, for a student seeking 2015 admission, the calendar year 2014 as to income and the date you file FAFSA as to assets will be the key times in determining need based aid and at least as to the income side of the aid equation, we’re almost halfway through 2014. Again in my humble opinion it would help to familiarize oneself with the current financial aid process. </p>
<p>(As a note I do not know Mr. Chaney and have zero connection to Princeton Review.) Good luck.</p>
<p>This is VERY true! Our daughter attends UF as an OOS student, and the price tag will take your breath away! With tuition, books, and living expenses, we’re easily paying more than $40k/year… I realize these costs don’t compare to some Ivy Leagues or some other (mostly private) universities, but to us, it’s very expensive! </p>
<p>And the warning about OOS students not getting any aid from UF is absolutely correct. We were told that even their scholarships are based on need, not merit. Basically, everyone who gets in to UF would qualify for a scholarship based on merit, so they award their scholarship $$ based on financial need. </p>
<p>I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but it’s the truth. Sorry. :(</p>
<p>DD Did very well with merit aid at good colleges and she had reasonable but not mind blowing stats. We targeted schools where her math sat was average but her cr SATs were well above average ( not much of a math fan). Got merit offers from some OOS publics and some prestigious women’s colleges. We are struck in the similar position of high income but not being able to meet EFC without borrowing and we did not want to borrow at least for the first couple of years. </p>
<p>After several pages, many responders forgot OP has a $200k family income, 3.71 GPA and 1700 SAT. Many of the suggestions are actually not reasonable considering all these.</p>
<p>The OP wants what many kids in NY want- to get out of NY. She can only get out of NY if her parents pay or if she gets enough merit. The only way to get merit is to apply to schools OOS that may give merit. Although her stats are certainly good, she most likely won’t get merit to schools that she wants to attend. Welcome to reality. </p>
<p>Her high school must have some massive grade inflation–her grades seem awfully high for such a low SAT, unless she has problems with standardized tests in general.</p>
<p>If the schools in NJ are more attractive, one option is convincing the parents to move to NJ (hard to do if they own a place, but easier if they are renting).
(The CUNY for the sibling may be more expensive unless he goes and lives on his own and isn’t a dependent, however).</p>
<p>Another option is joining the NJ National Guard. Then any public school in NJ is free! </p>
<p>I agree with the poster who has little patience for entitlement. If you want something, go earn it. Otherwise, the SUNYs ain’t bad.</p>
<p>Oh, and there are actually a decent number of small privates all over the country who are willing to discount their list price by throwing enough merit money at anyone who’s not flat-out bad academically if they can get $25K in tuition. Usually, they’re not well known outside their immediate area (and most aren’t really considered elite even in their home region) and aren’t the most financially-solid schools around. I personally, do see much appeal in most of them over a CUNY or SUNY, but they are options.</p>
<p>Also, I believe some of the publics in the Dakotas are quite cheap for OOS. Some other publics as well.</p>
<p>A lot depends on the quality of the financial aid department at your school. At most of the top schools that aim to meet a families full financial need (HYPMS, etc.) the financial aid equation runs something like:
Figure out how much a family can afford to give you
Take all of that
Give F.A. for the rest</p>
<p>The key is that these schools want to take ALL that you can afford, and usually that correlates pretty well with income, but in rare cases it does not. That is why the EFC is the ESTIMATED family contribution. You might have a family income of 200K, but several kids in college, a disabled family member requiring full time medical assistance, a grandparents needing “assistance with daily living” (who cannot for example go the the restroom unaided), and a wide variety of other expenses. That is absolutely taken into account, and indeed, it is possible to get huge amounts of need-based aid even at very high incomes. Or it could be, as one parent told me at a college fair “The thing is that we could pay for university, but we really do not want to.” Everyone’s circumstances are different, and every school’s financial aid policies are different (e.g. some discount the family’s primary residence for asset calculations, others do not).</p>
<p>If you think that you fall into an exception category, it is really a good idea to communicate with the financial aid office at any institution you are considering applying to. How they handle such cases (and some state universities work from formulas and do not handle them at all), may influence where you want to apply.</p>
<p>Communicate what to the FA folks? We have no idea at this point whether OP’s parents are truly strapped (and more than a 100k family with the same responsibilities- or more than a 60k family.) Or whether they just like their present lifestyle and what it costs. The relative is not living in the extra bedroom. OP said “They pay for my grandma’s rent every month, which isn’t cheap. They also take care of her basic living necessities monthly.” She may not be a legitimate dependent. The only known factor is the brother in college- and many schools will actually look at what his college expenses are. </p>
<p>OP is not a candidate for schools that are most generous with need based aid. She’s listed OOS, which generally do not provide much aid. She needs to wake up and smell the coffee. There are guidelines. </p>
<p>I agree, lookingforward. We have 7 dependents living at home, one a disabled adult child, and our EFC is what she says her parents are willing to pay. She is a long way from the reality of that EFC.</p>