Hello. Recently I have been extremely worried on how I will be able to afford my total cost of tuition. In the fall of 2018, I will be attending the University of Texas at Dallas with a scholarship that will pay for about half of tuition each semester and have received local scholarships totaling in $1,800. However, I am struggling to increase the amount of financial aid I can receive in order to lower my cost of tuition even further. I have a 3.76 unweighted GPA, rank in the top eight percent of my class, have a 1270 SAT score and participated in extracurricular activities such as National Honors Society, Beta Club and Health Occupations Students of America from the beginning of junior year. I have completed my FAFSA the first day it was available but they have not contacted me since. Can someone please provide any advice on how to earn more financial aid? Thank you.
Did you have a discussion with your parents about how much they are able to pay and how much they are willing to pay for college? If this is a problem of financial need, this seems to be late in the process for that so I guess I am confused about where you are coming from. Is this like “I can’t afford this” or “it would be nice for everyone if my family didn’t have to pay as much”?
Also, there is a forum specifically for financial aid/scholarships so you will get more traction if you post there as this is not really a “high school life” thing.
@soontobecolleger Yes, I agree. I will repost my question on the financial aid/ scholarship forum. I already discussed this with my parents and they said they are willing to help me pay for my college expenses and they have $10K saved up for me. My freshman year of college will not be a problem if I use the saved money, but my concern is mainly about my college expenses after my freshman year since I will likely finish the $10K by mid to late sophomore year. So essentially, this is more about finding methods to reduce my total cost of college so my family and I don’t have to pay as much than being unable to afford my total cost of college. Thank you for the help, @soontobecolleger and @bopper.
You are smart to think about how to pay for all four years.
The best aid is offered by the colleges and universities themselves. If you have not heard yet from UT Dallas about your financial aid package there, you need to contact the financial aid office and ask. You should know by now if you qualify for a Pell Grant, and you should have been offered a federal student loan.
You also need to find out what you need to do to keep the scholarship.
If the money won’t work out for all four years, you might need to take a gap year, raise your SAT score (or get a high ACT score) and apply to places where you qualify for more aid.
Work every summer. You can get 2-3 k from that. Work part-time during the school year. Even just 10 hours a week can contribute 1-2K. You can keep applying to scholarships but they aren’t a sure thing. You can take out some federal student loan but try to keep it as low as possible.
Increasing financial aid isn’t likely possible unless you have had a big change in circumstances and your in a college that will adjust for that.
“I have completed my FAFSA the first day it was available but they have not contacted me since.”
Who is “they”? FAFSA is just an application. It spits out your EFC, and then any other info comes from your school. UTD should have sent you a letter detailing your scholarships and aid. How big a gap do you have between the COA and what UTD’s package? What was your EFC?
Are you saying you didn’t receive a financial aid award from UT Dallas?
Have you checked your student portal? Were you selected for verification?
At the very least, you would have received the Direct Loan of $5500.
You need to make sure your FAFSA was actually submitted to this college.
The college is who awards your aid…not “FAFSA”. The FAFSA is a financial aid application form.
Also see if you qualify for work study through your FA package. If you do a work study or work a part time job at 8-10 hours a week you should be about to earn about $2k during the school year. If you get a job and work all summer you should be able to earn 2-3k each year. If you can put $3-4k down towards your tuition each year combined with scholarships and direct loans …
@flatKansas @thumper1 By “they” I am talking about UTD. UTD has not sent me a letter detailing my scholarships and aid except for my AES Achievement scholarship. They have not sent me any updates about my FAFSA pell grant and I will contact them as soon as I can to clarify that. My EFC is 003404 and my cost of attendance will be around 17K per year without my scholarship money added since I’m commuting. UTD’s financial package is 24K total in total. FAFSA estimated my loans would be a total of $5,500 but I have not received any updates regarding direct loans so far. I have been checking my student portal repeatedly for any updates, but so far I have not received any notifications pertaining to my FAFSA.
@turtlerock @3kidsMultipleSports Yes, I am planning to work during this summer and my following college summers to lower my cost of attendance. Although I don’t want to work during my school years, I might be forced to do work study to reduce the amount of loans I take out.
I would email or even call the financial aid office and ask. I know at my son’s school the returning student’s package just showed in his portal in the last few weeks. However, incoming Freshman it should be there sooner. Perhaps they did not get your FAFSA info? The work study is how he has reduced his loans. He works during the summer to save up enough to put a good chunk towards tuition and then have a small nest egg for gas, food, books, car emergency, etc. Then he pushes his work study straight to his account. Each year you will qualify for more direct loan, but you may not want to take it all out or pay towards it early. We cover what we can, but it isn’t a lot.
@3kidsMultipleSports I sent the office of financial aid questions regarding my FAFSA status and pell grants. Hopefully they did receive my FAFSA information, but it seems unlikely. I think I’ll be in a similar situation as your son. Does his involvement the work study program negatively affect his performance in his academics and his study time?
@masterblackninja – Call the office on Tuesday first thing. You may want to ask to talk to a supervisor, rather than the worker who answers the phone.
You want to make sure they received your FAFSA, and that you reported to them the amount of your outside scholarship.
You mentioned that you have a 1/2 tuition scholarship from UTD, and that you will commute from home… It looks like tuition is approximately 12,000 (a little more, and does not include any fees that may be major specific). Do you have a $6000 scholarship from UTD?
The outside scholarship and the UTD scholarships may reduce your need based aid, so it is important to make sure that whomever you talk to in Financial Aid has all of the scholarship information.
You are entitled to take a $5500 direct loan (depending on your EFC a % will be subsidised). Also with an EFC of 003404 you should qualify for a partial pell grant.
Many students work a 8-10 hours per week without it negatively impacting their academic performance. Working during the school year can help significantly with day to day expenses, and reduce loans.
@KatMT I recently received an email from UTD’s office of financial aid notifying me that they have finalized my financial aid verification process and that I will receive a financial aid award letter in 2-3 weeks so I am assuming they have received my FAFSA. However, I am definitely sure they are not aware of my outside scholarships so I will contact them as soon as possible regarding that information.
The only award I received from UTD was the AES Achievement scholarship which is 6,000 per year. I still do not know the precise cost of my tuition/COA when including my scholarship money. How will they send me the financial award for the partial pell grant?
At this point it seems very likely I will be participating in a work study program. Although this might not affect my academic performance as evidenced by what you mentioned, it looks like I will have less time to participate in extracurricular activities, which is unfortunate. I hope to participate in research or an internship program or even begin working as a medical scribe in order to advance my knowledge of medicine and ultimately enhance my medical school application starting my freshman or sophomore year.
Your Pell grant will be applied to the bill first, tuition and fees. Unlikely you will get anything back if tuition is $12k, your merit is $6k.
Treat your work study job like an extra class. 10 or so hours a week, just build it into your schedule. Still plenty of time for activities. If you prefer to do research, get a paid internship. Want a medical job, get one My friends in high school and college who wanted to have medical careers (doctors, nurses, dentists) all had jobs at the hospital.
Thank you for the advice @happymomof1, but I would prefer taking a gap year after I receive my Bachelors degree to gain more medical experience and knowledge before applying to medical school. While I have proven I am very capable of increasing my SAT score if I work diligently, I would like to begin my education as soon as possible so I can practice developing my study habits and remember information I learned throughout high school more vividly.
@twoinanddone I was skeptical about receiving a large pell grant as well. Hopefully the pell grant will be more generous, but my expectations are low.
I plan on participating in UTD’s work study program for at least 6 months and when I fully adjust and feel comfortable with balancing work study with my academics, then I will participate in a medical job or a paid internship. I feel like work study would be more accommodating with my study time and therefore I would be less stressed with the transition from high school to college.
Your Pell grant is easy to know. Look on the last page of your FAFSA and it will tell you the EFC, and there is a chart that tells you what you will receive. It might even say Estimated Pell, but the maximum Pell rose about $100, so you might get a few dollars more than is listed.
Work study is just a job. They won’t fire you if you need to skip a shift because of a test or to study, but you don’t get paid if you don’t work. There are work study jobs that are in your field or within your interests, like jobs in the athletic department for recreation majors or sports management, or in the campus museum for art or history majors. You can look for jobs in the labs, in the science offices, in the engineering dept if those interest you. You might be sorting mail or running errands, but you’ll be around the professors and might learn something.
Unlike high school, you won’t be in class for 30+ hours a week. A work study job may be 10 hours per week, and that’s no more than 2 high school classes without the homework or studying. My daughter worked at the gym this year and took the early shift (5:30 am-9) a few days a week to get it over with. Then went to class and her day might be done by noon, leaving the afternoon and evening for studying and activities.
It comes to do whether you need the money or not. If you need it, you need to work for it.
@twoinanddone Thank you for the information, I’m convinced I will be participating in a work study during my freshman year now. It’s relieving that there are work study jobs that exist in my field of interest; it will help me prepare for my future years at UTD. My main concern was having my involvement in the work study program interfere with my time for ECs and studying, but according to how you explained your daughter’s schedule, I have no doubts now.