<p>I recently got my financial aid award from Amherst College after an early write, and I was a little curious about some of the expenses they listed and how my aid covers them.</p>
<p>The total COA is estimated at $64 K. This is broken down into Tuition, R&B, Books and Supplies ($1000), Personal Expenses ($2200), Travel ($500), and Health Insurance. The amount they gave me, including a scholarship and a loan, leaves me with a $750 student contribution (my PC was $0, but parents'll probably just pay the 750 for me).</p>
<p>What I'm wondering about why/how Books and Supplies, Personal Expenses, and Travel are covered by my scholarship. Since I live within driving distance (sort of) I doubt that my travel will cost $500. Also, why are those other things included in the award, especially since they'll fluctuate so much between students. Are they going to give me money to pay for my books and travel? And what exactly does "Personal Expenses" mean? </p>
<p>I'm a 1st gen student so I'm a little lost about this whole process; do colleges give you money to buy those things or are they just estimates as to how much you'll spend? If so, why are they included in the aid package? Thanks in advance for any answers!</p>
<p>They are estimates, but they are normal/ordinary expenses as part of the cost of attendance. </p>
<p>Your fixed expenses will be tuition, housing/meal plan (if you choose) and other “required” fees. Health insurance may be something you can get waived if your parents already have you on their plan.</p>
<p>Your aid package though takes into consideration everything they determine as “cost of attendance”.</p>
<p>How much is your loan? Realize that this is part of your/parents contribution as well, it will have to be repaid if accepted.</p>
<p>For travel costs, if you are relatively close, they’re probably considering the cost of a train ticket to college, to/from thanksgiving, to/from Jan. break, to/from spring break, and then home again. That $500 may go fast.</p>
<p>For personal expenses, think about laundry, pens, cough medicine, deodorant, movie tickets, soda, phone bills, etc. Life costs money. At $2200, that means you’ll have about $7/day in college to spend. Go to dinner with your friends off campus, and that may mean you have $0 per day for a week. It’s not a lot but $2200 is doable.</p>
<p>If you choose to accept all of the money in the package (which probably includes loans), then I believe you will get a check to use to cover these expenses. You may, however, choose not to accept the loans so that you have less to pay back later. Then, you’ll need to cover more on your own.</p>
<p>What is the breakdown of your aid? How big are the grants? How big are the loans? </p>
<p>Were you given work study? If so, that may be for personal expenses. </p>
<p>Travel ($500)</p>
<p>for you, that might be enough since you live close. If you lived cross-country it sure wouldn’t be enough. Travel and personal expense estimates seem arbitrary at many schools.</p>
<p>That $750 includes $500 of your travel costs, so that won’t get paid all at once for you.</p>
<p>My loan is $900 per semester (so $1800 yearly) but it’s from the college so I’m not sure about interest or anything. But the only reason they gave me loans is that I’m a non-US Citizen so they assume I can’t work (I saw this in my ‘messages’ section of the award), but I’ll be receiving a work permit from DACA in about a few weeks so it might change. If that doesn’t happen in time, my parents will most likely be able to just pay the $900 out of pocket. I was just wondering why they gave me a scholarship big enough to cover those estimates if i’ll be paying for them myself. I also got another scholarship to cover the whole cost of health insurance, so I don’t really need to adjust anything there.</p>
<p>*I was just wondering why they gave me a scholarship big enough to cover those estimates if i’ll be paying for them myself. *</p>
<p>I don’t understand. How much was the actual grant award? It sounds like the grant wasn’t large enough to cover those costs. </p>
<p>It sounds like they’re expecting you to either borrow $1800 to cover Personal expenses and travel, or as you said, your parents will pay for that plus the $750 student contribution. </p>
<p>Will your parents pay for the roughly $2500 that you’re supposed to borrow or contribute?</p>
<p>Colleges have to come up with an official Cost of Attendance. That number is used as the maximum one can borrow under federal guidelines and also is the lid on other financial aid situations. You cannot get Stafford or PLUS when you go over that COA. For example, if a family wants to borrow the maximum amount for a year’s worth of college through PLUS, the COA is the ceiling lessened by other loans, aid and awards.</p>
<p>That COA is an average, and, yes, you can often “beat” it if you are lucky and frugal. You can also lose out. My one son, for instance, went to school where two flights were pretty much needed to get there, or it was a 30 hour plus drive. His transportation costs were higher than the estimated. Kids who live several hours from the school would come in lower. My other son is right about on the mark, even though he comes home often, because he has gotten lucky with Megabus deals and car pools, bringing the cost per trip home very low even with a few flights in the mix. </p>
<p>When my son went off campus, he found out from a lot of kids who were on heavy duty financial aid, that they could make out well since the COA gave generous off campus numbers for those who were not in university housing. If they cooked a lot at home, packed lunches and snacks, worked at food service jobs, they could really make out if they were given aid for for those categories, as they could come in well under them. </p>
<p>The same goes for supplies and books Some majors and courses are more expensive than others. If you are unlucky enough to get a course that requires brand new printed materials that are expensive or a lot of supplies, then you may go over what the college has for the average used in COA whereas another student who has courses where books can be obtained second hand and cheaply will get away more cheaply than the estimates.</p>
<p>The grant was 61.5K. I applied to a couple of school scholarships (merit, not need) as well but won’t hear back until later in April. Either way, my parents can easily afford the $2550 out of pocket. I was just curious about why they were included in the total calculation that my aid was subtracted from. Do I get an allowance for books and expenses or does the aid just cover tuition, room and health insurance?</p>
<p>Well, take the $61,500 and subtract out the cost of tuition, fees, room and board. If there’s anything left over, that will get returned to you after school starts to go toward books.</p>