I have gotten accepted to 5 schools. I want to know if i will be able to compare costs side by side after fafsa and scholarships have been given out. Will i know the exact amount for each school before i choose? Or will i have to manually add up the scholarships and subtract it from whatever tuition says online? Also, when does fafsa financial aid usually come out? For uga i got an email saying congrats on my scholarships but i never got a letter indicating i got one.(i qualify for the classic scholars and its the easiest one to get) thanks
Run the NPC for each school and put the FA offers on a spreadsheet. Jobs and Loans are not aid. Estimate the travel costs to each campus, and (very important) the 4 year cost of room and board. You can use the dorm and meal plan costs as a guide, but if your college is in a high cost city like NYC, LA , or the Bay area, you might be paying $1500-$2000 in monthly rent for off-campus housing - even with a roommate. Also include travel costs for 3-4 visits home per year ( thanksgiving, christmas, spring break + one extra) .
Call the FA office and ask them to send you a breakdown. Make sure they specify if scholarships are in addition to the FA grant, or if they are removed from it. Also look at what GPA (and other conditions) you will need to maintain the scholarship and whether it is good for 4 (or more) years.
If you are a Georgia resident you have Hope and Zell Miller scholarships, but they have GPA and ACT/SAT conditions so make sure you fulfill them.
Colleges will send you a letter of award, but it’s not always clear and they don’t all necessarily look alike.
- only use direct costs
- only subtract grants and scholarships NOT LOANS
Then, think in terms of best value (cheapest is not always best, unless you have no choice.)
Limit loans to federal loans. ('plus loans’for your parents and cosigned loans by your parents should e avoided at all costs.)
What should i do with the uga situation? I think i have a scholarship but i cant find the letter
The scholarship will show up on your financial aid award letter when it arrives. If you have a student portal it may be in there.
At this point in the process, I disagree with running NPCs, better to wait for your actual award letters. Colleges that I am familiar with all have the same commitment date of May 1, so you’ll be able to compare offers.
Some things to take note of:
GPA to maintain a scholarship
Can the scholarship be used for study abroad?
Any other requirements for scholarship, like required to live on campus?
For my D’s award I created a spreadsheet. I believe the colleges are required to include cost of attendance with the award letter. I just used the concrete costs of tuition, room, & board, because every college will put a different amount in a catchall category for things like books, travel, personal, etc. Probably the only incidental expenses you might need to throw into the equation would be travel and possible mandatory medical insurance & whether you can get an exemption.
Ok so all of my colleges SHOULD send letters stating the exact amount that i have to pay? Therefore i can compare side by side correct?
Yes, but as someone pointed out, sometimes they can be a little confusing. Make sure you take the full cost of attendance (including tuition, room & board, books, fees, etc.) MINUS any grants or scholarships EQUALS what you have to pay.
Do NOT subtract out loans.
Does this make sense? If there is any confusion (as you said there was some confusion around UGA) just call the school and ask.
My son is applying to schools this year, and so far he has received a few acceptances, at least some of which have included financial aid letters that look somewhat like https://www.ifap.ed.gov/eannouncements/attachments/ShoppingSheetTemplate20162017.pdf. (These letters may only come online, through a school’s admissions portal.) I gather this is a form that the Dept. of Educ. is trying to get schools to use, perhaps only about half of which are yet using. This form lays out the grants, loans, work, costs, etc., in a fairly standard format, which makes comparing the costs at different school easier.
All this is basically to say that you should get information and forms from the schools that should make it fairly straightforward to compare the costs. Still, it likely won’t be so dead simple as each school providing one number that you can use to compare. There will be some interpretation and comparison necessary – how much grants, how much scholarships, what are the conditions on the scholarships (e.g., maintaining a certain GPA), how much loans, how much work, etc. Some of the suggestions in this thread will be helpful for that, and here are some other resources I just came across that you can use:
http://www.consumerreports.org/money/financial-aid-award-letter/
https://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/guid/aid-offer/
Ok so even with my confusion about uga scholarships, ill know for sure if i got one once they release letters correct?
When you get tour financial aid letter it should say something like;
Costs
Tuition = $15k
Room = $7k
Board (food) = $6k
Fees = $2k
TOTAL = $30k
Awards
Scholarship = $5k
Pell grant = $3k
Work study grant = $2k
Federal student loan (subsidized) =$3500
Fed. student loan (unsubsidized) = $2000
Total aid = $15,500
You take the $30k cost of attendance and subtract ONLY the grants (scholarship + Pell + work study) to get your net cost – in this case, $20k/year.
How you cover that net cost is up to you. You can take the federal student loans (~$5500/year). Your family has to come up with the rest.
Yes. You will know the price of each school before you enroll. Once all the paperwork comes in you will be able to compare side by side. Hopefully the one you like the best is affordable.
Work study is not a grant – the student must find a job (usually an on-campus job or eligible non-profit organization) and work to earn that money. Having work study means that the student will be preferred over non work study students by eligible employers.
Therefore, in the example in #9, the net price is $22,000 per year ($30,000 list price - $5,000 scholarship - $3,000 Pell grant), not $20,000 per year.
Yes, @ucbalumnus is correct. I labeled it as a grant so you’d know it doesn’t have to be repaid, but you only get paid after you work like any other job. You’d need $22k to pay for the school in the example, not $20k. That’s an important difference.
The financial aid award might not come in a letter, look in your UGA student portal to see if it’s there.
Even when the FA award arrives, these are still estimates as far as tuition and fees, room and board rates might be based on 2016/17 numbers, if the school has not determined their new rates for 2017/18 year yet.
Also sometimes tuition gets charged by credits taken, so that won’t be finalized until you register for classes.
Some courses charge extra fees too. You won’t see them until you register for classes.
Final room and board charges will depend on meal plan chosen, and the exact room you are assigned to.
But you will have a starting point. Current tuition, fees, room and board charges, minus scholarships and grants.
Then you will have a net cost that you can compare.
You can take a $5,500 loan to cover part of that, ask parents how much they can contribute from savings and earnings, and you can earn some money in the summer working.
I just went on my uga account and it had my scholarship award, grants, and loans. I agreed to their terms and conditions. Does this mean i have acceptef any money or anything? Or does it only simply mean i agree with their policy. Also are those grants and loans finalized? Will i get more say in feb, march, april? Because as of now, the only thing it says i owe are loans
It means you accept their scholarships and loans and will go there so try to reverse that!
At this point in particular you need to wait for your other offers to compare them all.
You should only accept the financial aid to the school you plan to attend. However you can print out the offer to compare more easily with any other offer you get.
Yes that’s their 'final offer ’ for you, unless you applied to the honors college and are waiting for decisions from that.
Can you list the offer here?
More generally speaking, never 'approve’or 'sign’anything until you’ve read through it and thought about it / asked about it.
It said i had to agree with terms and conditions or their aid might be delayed
I also have not accepted admissions so i am not enrolled… does that matter?
It could if you actually accepted the loans. The federal student loans and Pell grant csn only be used at one college. Once they’re disbursed, it will take awhile to fix. Call the college’s financial aid office and ask them to help you undue whatever you did. Don’t accept anything at any school until you’ve decided that’s the school that you’ll attend.
Call and ask how to undo it or you may not be able to accept any other financial aid offer!