<p>I have a question, I filled out the fafsa and my efc is 20K. So if I want to go to a school with a tuition and costs of 35K or even 50K will it be likely that I will receive any aid besides loans ? Please advise, Im a bit confused. Assume I get merit aid of 5K per year.</p>
<p>If you attend a school that meets 100% of need ( most schools don’t), you would pay your EFC. Need can be met with a combination of loans, grants & work study.</p>
<p>If you attend a school that offers merit aid, COA is $50,000 & you qualify for merit this could be the scenario.</p>
<p>They don’t meet need, they offer merit/need aid of $11,000, Stafford loan of $5,500, work study of $3,500 and leave a gap of $10,000 for you to raise along with the EFC of $20,000.</p>
<p>It’s important to have schools on your list that you can afford as well as schools which may offer merit aid.</p>
<p>The FAFSA is an index…your EFC of $20,000 means that is the minimum you will probably pay. It is dependent entirely on what colleges or universities you apply and how they distribute aid. There are merit scholarships that are given to all students that qualify - they can be automatic and those are usually posted on the website, they can be scholarships that you apply for and those are usually posted on the website. There is financial aid, which can be grants from the college that you don’t pay back or federal loans all students can take or federal loans that parents can take out if they qualify.</p>
<p>The absolute best thing to do is ask your parents how much they can afford to pay and then go from there. In your scenario as Emerald points out…if you were accepted to a school that costs $35,000 for tuition, room, board, fees, transportation and books your costs could be $35,000 minus $5,000 merit minus a federal direct loan for you of $5500 (the maximum available to a freshman) which would leave $24,500 for you and your parents to come up with. How your family comes up with the $24,500 is left for you and your parents to figure out…it could be you earning a couple thousand at a summer job, it could be another scholarship you apply for, it could be your parents paying out of savings, it could be your parents taking out a loan, it could be some work/study dollars that you might be awarded or any combination of those options or it could be you finding a cheaper college…but the decision is for your family to make.</p>
<p>how about if the schools tuituion and costs are 52k</p>
<p>Increase in COA doesn’t necessarily make it more likely that school will meet 100% of need.
Schools that do meet 100% of need,generally have only need based aid- no merit & are competitive for admission.</p>
<p>^^Agree and there was a thread last week about what a good merit award was…practically speaking and using that thread as anecdotal evidence, $15,000 + or - was considered good. So again with your scenario: $52,000 - $15,000 merit award - $5500 federal direct student loan = $31,500. Now from a $52,000 school you might get some financial aid in the form of grant money, but it gets cloudy at this point…merit money and financial aid grants lines tend to blurr. Again, you need to find out how much your parents will contribute and then do some research where to apply to maximize your finances. Common wisdom is that the best aid goes to the top of the potential incoming students so have a couple schools on your list where you are in the tippy top of the stats and theoretically you will be maximizing your potential for aid dollars.</p>
<p>When we went through this with my sons they chose two schools that were academically reachy that were known to be generous with aid - meets need/no loan, two schools they matched in the top quartile maximizing their chances for merit and two that were financial safties…we know we could afford and they liked very much. We kind of split the academics and the finances and researched them equally to find schools they liked also taking into consideration what they might like to study. You might take an approach like that AFTER you ask your parents how much they can contribute.</p>