<p>samtheman -
you should definately should NOT be walking out with your undergrad degree with that much debt. 20K (give or take a bit) should be managable.</p>
<p>The amount of debt that your parents are able or willing to take on is a different issue - and is going to be different with every family. In our case, we only have one child, and are able to manage our EFC by a combination of careful budgeting, limiting non-essential expenditures, and some home equity loans. Not every family can manage their EFC.</p>
<p>It is important to discuss your situation with your folks to see what your situation is. The may be able to handle it without putting retirement in jeopardy; they may not. </p>
<p>Another consideration is graduate school - if you are considering professional school (law, med, mba), there is not a lot of aid available. Unless your family is very strong financially, it's probably more sensible to be in as close to debt free going in (because you won't be coming out).</p>
<p>this is sooooooooo weird
My expected family contribution (determined by FAFSA) is o (ZERO)
My family makes less than 20K a year...
and yet we're expected to pay 8K a year..
isn't that nuts??????!!!!!!!</p>
<p>"My family makes less than 20K a year...
and yet we're expected to pay 8K a year..
isn't that nuts??????!!!!!!! "</p>
<p>Chicago looks at the Profile figures, which also includes family assets (home equity and businesses as well as accounts in your name) and assumes that students will work and take loans. Your portion of the institutional EFC assumes that you will work for your education as well as incur some debt - this is somewhere around 4 or 5K. This means that your folks are expected to come up with 3 or 4K a year.</p>
<p>I got ripped off. UChicago gave me an initial grant estimate of $29,000. Then when the actual financial aid package came, it suddenly changed to $22,000.</p>
<p>The only papers we submitted between the two periods that we received these documents were papers that indicated that my mother's income went DOWN from $23,000/year to $17,000/year. Why is Chicago ripping us off so much? Do they not understand that we can't pay this much?</p>
<p>I told her to call the financial aid office, but she's heard that they're really hard to work with. Thus, she's paranoid that if she calls to complain about it, they'll either revoke the money that they gave me or rescind my admission.</p>
<p>Now, this may be because of the Pell Grant I got, but when we were planning on financing UChicago, we were supposing that the Pell Grant would be ADDED to the UChicago Grant. Even after that, it'd still be at great financial strain to my family (about $12,000/year). Now they've taken away my Pell Grant money and taken away an additional $2000 or so a year... Does every university do this? Purdue ADDED the Pell Grant to the rest of my aid and subtracted nothing.</p>
<p>did you not read my post, including the "AND", ie, meaning the families had to do ALL those things to pay their efc to U of C? of course there's nothing wrong with mom going to work &/or the kid working (and in each of these cases i mention the kids were taking out maximum stafford loans and doing work/study), but if you do this and STILL you can't afford your efc w/o mtging your house &/or taking out a plain old bank loan to pay your efc, then something is wrong with the picture. in one of these families the parents are borrowing $30,000/yr to pay their efc, on top of mom and the kid working, stafford loans for the kid, etc.</p>
<p>and NONE of these families has the luxury of an only child. in each case there are siblings. one boy has three sisters, all of whom are going to big state u so "the genius" can go to U of C (he really is a genius btw). imo that is bad for family dynamics, but that's the choice they made. another boy is a freshman with two younger sibs in hs. mom can only go back to work once. how are they going to send the other two to college? or will they too be destined for big state u?</p>
<p>i have nothing against stafford loans, work study, summer jobs or mom working, but if all this is still not enuf, and if there are siblings who need to go to college, then imo you shouldn't be borrowing another $120,000 for one child and putting the other kids and the retirement at risk.</p>
<p>that said, it is the fact that there are families who WILL take on that debt and willingly that is the disincentive for U of C to change how they do finaid.</p>
<p>hey...when u of c asks to send a signed copy of tax returns for 2006...wat does that mean? do i signed every sheet? or is there a speicific paper that i send with it with my signature?</p>
<p>The tax form (1040, 1040A, etc) has a signature line. That should be signed. So if filed your taxes as a paper form, then your copies should be signed. If you did it online, you can print out a copy, and sign it on the line. Get it?</p>
<p>"but if you do this and STILL you can't afford your efc w/o mtging your house &/or taking out a plain old bank loan to pay your efc, then something is wrong with the picture. "</p>
<p>If, as you conjucture, I can't read, perhaps I misinterpreted the institutional methodology used to determine Chicago's finaid policy. As I understand it, assets (including home equity, investments, etc) are included in the calculation. If a family has many assets, the institutional EFC is going to be higher. It is assumed that you will be paying from current income and savings - either in the form of money in a bank account or in investments/home equity. This is all quite well-defined, and should not be coming as a big surprise with some research. We didn't save enough (assumed son would be attending Case on his father's tuition benefit - silly us!), so about 1/3 of our EFC comes from our home equity line. </p>
<p>Some of the other colleges are offering financial aid packages that may be better for a particular situation. That's fine. Selecting a college involves a good many parameters - including student's needs and parent's philosophy and financial situation. You made one choice, your friends, another.</p>
<p>It is funny how Chicago goes out of its way to have a self-selecting pool, prides itself in selecting a very focussed and unique class and then goes and blows it by having a significant number of these have to turn the school down anyway because of fin aid. Maybe, in aweird way, that is the school's ultimate test of whether or not you want to be there (and hence whether or not they want you there).</p>
<p>I see with a lot of other schools that if you send the school a better financial aid offer from a rival school, they'll usually match the offer. I think this is because these schools really do want the students they selected to attend. UChicago doesn't do this, which I think really proves that they really don't care much for the incoming class.</p>
<p>phuriku,
There isn't an inexhaustible supply of money for aid - unless maybe you're Harvard. If Chicago is less willing to negotiate than other schools, at least it seems to be treating everyone the same. As far as any school goes, either it's worth it to you (and possibly more importantly) your parents, or its not.</p>
<p>Earlier in this thread (I think), someone mentioned that we weren't getting financial support despite UChicago having a large endowment. I did some research, though, and that's quite untrue... UChicago has about $4.9 billion in endowment. Most other top 10 schools (besides Caltech, of course) have endowments from $10 - $30 billion. Moreover, UChicago has about 200 students more than those universities (and thus, more professors), so I can see how supporting every single student would be difficult.</p>
<p>Perhaps Chicago is justified in charging us so much money?</p>
<p>Plus from what I've been hearing, graduates of UChicago can pay back the money in no time due to the school's reputation as top-notch.</p>
<p>Same story as a lot of the above posters....was my first choice, but I'll be attending UVA this fall instead for financial reasons.
Just a personal thought: including my parent's RETIREMENT FUND as an asset is grade-A bull ****.</p>
<p>"Perhaps Chicago is justified in charging us so much money?"</p>
<p>Well that's kind of a philosophical question - but most private university's full freight tuition price does not come near to covering the cost of educating a student for a year. If you search on the Parent's forum, a poster named mini discusses this on a regular basis. I think that he mentions that other funds (endowments, gifts, etc.) provide a 15K discount on what the full price should be. You kids are pricey!</p>