How good/understanding is Dartmouth's financial aid?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Dartmouth College
1

<p>I have a kind of strange home situation. I live with mother and stepfather (married around 1 1/2 yrs), my dad is unemployed and living in Connecticut with friends. My mother makes about $30000 and stepdad around $70000. The situation is that my stepdad has no plans to pay for any of my college (he has four mostly-grown kids of his own) and we don't expect him to. We have sent a letter explaining the situation, and will send the supplementary files soon. Will Dartmouth strongly take this into consideration, or am I just kidding myself?</p>

<p>It is my dream to go to Dartmouth, but without fair and sufficient financial aid, it will remain just that--a dream.</p>

<p>-Chris</p>

2

<p>I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure they aren't going to want to pay just because he doesn't feel like it. He is your father afterall.</p>

3

<p>Hi Chris,</p>

<p>Fair and sufficient financial aid are relative terms as the school not you, parents or step parents decide what they believe that you could or should contribute to your education. </p>

<p>You already know that Dartmouth will meet 100% of your demonstrated need.</p>

<p>The cost of a Dartrtmouth education for 1 year consist of the following:</p>

<p>Tution $30,279
Room $5,400
Board $3,724
Fees $297
Books $1,122
Misc. 1264</p>

<p>Transportation cost vill vary depending on where you love. We live in NYC, can you believe D got a "0" for transportation cost</p>

<p>Total cost $42,086 )a lttle more now because the school just passed a tuition increase)</p>

<p>The family responsibility will be broken down as follows:</p>

<p>Student Contribution $2,225 (which you should get from summer earnings, savings etc. this part is pretty much going to be non-negotiable. the amount will go up year over year. If you don't earn the money, the school is not going to increase your package, so if you may have to take out increased loans. If you are working now, save. save the graudation, birthday monies to help off set this. My daughter worked last summer saved the money, ended up using it for spending money on campus, books misc. stuff. )</p>

<p>Parent Contribution Varies by what is on your fafsa. In our case it was a little less than what the Fafsa was. </p>

<p>For the sake of this scenario we will use an EFC of $3,500 (if just your mother's income is used) Could be more because your mother has remaried and is benefitting from your stepfather's salary/assets.</p>

<p>Total family contibution $5,725</p>

<p>Need as Determined by Dartmouth $36,361 Dartmouth will meet 100% of this need.</p>

<p>I would not be suprised if your package consist of the following components </p>

<p>Stafford loan $2,650
PLUS Loan $2,000
Work Study $1,500
Dartmouth General Scholarship $30,211</p>

<p>total aid $36,382 </p>

<p>Will you get a "free ride" from Dartmouth? In a word no, as there will be a minimum student contribution of $2200 (from summer earnings) which will be separate from your parent's contrbution. In addition, your financial aid package will have a stafford loan component of approx $2650 and a work study component. </p>

<h2>Most colleges believe that first and foremost that your parents have a moral and social responsibility to provide for your education, in this respect Dartmouth is no different.</h2>

<p>Link to Student Handbook -Dartmouth's guide to financial aid</p>

<p><a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/apply/pdfs/financial_aid_handbook_04-05-final.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dartmouth.edu/apply/pdfs/financial_aid_handbook_04-05-final.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Divorced or Separated Parents</p>

<p>Legal agreements notwithstanding, we believe parents remain morally responsible for their children’s education. We consider a student’s application incomplete until we receive all the required forms from both parents.</p>

<p>We realize that there are many complex and sensitive situations involved, and we try to be as helpful as we can in assisting students who are often caught in the middle. For example, if the custodial parent has been remarried for many years and includes the applicant as a dependent on tax returns, we may be able to determine the financial need without expecting a contribution from the non-custodial parent.</p>

<h2>We use the information in order to analyze each parent’s financial situation. Information about the earnings and assets of stepparents is required only because it helps us decide if the natural parent’s financial obligations are increased or decreased as a result of remarriage. The earnings of the non-custodial stepparent are normally not added to those of the natural non-custodial parent in calculating the parental contribution. </h2>

<p>The school is going to your at the income/assets of your parents first. They will look at your stepfather's income assets because your mother benefits from those assets being his spouse. Wil lthey hold him accountable for your tuition, I doubt it. </p>

<p>Make sure that your parents, stepfather has submitted all the forms that the school has requested. While you have 4 almost grown step siblings, are they in college and is he helping to pay toward their education as all of these factors will be taken into consideration. After getting the package, if there are any changes, you can always request a financial review. </p>

<p>Where you go is going to be a family decision because your parents will have to pay. Don't look at the education in terms of strickly dollars and centsand you as a family will have to determine the "value" of a Darmouth education. Because all of Dartmouth's financial aid is need based barring totally failing out of school, or any major wind falls , your aid is not going to change a lot (student contribution will go up a little each year, and your subsidized loan will go up a little but the average debt is something like $18,095 as per Darmouth's common data set <a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Eoir/pdfs/cds_200405_02.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dartmouth.edu/~oir/pdfs/cds_200405_02.pdf&lt;/a> which is not bad for $160,000 education) You will never have to worry about not how you are going to pay your tuition because you had a drop in grades or if you don't maintain a 3. something gpa like you would with merit money.</p>

<p>According to Suze Orman, educational debt is good debt because you are investing in your future vs credit card debt where you are using future earnings to pay for your past.</p>

<p>Daughter was accepted to Williams last year which gave her a better package than Dartmouth and Dartmouth met the Williams package.<br>
However,as far as the school that gave her the most money with the least family outlay of funds was Bryn Mawr. Fortunately there was only a few thousand dollars between the best and worst offers not tens of thousands of dollars. Bryn Mawr giving her more money meant nothing because they were not one of her top 2 choices and in my opionion it did not make sense for her to be someplace that she was not going to be happy as that would have resulted in a waste of time and money. </p>

<p>In the end look over everything, check the common data sets at each school to see the average debt that students graduate with , and make the best informed decision possible. Sorry about this being so long.</p>

<p>All the best</p>

4

<p>sybbie719,</p>

<p>Thank you very much for the plethora of information you provided. You are right, I neither expect nor feel I deserve a full ride, and I know I will leave college with some debt, but I just hope it will be debt I can realistically pay off after 4 years of med school + 5 years of residency.</p>

<p>Thanks again!
Chris</p>

5

<p>Chris, </p>

<p>In the end, I think that it is all going to work out as you have already gotten over the biggest hurdle- being admitted. You are working now, continue to save that money, If people ask you waht you want, or need for graduation, birthdays, etc, money works. The upside about getting to Hanover, is that you really don't have to spend a lot of money once you get there. </p>

<p>You can look at the student employment link to see the types of work study jobs that are available</p>

<p><a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Eseo/jobnet.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dartmouth.edu/~seo/jobnet.html&lt;/a> click jobnet.</p>

<p>From what my daughter tells me everyone is kind of laid back so there is no pressure to keep up with the Joneses.</p>

<p>I know we were exactly in this situation last year wondering whether Dartmouth was going to be an affordable option because we (single parent me) are by no stretch of the imagination rich. I was excited for her and paniced at the same time. However, Dartmouth ended up being an affordable option for us as our EFC was less than what the FAFSA EFC gave us. All in all the financial aid office is open and receptive to financial reviews.</p>

<p>Is my daughter going to have loans at the end of this, yes. Like you I am concerned about the debt following undergrad and right now the possibility of med school. Right now she works (at the medical school) as does many of her friends. Her roomate does research through WISP (women in science program). She will work over the summer, save her money. </p>

<p>You are going to have opportunities of paid internships over the summer or your leave term if that is what you want. If you want to do research there are some stipends available. Depending on the research opportunity you take the school will even waive your student contribution when you come back as a returning student.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Efrstyear/work/fysr.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dartmouth.edu/~frstyear/work/fysr.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Edof/undergrad/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dof/undergrad/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/other/nanomaterials/reu.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/other/nanomaterials/reu.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>As I stated before, do your research on all of your options and in the end you will end up where you need to be.</p>