<p>Sorry if this question has been asked before. I was just wondering how much loans should be normal for a very-selective private college that is both need-blind and states that they meet 100% of demonstrated need? How much loans are too much? If my EFC is around 3k, should I expect to graduate with 20K in loans? 30k? 40K? At what point should it be wise to draw the line and just opt to go to a financial safety?</p>
<p>The college(s) COA is around $50-52k.</p>
<p>there is no set answer as FA policies vary from school to school. There are some schools which have no loan policies across the board (HYP, Brown, Dartmouth) and other schools that have no loans if your income is below a certain level and some schools place a gap on how much debt you will have at graduation.</p>
<p>Being a low income student, you may get a package that meets 100% of your demonstrated need and that package can include subsidized stafford loans along with a perkins loan.</p>
<p>A good rule of thumb is to graduate with 20k in debt, however all schools can not guarantee that this will be possible.</p>
<p>As an example, I have an EFC of 4065. I have received 4 FA offers so far, waiting on the rest.</p>
<p>The schools COA’s were 37-51,000. The scholarships ranged from 20-28K. Grants, about 4000. Pell and ACG were 1950, and the remainder of FA was LOANS.</p>
<p>Parent loans ranged from 6000 to 19000!!!</p>
<p>Student loans from 6000-8000.</p>
<p>Parents can barely come up with the 4 grand EFC so they parent loans were a shock. When I questioned the FA offices I was told that ALL need based FA packages will consist of a significant loan portion. This was emphasized by one of the schools that MET 100% of need. The woman said loans were meeting our need.</p>
<p>So far, the least amount per year in loans between parent and student is about 12000 and this does not include my parents coming up with the 4000 EFC.</p>
<p>I have an EFC of $0, and I only got one $3,000 Stafford loan from Georgetown, the rest was grants and scholarships.</p>
<p>This site may be helpful to you as it will show your college’s average financial aid without PLUS and private loans:</p>
<p>[Student</a> Aid on the Web](<a href=“http://www.studentaid2.ed.gov/gotocollege/campustour/]Student”>http://www.studentaid2.ed.gov/gotocollege/campustour/)</p>
<p>As you can see, Georgetown has 100% need met excluding PLUS and private loans. Most don’t.</p>
<p>If you’re asking how much debt you should realistically sign up for, there really isn’t any one size fits all answer. My opinion is that it really depends on the field you’re going into, whether or not you’ll need a graduate degree, and what the availability of jobs in that field and average starting salaries are. And, of course, how committed you are right now to staying in that course of study since many people change majors and you will want the freedom to do so as well. This last part is really an unknown unless you’ve done significant shadowing/interning in that field, so being conservative with loans is always the safest course.</p>
<p>For example, if you’re planning to be a physician, there are lots of jobs and good starting salaries, but high attrition rates in pre-med/undergrad and an expensive graduate education to fund. If you decided in your junior year that teaching is your true calling, you might be in big trouble if you’re already $40K in debt. So, you really have to weigh the benefits vs. the costs and leave a little “wiggle room” for the unknowns. My vote is usually for the lowest net cost school that will meet your needs and that you can be happy with for the time you’ll be there.</p>
<p>There are loan calculators of all sorts here - play with some numbers and see what debt will mean to your life after college:</p>
<p>[FinAid</a> | Calculators](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Calculators - Finaid)</p>
<p>My gut sense is that a student graduating with $20K in total debt is not likely to be burdened too much UNLESS his degree and career aspirations are in art, drama, or music. I’d be leery of any debt in those fields.</p>
<p>For an actuarial, engineering, computer science, or nursing degree, I might stretch that to $30K in debt, because the job market for new graduates in these fields is likely to hold up reasonably well, and entry level salaries are relatively high. Repayment of the debt within a five - seven year period ought to be very feasible.</p>
<p>I’ve known families who still had college debt from their own college educations by the time they married and had kids, and it really cramped them. One family with a kid going off to college in two years just finished paying their last student loan a year ago after a number of refinancings. Entry level positions for new graduates in many majors are low-paying and not necessarily easy to come by. Some jobs, while highly gratifying, never pay very well. If you’re trying to keep your future options open, minimizing student loan debt is a worthy goal.</p>
<p>Thank you guys for your thorough responses, I really appreciate them. I will be receiving my FA package in a week, so I am hoping for a miracle because I feel as if I will be forced to go to my financial safety.</p>
<p>Does anyone know how to bargain and negotiate with 586 school? I heard they do not do financial review nor do they match FA from another school. What other route should I follow if the FA is not feasible?</p>
<p>I just had the most unbelievably unhelpful phone call with the financial aid office at NYU. The guy could not tell me ANYTHING, NADA. I ask how the financial aid was calculated, he could not tell me. I ask how I could end up with more than $44,000 in loans when I have an EFC of $21,343. He said, thats just the way it is. I ask if I could see the worksheet about how this was decided. He said, what worksheet. I ask how the EFC is figured into the overall financial aid decision he said, we look at it. </p>
<p>Does anyone have any helpful advice, or answer to my question. How can you end up with $44,000 in loans (for one year) with an EFC of $21,000.</p>
<p>I’m not sure. Go to another school, with your EFC, your family should be able to afford a school for you – even if it may not be NYU. Consider yourself lucky, at least you come from a background that actually lets you be able to afford university. My FAMILY can help me NADA, let alone getting help from a school.</p>
<p>NYU doesn’t meet full demonstrated need and they are notorious for giving bad FA. That is why you have so much loans, because they do not have the endowment to meet full need for their over 20,000 undergraduates. I’m sorry, but that is something that comes with NYU.</p>
<p>Here’s just one vote to say that $5000 per year should be the maximum student loan amount. Parents/families can take on more if they want and are able.</p>
<p>I’ve read that more students apply to NYU than to any other school (37,245 freshman apps last year), and there are enough who can afford it, despite NYU’s low per-capita endowment. There likely is no formula, no worksheet; each app doesn’t get much time, so it can appear (and likely be somewhat) random.</p>
<p>NYU is notorious for terrible financial aid. You’re not alone. They can say you can have $3K in federal work-study, a Pell Grant, and $45K a year in loans and declare victory that they’ve met 100% of your financial need. This is the admit/deny scenario, and they do it a lot. (Their endowment is low enough that they may not have a lot of options.) It is too bad that they aren’t more up-front with applicants about the paucity of financial aid, but you’ll see a LOT of kids on the NYU thread in (cyber)tears because they got in and can’t afford to go.</p>
<p>The “woman you spoke to” was right, in the world of FA, a school can meet your need by giving you loans as loans are considered FA.</p>
<p>iconplaybass,
from reading your post # 3, so far it seems as if you have neglected to apply to or been accepted to a “true safety” school. A true safety school is a school that;1) you can gain admission to, 2) if admitted you would be happy to attend and 3) the school is a financially feasible option for your family.</p>
<p>You state that your family has an EFC of 4065 (which makes you pell grant eligible).</p>
<p>FA is based on the premise that COA- EFC = demonstrated need. If a school is truly meeting 100% of your demonstrated need, it is not to say that their will be “no Loans”, however, you probably would not have any plus loans where the school has “gapped” your package.</p>
<p>IF you can give us a sample of 1 whole FA package that includes, your EFC, your institutional aid ($ the school is giving you), Federal aid (pell grants, ACG) self help aid (stafford loans, perkins loans and work study) adn the PLUS loan we could get a better picture as to how much of your demonstrated need the school met.</p>
<p>mmd,</p>
<p>As others have stated, NYU is the poster child for bad FA because they are not at a loss for people who are willing to pay full freight. With a FA package that contains 44k in loans, if NYU is your dream school, it is time to move on and dream another dream.</p>
<p>sybbie719</p>
<p>Those were the aid packages of my match schools. I received a “full ride” to a state school honors program, my safety. I received full tuition, fees, books, room, and board.</p>
<p>My post was meant to show the OP that for Pell grant recipients, supposedly the lower income/high need students, significant loans were the norm.</p>
<p>But thanks for your concern.</p>
<p>icon,
Does your match school promises to meet full demonstrated need of their students?</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>If you want details, here they are. The school is CWRU and they claim to meet 100% of demonstrated need.</p>
<p>My EFC is 4124. Here is my package:</p>
<p>Provost’s Scholarship (based on SAT score) 17500
Case Grant 8980
Pell 1200
ACG 750
SEOG 2000
Fed Perkins Loan 1000
Stafford subsidized 3500
Stafford unsubsidized 2000
Work study 3000
Parent Plus loan 6004</p>
<p>Total 45934</p>
<p>The COA is 50058<br>
EFC 4124 </p>
<p>It looks like they meet need as the package plus the EFC equals the COA.</p>
<p>However, the parents must pay the EFC of 4124, the 6004 PLUS loan, and come up with the 3000 work study because I wont make that until later in the year. My loans will total 6500.</p>
<p>Over 4 years, assuming all remains the same, my parents will be in debt 40,000 and I would owe at least 26,000, probably much more as loans increase after freshman year.</p>
<p>Now how is that “meeting need” when according to the FAFSA all we can afford is 4124 a year?</p>
<p>And what do you do when your parents can’t or won’t take out those loans?</p>
<p>PLUS loans is not meeting need, at least for most people. All you need is for a PLUS loan is a credit card, and it’s available for all parents, regardless of their financial need. Does CWRU use the the CSS Profile? If yes, then they probably calculated a need that is different from the FAFSA’s EFC.</p>
<p>I wish schools would be more transparent about their Financial Aid.</p>
<p>Case does not use CSS. They use FAFSA.</p>
<p>If you’ll note, the “package” totals exactly the COA minus the 4124 EFC so they definitely put together the package using the FAFSA and that EFC.</p>
<p>Prior to the Pell figures being released, the preliminary package had the Plus loan at 8800. They reduced it when the Pell and ACG were calculated in.</p>
<p>This is not meeting need. Case was the school that I contacted about the loans and was told, rather condescendingly, that loans are what you get when you have “need based” financial aid.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The EFC is not meant to be an “all you can afford” number, and I’ve never seen it described or advertised as such. It’s a common misconception though. FAFSA is a way to evaluate income and asset information across the board and is primarily designed for determining your eligibility for federal grants. The govenment and colleges expect that you and your parents will have been saving towards college, and be using current income and loans as well. Also, no one should ever have told you that it’s your right to attend any school you want, even if you can’t afford it.</p>
<p>You should be working (and saving) now and in the summer. Yes, your work study income won’t start for a month or so after college, but most COA’s are for the entire year and include many variable costs like meal plan and room selection, personal expenses, transportation, and books. You can reduce those costs by making careful choices.</p>
<p>Congrats on the full scholarship though! There are many people who would love such a chance. My guess is that you’ll bloom where you’re planted.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>I don’t feel entitled to anything and I work now and will continue to work.</p>
<p>The OP questioned how much loans should one expect in a FA package with a relatively low EFC which likely means the family is lower income.</p>
<p>I am illustrating how loan heavy most packages will be AND how even schools that claim to meet 100% of need will either give you lots of loans or use the PLUS loan to gap you while making it look like they met need.</p>
<p>Trust me, no surprises for me. I’m well aware of the difficulty less affluent students have in meeting the costs of college and I planned accordingly.</p>
<p>However, it still is good for other students to see what kinds of aid they can expect.</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarification. It is good to know that you have a financial safety in the pocket to fall back on in case the $$ does not work out. You may not realize it now, but you are so far ahead of the game than many people, Congrats!!</p>
<p>Of your Case package- your demonstrated need is $45,934</p>
<p>$30,430 or 66% of the package has been met with “free $” that you do not have to pay back</p>
<p>$9,500 or 21% of your FA package is self-help aid</p>
<p>$6,000 or 13% of your package is in the form of PLUS loans</p>
<p>The 4124 EFC is the parent and the student contribution. If you take on a summer job (take on 2 if you need to), you can take a chunk out of the EFC and possibly lower the amount of $$ your parents will have to borrow in a PLUS loan.</p>
<p>As sk8rmom stated, your the work study amount of 3000 will be used for you, you can find ways to reduce this expense by determining what you want from what you need. You can consider purchasing used vs. new books, purchase books directly from students vs. the book store. Look into swapping books with friends. Purchasing books on line from places like half.com. When traveling home, try to book early for the best prices, if your school runs buses to your hometown, this can be a cheap alternative in addition to traveling with your friends. you can arrange to chip in and travel with carpools or do other cost cutting things.</p>
<p>You can see what the process is for becoming a RA. At many schools, this can be a huge savings because you get free room and board.</p>
<p>Other things that you can look into doing (and don’t turn up your nose), getting a job working for dining services at the school. Many schools will let you get your meals free or at a greatly reduced price.</p>
<p>I have every confidence that you and your family will work out the best financially feasible option for your family.</p>
<p>all the best</p>