<p>I plan on attending St.Marys College of Maryland which is an expensive school.They are charging about 14k a year for tuition and about 6.8k for a dorm plus 5k for meal plan. That adds up to a total of 29k after I factor in personal expenses such as books,materials,transportation..ext My question is how much is the maximum I should be willing to pay after financial aid and scholarships. I am not ashamed to admit that I am a needy student. My EFC Is under the 30k a year mark(poorest).</p>
<p>Have you run the net price calculator for SMC (which I think it a great little school, by the way)? It is on the financial aid page of their website. Do that and see what it says. That is what matters more than the FAFSA EFC, it tells you what it will likely cost to attend THAT school.</p>
<p>What is your proposed major & possible plans after undergrad? That can affect your ability to pay back loans.</p>
<p>Are you in-state for Maryland (assuming you are, but just checking)?</p>
<p>And finally, how much have your parents said they can afford to pay per year (if any)? I can’t really tell from your post (is $30K your family income, or your FAFSA EFC, that is why I am not sure).</p>
<p>Is your EFC $30,000 or is your family income $30,000? Please clarify.</p>
<p>My fafsa EFC is 30k but my family makes more than 50k but they are divorced so I yeah…then that. I am instate for Maryland and after I ran their tuition calculator it told me I would get 20k in aid and would have to pay 8k. I don’t belive I will get that much aid because the school is not very generous with merit scholarships. My question is how much is too much.</p>
<p>FAFSA only has to be filed for your custodial parent , but includes child support paid by the NCP. I believe FAFSA all that is needed for STMary’s (a favorite of mine). </p>
<p>However, if you filled out your EFC estimator, and you come out at $30K as your EFC, it’s highly unlikely you’ll get financial aid until you pay that amount. The EFC is generally the least you will be paying unless you get merit exceeding your need. You can’t get federal aid until you pay that, and federal aid includes subsidized loans, grants and work study. A $30k EFC is not among the lowest. Being Pell Eligible puts you in the lowest group, and you don’ t so qualify. If your EFC is lower than about $5600 or so, you are in PELL territory. Not at $30K.</p>
<p>When you ran the SMOC calculator, did you put in just your custodial parent info, or did you put in your non-custodial parent info as well? You may try just adding their info together if you have it and running it.</p>
<p>You seem to be mixing up need based aid and merit aid, too. Let’s start by focusing on just the need based component (because you usually can’t count on merit aid unless it is clearly laid out as offered to students with certain statistics).</p>
<p>No one can clearly answer the “how much is too much” question for you. Can you clarify your planned major and post college plans? (Some majors may lead to jobs that pay more, so a little more debt might be okay – but some grad school choices are expensive, so minimizing debt can be critical).</p>
<p>Also, have your parents said how much they can contribute (if anything)?</p>
<p>Finally, I assume you are applying to some other schools as well as SMOC. Did you run those calculators from their websites?</p>
<p>If your FAFSA EFC is really $30,000, you will not receive any need based aid from St. Mary’s of MD. As an instate resident (if you are one…your other thread brings that into question), $30,000 exceeds their cost of attendance.</p>
<p>For the net price calculator, you should be using custodial parent information only including any child and spousal support your custodial parent receives. Also, if you have real estate other than your primary residence, this must be included as well.</p>
<p>And take note…the NPCs are not always accurate for families where the parents are divorced.</p>
<p>Where do you and your custodial parent reside? Is your custodial parent the one in the military?</p>
<p>Avoid debt as much as possible, which means consider other universities if they offer you a better deal. You can do the math on it. I’m going to make up some numbers here as an example. Let’s say you graduate and get a job making $32,000. That means your take-home pay after taxes will be about $2,000 a month. Then you take off your $1,000 a month rent, your $200 utilities, your $150 car insurance, your $100 phone and internet bill, any car payment, your food, gasoline, clothes, entertainment, etc., and see how much you are left over with to pay back a student loan of several hundred dollars a month. If you make the “average” recent grad pay of $45,000, then you will have about $3,000 a month. If you are studying petroleum engineering (which you’re not, or you wouldn’t be looking at that college), then you can take on a lot more debt. Run the figures on various loan amounts, interest rates and payback terms to see how much it will cost you a month for varying amounts of debt, and compare that with cost of living where you hope to live when you graduate. If you are looking at living in DC, e.g., then you will need a lot of roommates to get by starting out. </p>
<p>I plan on taking out a loans to pay the entire expense I’m left with. After graduating I am going to become a teacher as a profession. Most likely I won’t make much money to pay back loans.THUMPY brings up a good point, I don’t know if I will be able to pay it back if it is too large of a sum. And yes I understand how how fafsa works.</p>
<p>I used my custodial parent of course like your suppose to. and we accounted for every other factor such as child support in the EFC estimate for fafsa. </p>
<p>Um…thumpy did not make mention of your payback…that was mommyrocks.</p>
<p>But back to your question…how much will you be expected to pay? If your FAFSA EFC or the net price is $30,000, YOU will be expected to pay $30,000. If your EFC is that amount, either your custodial parent earns more like in the $100,000 a year range, OR there are very significant assets included. Maybe some of both.</p>
<p>How much should you be willing to pay? That is a whole other story. BUT schools cannot award need based aid in excess of the cost of attendance…and your contribution is included in their calculations. So a school like St. Mary’s will exoect your family to pay $30,000 a year for you to attend.</p>
<p>You will be eligible for the Direct Loan of $5500 for freshman year. </p>
<p>There has been a misunderstanding on my part I meant to say my EFC is lower than 30k not actually there.</p>
<p>I really like St Mary’s College of MD. However, it is absolutely not worth you or any student to put themselves on the hook for $120K in debt. First of all, you won’t be permitted to borrow that much on your own. You will be eligible for the Direct Loan amount of $5500 as a freshman which goes up a thousand a year until junior year where it stays at $7500. Without parent involvement, that is it, for loans unless you get financial aid with loans in it, which does not look likely for you with an EFC of about $30K. </p>
<p>I’m not discouraging you from applying there. GO on ahead–maybe some merit money will come up. But please start looking at some less pricey options for you. What are your parents willing to pay for your college? What do you have in the way of savings, plans for work as well as the Direct loan you can take? Your best option may be to look at some commuting options. Also look at the threads about merit money and see if your stats make you eligible for some such money. You will need parental signature to borrow money which effectively means whoever cosigns is equally responsible for your loans if anything should happen to you, not to mention, the loan would be on their credit record until paid off. They will taking out the loan with you as another recourse. It’s a worse deal than for them to just take out the PLUS in most cases. </p>
<p>Do start looking at affordable alternatives.</p>
<p>I also applied to UMD but I don’t think I will get accepted. thanks guys for your help!</p>
<p>Ok…then the minimum St. Mary’s will expect you to pay is $20,000 a year. Minimum. The school does not guarantee to meet full need. You would absolutely get a $5500 Direct Loan, but anything above that would be institutional money.</p>
<p>What CAN and WILL your parents pay annually for you to attend college? </p>
<p>Since you plan on becoming a teacher, you should look into student loan forgiveness programs for teachers that you will be able to take advantage of once you graduate. Here’s some information to get you started: <a href=“https://www.tuition.io/blog/2013/01/4-student-loan-forgiveness-programs-for-teachers/”>https://www.tuition.io/blog/2013/01/4-student-loan-forgiveness-programs-for-teachers/</a></p>
<p>If you are planning to start your teaching career in MD, check out Towson. The education program there is very strong, and graduates seem to be able to get jobs pretty quickly in the state.</p>
<p>It’s a tough go when you are told your family makes/has too much money for financial aid, when they don’t have much or any to pay towards college. That’s where many students are. With the EFC your family has, you are not likely to get much if any money from those colleges with costs at or below EFC range. You and family have to pay that EFC before getting aid, for the most part. </p>
<p>Though, yes, as a teacher in certain venues, you may qualify for some loan forgiveness, the only loans you qualify for that are in that program are the Direct Loans, and you are restricted to $5500 freshman year. The immediate problem is finding an affordable school for you. Commuting to a state school is probably your best option. That your parents have a roof over your head, and will support some of your living expenses is worth about$10K There are likely to be some schools that you can come close to covering with your DIrect loan. Getting a summer and part time year round job would help you meet other expenses. Most students who go to college do it this way. Getting room and board covered is very difficult.</p>