<p>My annual family income is over 200k. How can I get financial aid? What schools offer the most non-need based aid? I am looking at Minnesota and Madison. I am also looking at Michigan and Northwestern, but they are a lot more expensive. I have great grades, AP scores, and good test scores. But my extra-curriculers are nothing special.</p>
<p>You can’t get financial aid.</p>
<p>If you need money for school, then you need to apply to some schools that give merit for stats.</p>
<p>What are your stats?</p>
<p>What is your home state?</p>
<p>How much will your parents pay?</p>
<p>The schools that you’'re considering probably are not going to work.</p>
<p>Why would you need financial aid if your family makes over 200K? It’s selfish to take it from the people who need truly need it to make it to college when it seems to me that you can easily pay…</p>
<p>elbeeen…</p>
<p>A student has no control over whether his parents pay for his education or not. He can’t make them pay even if they easily can pay.</p>
<p>Elbeeen—who are you to say that the OP can easily pay? Do you know what the family’s expenses or savings are? Do you think the OP has access to the family’s money so that they can write out a check to cover their expenses?</p>
<p>I doubt the OP has any more control than you do about paying for college… I would lose the attitude and begin to recognize that life is complicated and things do not fall into neat categories.</p>
<p>Honestly, I haven’t heard of any schools that offer need-based aid to families with 200k+ incomes, barring exceptional circumstances like really high medical bills. If you need aid, you’re best bet would be to look for schools that offer merit, not need-based, aid and where your status would put you at the top of the applicant pool.</p>
<p>Very true, mom2collegekids. I didn’t consider that.</p>
<p>But uskoolfish, i CLEARLY said “it seems to me”, I didn’t say YOU DEFINITELY CAN PAY so nice try, but fail.</p>
<p>To be fair, people with higher income usually have larger mortgages, pay more for their cars, have to save more each month for retirement, etc. They can’t just pull money out of their ass any more than somebody middle class can. EFC doesn’t factor in the fact that the mortgage of somebody with 200k income is probably twice that of somebody with 100k income.</p>
<p>And even then, it can be based on cost of living. Most starting salaries are higher in New York City than in Houston Texas because land is cheap in Texas and houses are reasonably priced. In NYC or California or something, they cost way more and the salaries are higher, but the bottom line “disposable income” for each month whether for savings or spending is almost always equal.</p>
<p>My EFC freshman year was 33k (parents made almost 100k combined) and how can they magically put 33% of our salaries towards my college education. Mortgage, car payments, retirement, etc. It’s all still there.</p>
<p>“You can’t get financial aid.”
He/she can. Financial aid package inclused merit based and need based. </p>
<p>“Why would you need financial aid if your family makes over 200K? It’s selfish to take it from the people who need truly need it to make it to college when it seems to me that you can easily pay…”
OP said non-need based financial aid. Not need based. At first I misread and was about to post the same thing as you. Until he/she said their stats are high and I re-read why they would post stats. What he/she needs to do is list the exact stats so others can based whether it’s good enough to get the non-need based aid or commonly known as merit based.</p>
<p>what should have been said is you can’t get pellgrants and such. I think if you fill out a fafsa you can at least get a loan.</p>
<p>Twin, you will qualify for an unsubsidized Stafford loan if you fill out a FAFSA with your parents info. Everyone who fills out the form can get one but it’s only a few thousand dollars and needs to be paid back.</p>
<p>Other than that, you need to find merit-based aid, also called scholarships. Do a search here for a few threads that might be helpful: guaranteed scholarships, National Merit scholarships (if you are a Natl Merit scholar), and there’s also a thread on how one mom got scholarships for her children by having them apply and attend schools which most cc’ers wouldn’t consider but for which they were top of the heap. The <em>general</em> rule is that you may be able to get scholarship $ at a school that offers it (not all schools offer merit scholarships) if your testing and gpa are at the top of their class. </p>
<p>Some other tactics is to try schools that cost less: state colleges (I realized you stated publics but I’m not sure any of them are your instate public), colleges in a regional consortium (again, there’s a thread about this-- some states have agreements that allow students to attend out-of-state publics in nearby states, sometimes it’s rather open and sometimes it must be if your major isn’t offered in your state), or international colleges (e.g. McGill or Toronto) or Great Britain (St. Andrews) or elsewhere. I don’t think the international unis will be cheaper than Minnesota but they should be cheaper than Northwestern. </p>
<p>A few other ideas: If you are taking APs, look at how many credits each school will give you for credits. You may be able to shave off one semester or even a year (especially if you can get permission to take a few community college courses near home one summer). Also, once you’re in school, you may consider becoming an RA (the school will pay your housing).</p>
<p>RA is a great job for free board and housing like 2collegewego mentioned but I don’t think incoming freshman can get the job since the application and interview process is the year before at the end of the semester.
I can’t wait to apply for next year and eat campus food again. I really like the food at one of my dining hall.</p>
<p>endof18 is absolutely right-- RA is not a job for freshman. And, frankly, you have to have the right personality and the job is often pretty competitive. There are other jobs on campus but there’s a lot of variety: some schools have lots of options for students to get on-campus employment, others don’t even have enough positions for work-study kids. At some schools located near cities, students prefer to work at the businesses near the school but not on-campus. It all depends. </p>
<p>Of course, that’s not aid-- but part-time and summer work could easily be enough to pay for your books, spending money and maybe even your transportation back and forth to school. That will certainly cut down on expenses.</p>
<p>I hate how if your parents work hard and save money, you are a lot less likely to have financial aid. Even if my parents make 200k, they have to give away like a third in taxes. The top end schools are usually about 50 k a year. That’s 200 k for 4 years, plus likely extra years. And my parents have two other kids to pay college for. We are all good students, so without aid they would end up paying like 600k. That is a ton of money that they could be saving to buy a new house or something. Unless I go to a school thaat is easier to get into, I do not think I have any chance for financial aid more than a couple thousand.</p>
<p>Stats - 4.15 W, 3.9 UW, 33 ACT,
6 AP tests - 6 5’s, 1 IB test - one 6</p>
<p>Nothing special for extra-curr. - around 100 volunteer hours, a couple rec sports, a couple other clubs, etc.</p>
<p>Oh, and I should mention I want to do engineering, which is very competitive usually.</p>
<p>*“You can’t get financial aid.”
He/she can. Financial aid package inclused merit based and need based. *</p>
<p>To avoid confusion, many of us refer to “financial aid” as “need based aid” - especially when someone has a big income and is asking about aid. We don’t usually consider merit scholarships as “financial aid,” because the awards usually have nothing to do with a person’s financial situation.</p>
<p>And, you cut off my point. My words were: *You can’t get financial aid.</p>
<p>If you need money for school, then you need to apply to some schools that give merit for stats.*</p>
<p>And, I should have said that the student could get a small unsub loan (about $5500).</p>
<p>**Anyway…someone with an income of $200k whose family cannot pay “full freight,” needs to find out how much his parents WILL pay, and then carefully select schools that will be affordable either because of low cost or merit scholarships. **</p>
<p>Twins…you need to have a talk with your parents about how much they will pay each year for your education. Then, with that number, come back here and we can help you find schools that will work. </p>
<p>With your stats, there are schools that would give you good merit.</p>
<p>It is highly unlikely that you will get financial aid if your parents make that kind of money. Maybe, maybe, maybe if there are two people in college, lots of dependents, and a school with a super generous aid policy, like Harvard’s. </p>
<p>Get some idea what your parents can and are willing to pay. Basically, in our family, we pay for college with our past, present and future earnings along with the student’s. We have some money put away–not enough, but some. My kids all have money saved for college since they were wee kids and from their jobs over the years. We then have to budget out the expense from current income when the kid goes off to college. We do save a little money having him gone in terms of utilities, food, car use and expenses, and then we have to scrimp for the rest. Student has to work summers and a little bit at school after first semester. That leaves just future income which we get through loans. We borrow, student borrows. Stafford loans are available in the amount of $5500 for freshmen which is the max I would want my kid to borrow. </p>
<p>The schools that fit our budget are the SUNYS (our in state schools), private local schools (student would have to commute), and some lower cost private schools and many OOS public schools. We also look for those schools that have merit money that the student could possibly get and would reduce the cost to an affordable level. </p>
<p>Really, that is all we can do. It’s still tight but doable.</p>
<p>“To be fair, people with higher income usually have larger mortgages, pay more for their cars, have to save more each month for retirement, etc. They can’t just pull money out of their ass any more than somebody middle class can. EFC doesn’t factor in the fact that the mortgage of somebody with 200k income is probably twice that of somebody with 100k income.” What is a ridiculous statement. You’re saying that anyone who chooses to funnel income into an expensive house, fancy cars and a well-stuffed retirement plan, rather than saving up for a child’s college expenses, deserves aid? Really?</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/974566-can-you-ever-get-need-based-financial-aid-reduces-your-cost-below-efc.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/974566-can-you-ever-get-need-based-financial-aid-reduces-your-cost-below-efc.html</a></p>
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<p>Even the schools with the MOST generous need based aid (e.g. Stanford, HYP) do not offer need based aid with incomes in the over $200,000 level.</p>
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<p>Which are you instate for? Your best bet is to look at the public university in YOUR state of residence.</p>
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<p>I don’t think Northwestern gives merit aid. Michigan has some merit aid to out of state students but not very many students receive this and they would need to be at the tippy top of the applicant pool.</p>
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<p>I don’t believe your AP scores are going to make any difference in receiving merit aid, which is what you should be looking for since your family won’t be eligible for need based aid. With these stats, look at U of Alabama, and U of South Carolina. Both offer good merit aid to out of state students.</p>
<p>P.S. College financial aid computations do not consider consumer debt or expensive financial choices, nor should they. Expensive cars are a CHOICE. Everyone has some kind of housing expense. If you CHOOSE to spend more on your housing…that is your choice. We live in an expensive part of the country…our mortgage is half of what most folks pay. Our choice…we could have traded up, I suppose, but there was no real reason to buy a more expensive house or car…knowing we had college in the future.</p>