<p>svirish how much in loans did you have to take out though..some like me would have debt upwards of 80,000</p>
<p>My nephew has that debt and he went to Stonehill. He has a job with ESPN they are paying for his Master's degree his loans are in forebearance for now but eventually he will be making enough to pay them off. Where there's a will there's a way</p>
<p>I am so glad to see we are not the only ones in the same boat. My son..
GPA 3.81 uw, SAT M790, V700, W760 was accepted in the early decision. He was also accepted at Harvey Mudd, Cornell, Cal Tec, USC...but his love was ND....even attended a USC/ND game there 3 years ago and fell in love with the people (i went to USC). All the other schools offered 15-27k in financial scholarship/grants. Yesterday we received ND 1k plus 10k in loans. Very disappointed that a school with such high endowment 5billion is giving so little. We make 75k a year...they probably expect me to mortgage my house and business to come up with the 35k year xtra. I do not understand how such a discrepancy exists between schools financial aid. I have to say I am hurt and very bitter at their attitude..I too called, they didn't care. Maybe I should have given less at church and saved more.
Best of luck to those in the same boat.
As for our son, he will be attending Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>I am disappointed to hear that your son will be attending Harvey Mudd if that's not his first choice. It's a good school, so congrats on the acceptance. Unfortunately, financial aid, like admission, is a crapshoot at ND. One of my good high school friends had loved ND his whole life. His screen name involved the Irish. He watched every game. He'd been to the campus more times than I can count. He worked as hard as he could to get to the academic level ND wanted. Mike was the third-in-the-nation spelling bee finalist in 2002, won a few national level piano awards, captained our soccer team to a league championship, got a 1600 and a 4.0, etc. In the end he was accepted, but they didn't give him much money at all. He had to attend Cornell and has been miserable there. Ironically, I, who applied to ND on a whim and knew almost nothing about the school, was given a full ride. I've enjoyed it, but I can't say I deserve it more than Mike. I really feel for you folks. We lose a lot of dedicated, qualified, and loyal students because of something as immaterial and stupid as money.</p>
<p>Aberam it is possible to borrow a Plus loan and your son could hopefully earn money over the summer. You have 30 years to pay back a Plus loan. Our payments for over $100000 is about $700 month when we can no longer pay it the kids will but hopefully we will have it paid off ourselves. It's a lot of money I work a lot of hours but my kids education for me is the way I choose to invest my money it will stay with them and give them a return forever my $$$'s could be lost in a minute and I can't take them with me. I hope your son finds happiness wherever he goes I am sure he will</p>
<p>Borrow, borrow, borrow....mortgage the family farm, always an option. In California where property has gone up so high it makes us look like rich folks. Most schools understand that...ND wants you to mortgage everything to pay for the education. There is a limit (and willingness) to what we can do. My point was that ND is out of line with what other colleges are doing....and they don't care. I just had a thought, now that we are part of the "ND Family" as they like to put it, does the EFC include them?
thanks to all, and good like...ND is a special place</p>
<p>Oh and I have a question: why Mudd over Tech?</p>
<p>Fur us ND , BC and Villanova were about the same. The next tier schools were better Stonehill and Fairfield offered nearly a full ride except staffords and Perkins loans I think to attract the higher ranked kids. Fordham was the worst fa offer just above Franciscan and I have a son there . Franciscan offered $5000/yr but in fairness to them she could have competed for the full scholarship award there but knew she was going to ND. Aberam I am truly sorry for your dilemma but you son is obviously very talented and will thrive wherever he goes. Good luck</p>
<p>Mudd over Tech...better teaching at the undergraduate level. Smaller school with easier access to proferssors.. no TA's. If you want to do research you are not competing with graduate students. Also highest acceptance to graduate programs. Frankly, it was my son's personal choice after interacting with the students of both campuses. Many people get hung up with the "name" without looking at where you are going to get a better education. It is not Notre Dame, but at Mudd they have an honor code and students are friendlier and willing to help each other...he saw that first hand when he stayed there overnight. What we love about ND is that their goal is not just to give you an education...but to help you grow into becoming good young men and women. Few in California understand that concept...and ND is one of the few universities that does a great job at that.
Today I did email Mr. Sarancino at ND about our situation and what others in our economic situation are going through. Our decision was final, our son is going to Mudd...but I though he needed to know that there are many families in our boat and that other universities are providing a better financial package for those in our income range.
Thanks to all, it will work out...our son does like Mudd alot too. And as a parent he will only be 60 minutes away.</p>
<p>aberam: Although ND did offer D a decent amount of grant money, other schools did not. It's odd how the east coast schools (Boston College and Villanova) offered us nothing while the midwest schools offered her about the same amount in merit/grant money (Wash U, Carleton). D was admitted EA to BC so we were actually given an early FA package (again, they gave us nothing). They expected us to pay entire COA = $48K. I too was angry and sent the prez. of BC (Fr. Leahy) an email stating my disapproval of their "admit/deny" tactics. Admitting a student and then denying them the opportunity to attend due to their lack of financial assistance. I hear BC and other schools are notorious for doing this. I haven't heard back from Fr. Leahy and don't expect to but nevertheless, I feel good about sending the email. I wish your son the best at Mudd.</p>
<p>Well, send an email to Mr Saracino at ND about the difficulties the middle/upper end of the middle class is having financing ND and the discrepancies that exists between different schools and financial aid offers. I also voluntered to fax the copies of the other univeresitiy offers.<br>
In so many words, he understood the dificulties with home equity and how his kids went to ND on home equity loans and personal loans. Good luck and have a nice day....He also was not interested in seeing other offers. He was very nice and polite.
So if your thinking of getting more money by comparing other offers...do not bother. I have a feeling that some of the financial aid offers are a crap shoot...mominchicago has the same problem with BC, yet in her case ND was generous.</p>
<p>Good luck to all...by next month all of this would have been forgoten</p>
<p>Dear Everybody,</p>
<p>This is my first post. I have been reading the posts regarding the financial aspects of attending Notre Dame with great interest. We assumed that if my son got in we wouldn't be able to afford it. Well he got in and with more aid than we were expecting. Enough so that we could consider it. My question is, what about after the first year. Expenses go up generally between 5 and 6% a year there. As I understand it, scholarships stay the same and the difference is made up in loans. For those who are upper classmen, does ND leave you in a financial lurch later on down the road? And if so, what about the education there makes it worth it?</p>