If financial aid offer is insufficient

What’s mind boggling is that they are letting her go. NYU did not create this dilemma. They never claim to meet full need. And what’s going to happen to this kid when she graduates send has to pay off loans while working survival jobs as an actor?

There was another poster here on CC and the family had an income of $20,000 a year, NYU expected them to take out a Parent Plus loan for $14,000 a year which they did not qualify for.

Schools gap students all the time. It’s up to the student or family to say this doesn’t work out financially. We didn’t qualify for any financial aid. So I made it my business to learn how my children could get merit aid without need. So we said no to all the ivies and schools like tufts, vassar and Wesleyan. And made them apply to a state school as an academic back up. If their dream school was too expensive it was out. D got $11k a year in merit aid from NYU which made it similar in price to out of state public universities. That was our budget and we stuck with even though financially we are in a very different place than the NYU kids who are going to drown in debt. Ironically, many of the schools d’s couldn’t apply to are schools that meet full need.

What constitutes “need” and even “full need” is determined by each individual university. Some “full need met” schools are not very generous at all for people in the middle, as home equity and all sorts of assets are counted as available for contribution to tuition. By the time some families pay their “contribution” for four years, they could be in very bad shape financially.

At least NYU makes it crystal clear to the whole world that they will NOT necessarily meet full need, and that they will be EXPENSIVE. They have made themselves famous for this, and so there is no excuse for not knowing that NYU will cost a lot of money for many families. NYU is one of the few schools that are totally, completely, upfront and honest about this, and I for one admire that.

What annoys me are the colleges that disingenuously claim they will “make it work!” for families, so “apply now!” in order to drum up applications. Then the package comes out and kids/families are just shocked that their “need” (as they thought it would be defined) was not met.

I think this characterization is highly exaggerated. Here are some quotes from NYU’s financial aid page:

It’s very easy to see how naive students and parents expect help after reading that.

And my local Mercedes dealership runs adds touting “we will make it work for you” and has a banner out front which says “you’ll be surprised how affordable it can be to drive away in a Mercedes”.

Caveat emptor and all that.