I have two of DD applied to UT, A&M and UTD and both been. accepted. We are local to Dallas area. Both have been offered 13k per year AES scholarship at UTD and one of them is NMF candidate. We are local to Dallas area and they both are interested in PA and Dentistry as career choice (at least for now).
Primary bread winner in household lost job recently and as it stands now we can only send our kids to some school with significant aid. While we have hope for re-employment in few months, it might not be at same compensation levels. Our EFC based on 2018 income and asset was 30k and that will be significantly less for 2020 if there is delay in re-employment or re-employment at lower earnings.
I am wondering should I wait for their aid department of these schools to discuss situation upfront or wait for their aid package and then bring this up?
Contact the colleges and find out what their process is for a special circumstances consideration. There are a few things you should keep in mind…
Many schools won’t process a special circumstance consideration unless your child chooses to attend there. But some will. You need to ask.
Many schools have a “waiting period” before they will consider these requests. The anticipation is that the parent will find another job.
If the parent received severance or unemployment compensation, these will be considered as income as well.
Special circumstances considerations are considered on a case by case basis.
Your 2018 income was used to determine aid for 2020-2021. Some schools will not reconsider for this year. Some won’t reconsider for 2021-2022 which will use your 2019 income. But some will understand that your income is substantially less...and they will adjust.
Now some questions…
Did the NMF kid apply to any colleges that would provide excellent and guaranteed merit aid?
How much CAN you pay annually right now for your kids to attend college? Was that $30,000 EFC per child...or total.
And lastly…
The colleges you listed don’t meet full financial need for all accepted students. Even with a re-consideration, there is no guarantee they will receive more aid…but then they might!
Anyway…call the school financial aid departments and ask them what their process is for a special circumstances consideration…and get that all ready just in case it’s needed.
In the meantime, I hope this parent finds a new job ASAP.
The NMF will be free at UTD, and non NMF twin will be cheap with 13K AES (COA instate is about 25K max) . Like as not you are not getting FA with your COA for both being about 12K max. That would put your real life EFC at 6K each, I suspect it would take a lot of unemployment time to get to there. was your $30K EFC for each kid or both? Did your DH get packaged out of his job? You can talk to UTD, but you were never getting FA as per your initial application.
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as it stands now we can only send our kids to some school with significant aid>>
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You have got significant FA at UTD, with NMF award for one kid and almost top AES for the other. Make sure you follow the NMF reqs to get the best deal. The NMF might get a full ride at other schools. Your AES kid might get money at TT, or UH, or OOS at Alabama etc. It is getting late though, for this round.
Thanks @thumper1 and @Sybylla . EFC 30k is for both. 15k each I guess.
How much we can pay for college will really depend on new job. If we don’t find job till college start date, we may not have any liquid saving left to afford college as it stands now.
EFC factored into second home value that generates some rental income but, when combined with unemployment income, will not be enough to meet month-to-month expenses. So liquid saving will be depleted rather quickly. DH is considering exploring business setup and that may exhaust current savings rather quickly.
UTD is definitely more via able option, but probably is not top choice school for NMF kid. She is considering UF and UCF as well. Concern over there is that there will be travel and heath insurance cost that will be out of pocket and probably will make less practical option.
Should we be reaching out to these schools now or wait for their admission / aid decision before requesting special consideration?
What school did your NMF D put as her first choice school on the NMF application? UT Dallas requires that they are selected as first choice to get the scholarship $, not sure about the UF schools.
None of these schools will give you need-based financial aid. So this is all moot. The FL NMF award covers the full COA, which includes travel. And your kid can get a job. The other kid may need to commute. But if they take the fed loans and start working now, full time plus overtime during the summer, during school, and live frugally, they could make it work living on campus.
As above. is UTD commutable? the AES covers your full tuition plus, if that was a thing you don’t have extra costs to how you are living now. Your second property is going to impact any FA, but again, did your DH get a severance package? Is health cover still being paid in that package? Was the severance in 2019 or 2020?
Sit your kids down and tell them it is what it is, your NMF needs to be on the ball. your AES is probably SOL unless you have other better offers. Your NMF would get a great package at TAMU, no?
Job with health benefits for the second parent- get on that STAT! Even if the income isn’t huge, even if it’s not the “all my life I’ve wanted to do X” job, NOT having to pay COBRA on an ongoing basis until the primary finds a fulltime job is going to be huge. And if setting up a business is in the cards, wait until you see how expensive it is to buy your own insurance.
You will be spending down your cash much more slowly if you can nail down health insurance for the family. And I hate to say it- but life insurance? was the only policy from the job, or do you have a term policy which covers the breadwinner?
Do you have a ballpark estimate as to what the second property could get you if you sold it next month?
Did you end up EDing and EA anywhere else? Have you got privates on your list? I think the public schools are pretty straightforward with fafsa and prior prior, but private schools do their own thing and you really should talk to their FA. Have you seen any FA awards yet? Is the second home a big asset number? What did the NPC at rice look like, for example, their NPC tool is reasonably sophisticated. What happens when you substitute current figures?
You have terrific students. They both would be full ride kids if Alabama or similar auto merit was in play for non NMF kid. UTD AES appears less generous this year.
Yes, contact the schools and find out what they will require from you to process a special request and consideration regarding financial aid. As @thumper1 and others have said, it can vary widely from school to school how they will handle this. With significant assets, (rental home) and still some income , not likely that a significant amount of PELL will come into the picture if a reset is done on the income used on FAFSA.
Your family needs to look at this situation as something that will. Impact finances for several years at least. Even if a school gives you more financial aid this year,they are not going to take into consideration the fallout from being recently unemployed when A new job is found. So a quick band aid fix for just one year, not going to necessarily be what your family should be considering. Also merit money reducers aid, and the $13k scholarships your students have gotten pretty much covers Texas instate tuition i know in NY, there can be consideration for getting tuition only covered in the SUNYs but expecting the colleges to pay for your kids living expenses not likely to happen
So look at your options, and get whatever info schools will want either now or later for reconsideration if financial situation.
This is one case where the EFC should not be combined. NMF child will have 100% covered at UT-D or at a Florida school. The school for the second child will consider that she has a $15k EFC, not that the family has a $30k EFC.
If she gets tuition covered somewhere, they will look at the remaining costs (R&B, fees?, incidentals, books, travel) to be covered and $15k may be enough. You can definitely ask for review of that amount if you still have no jobs by this spring. They may be able to make the loans subsidized, give some SEOG, even approve a Pell grant if there is really no income. Is it really going to allow her to choose another school? If so, ask for the professional judgment now. If not, ask for PJ later in the year when things are looking up or looking really bad.
I would be surprised if a public school that already gave a full tuition scholarship would award a student with a $15k FAFSA EFC a SEOG grant or even work study.
I believe there is a EFC cutoff (or certain amount of unmet need) for these need based aid forms that schools use. To make sure the lowest EFC students with the highest need get the most help.
I might be wrong but we had a $6,000 EFC one year with two in school and got no SEOG, one kid got work study and the other one did not. Bot were offered subsidized loans and got a state grant.
If the income in 2018 and 2019 was not impacted by the job loss, they might not do a professional judgement to adjust EFC.
You indicated that two would be in college, correct?
And the result on each FAFSA was $30k?
that means $30k EACH…not $15k each.
Do you work?
Right now, with this strong economy, doubtful any school is going to adjust any aid because the assumption will be that your spouse will soon get another job.
Was your spouse paid any severance? Paid for any unused vacation time?
I would suggest that you tell your twins to grab the best merit scholarship schools they can.
Since one is PrePA and the other is PreDental, it’s really best just to go to a “good school” where they can be rock stars.
There is no official EFC cutoff for SEOG or work study. Each school has its own rules for awarding, based on their population. SEOG is expected to be awarded to low EFC, but there is no established EFC cutoff.
BTW, one thing I would stress to the kids if UTD is workable financially (it should be for the NMF kid and also the AES kid if UTD is commutable) is that they don’t have to think of their stay as absolutely being for 4 years if they keep up grades and family finances improve enough (for a transfer to likely another TX public and you folks have the funds).
Though really, the NMF kid has options. Especially if he/she can earn some money through work.
Also, yes, if pre-health, killing it in undergrad (and doing the requisite extracurriculars) is what matters most.
That would allow for time to work and save up some money.
You may want to look at the policies of the various scholarship programs at the schools to see what is possible.
Some may require more or fewer credit hours to maintain full-time status or exemptions from credit load requirements (if you bring in a lot of credits). That would free up time for earning money.