<p>BCEagle,</p>
<p>Can you explain what’s so bad about putting your financial information in a database like FAFSA? I’m not understanding the conundrum.</p>
<p>I’d just like to share a HAPPY story, for those of you who are struggling with this issue. Son is presently a freshman at a wonderful private college in NC. His finaid pkg from this private school was far superior to his pkg from any public school - to the point that sending him OOS to a private school is actually costing us less than our in-state university. To say that aid varies from school to school is an understatement. Please don’t rule anything out until you receive and compare pkgs. </p>
<p>One interesting concerpt I came across is called “preferential packaging”. Basically, if your student is towards the top of a college’s pool of admitted students - they may give you a better deal - because they want top students who will raise their stats. Conversely, if your student is accepted at their reach school, the aid pkg may not be as good. Most schools are somewhat quiet about this - but Muhlenberg College states it boldly on their financial aid website, and I think it is a pretty typical approach. </p>
<p>Final piece of advice is to deplete your cash before filling out FAFSA and Profile. Now I know this is risky advice in this economy, where having a cash cushion is important. But we took that risk and used all of our savings to pay off consumer debt. I believe this improved our EFC. For example, rather than having $20,000 in the bank and a $20,000 car loan - pay off the car loan and have little cash. The financial aid formulas do not ask about your debts - car loan, credit cards, etc. Again, I know this is not the smartest move for many other reasons, but if you are hoping to improve your EFC, this is a way to do it.</p>
<p>Privacy and security are complex issues that we could spend years discussing but I’ll leave you with a few examples:</p>
<ul>
<li>If you have large assets and a good income, there will be marketers interested in selling you things. I’d prefer not to be bothered by marketers.</li>
<li>If you have large assets, you can become a target for hackers or simply people that will steal the old-fashioned way such as burgling your home</li>
<li>You’ll get hassled by colleges that your kids attend because they have your information directly.</li>
</ul>
<p>To add to what BCEagle said, one more database is one more place whose security you have to depend on to keep your info safe.</p>
<p>'rentof2 – I hear you about the changes to FA with going back to work. I went back PT last fall after five years of medical leave (which I should still be on, but that’s another story). We figure it will significantly reduce much of the FA we would get next year when we have two in school. OTOH, there is nothing guaranteeing that those schools would give us grants for FA vs. loans. While we may be forking out more from our pockets, since my paycheck goes directly to EFC we’ve never gotten used to spending it, and we are approaching it from the POV that it will reduce how much we have to borrow for the years both kids are in school.</p>
<p>The years of living cheaply (and paying back student loans until the kids were well into elemntary school) also have helped us with discipline. So does sticking $$ automatically into savings – we live on the net paycheck, whatever it may be, but we save first.</p>
<p>This may get me to a remodeled kitchen and a non-leaking shower sooner than I could otherwise hope! (As you can see, I am REALLY searching for a silver lining here. :))</p>
<p>The most important advice is to be realistic about the results of both the FASA and CSS calculations. If both calculate higher than the cost of attending (and you’ve included a margin for error) then it is important to know where you stand and to accept it. Especially if the results are based on high current income, it is there in black and white and unless you lose your job, you will not be getting financial aid. (We re-calculated ours using financial planners based on zero savings and the EFC didn’t really budge.)</p>
<p>So, for us the next step was to find schools that offer merit aid NOT based on financial need. The best place to start is to use the US News and World Report’s data under financial aid for each school. At the very bottom, they will list merit aid. If those results say zero, believe it! There is no point in applying if you are expecting merit aid and it says here that there is none. </p>
<p>Now, this becomes tricky because some people will dispute this and recount how their child or a neighbor’s DID get merit aid from that school. And they will talk about how their financial aid package indicates merit aid. True, BUT their merit aid/ grant is still based on need…and is not available to students whose EFC’s do not show need.</p>
<p>Next, research the schools to see who is getting the merit aid. Only athletes? Only musicians or artists? Only in-state residents with a 1400 on the SAT? Educate yourself by calling each school to find out. Some schools will have it on websites others are a bit more vague. Ask as many questions as you can to get a realistic answer. Don’t bank on the one and only full ride scholarship and then find out that almost all the other merit aid is in the $5K to $10K range. </p>
<p>We learned this first hand at NYU last year, when D’s original academic “merit aid” scholarship was not rewarded to her because it had been changed (unbeknownst to the director of her program) from a scholarship that was true merit aid (without need) to a merit aid scholarship that was only available to those with need.</p>
<p>The only way D got money in the was because the program’s director was able to get her a different talent scholarship which didn’t have a financial need component. But there was considerable nail biting on our end until it was all worked out.</p>
<p>The good news is that the schools that did say they give merit aid without need, really did come through. D rec’d offers of $22k from American, $19K from Muhlenberg and $15K each from Brandeis and GW. Each of those numbers came in almost precisely to what we had reasonably hoped for from each school if D was lucky enough to be accepted and if her application was strong enough to warrent merit aid.</p>
<p>Now again, while this was within our expectation of what we were willing to pay, it may not be everybody’s. So again, you have to sit there and figure out the total cost of each school’s tuition, room, board and travel expenses to see where you stand for each. </p>
<p>For us, American and Muhlenberg came the closest to the cost of our state university. There was probably a gap of $7K to $10K per year. For Brandeis, NYU and GW, the gap was more like $20 to $25K per year over the cost of our state university. So again, this is a personal choice and one that needs to be discussed before your child applies everywhere, hoping for the best.</p>
<p>Good Luck!</p>
<p>An interesting point: for us, PROFILE need was <em>LOWER</em> than FAFSA. If you have unusual expenses (in our case, medical), document them in the Special Circumstances section on PROFILE. May or may not make a difference – but we’ve been doing it all along with the expectation that when we have two in school, the college will be able to see we have significant ongoing medical bills.</p>
<p>my commiserations - get ready for a lot of money going out for the next four years. only advice i can give, now about 160k less well-off and nearing “retirement” is to insist that your s/d at least MINOR in something that has a good chance of serious employment soon after 4 years of undergrad. sure, there’s grad school, or teach for america, or the peasce corps, or volunteer work, or unpaid internships - all the time “hoping” this will lead to a real job after awhile. better your kid carries some of the loans and starts to feel the pain of debt repayment shortly after graduation. there’s a lot of bs departments at the finest LACs, and they need enrollment to justify their departmental staffing. just be sure your kid isn’t being used to fill seats in coursework that belongs to the ages.</p>
<p>Ha! That exactly describes my kids… doing coursework that belongs to the ages. One is majoring in English, one in Religion and American Studies. They come by it honestly, though, because their dad and I also majored in similar things. They aren’t there because some knowledge-for-the-ages department staff wants them there, they’re there because they love the stuff. :)</p>
<p>It does seem to me as though state universities prepare students for the work force more than many LACs, but I personally believe that the breadth of a liberal arts education is very important. It is my hope that my daughter will discover the career (and graduate school) path she will take as a result of her college, rather than high school, experiences. But, good advice about the minor. It can’t hurt to have some marketable knowledge!</p>