<p>Excuse my ignorance about the FAFSA or Profile. Question is, I hear people talk about each school costing them a certain amount after aid, is it clear how that number is broken down?</p>
<p>When the school sends you a final bill, do they break it down by tuition amount, room&board amount, fees at the new lower amounts, or do they just say "here's merit and/or financial aid of x amount..." and then you figure out what areas to put that reduction towards.</p>
<p>If child is responsible for paying/borrowing for room&board, for instance, or if grandparents say they will loan only for a certain percent of tuition, how does someone know how much each area costs? Maybe every family just makes a guess and works it out internally.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what you mean…</p>
<p>My kids’ college gives me a complete breakdown (online). My kids each have 2 or 3 scholarships that many of their costs. We pay whatever is left.</p>
<p>For instance, our DS2’s bill says something like this…</p>
<p>semester tuition… $XXXX
semester res hall… $XXXX
semester meal plan… $XXXX</p>
<p>then it will list credits from scholarships.</p>
<p>tuition scholarship…$XXXX
Eng scholarships…$2500
outside scholarship…$2000</p>
<p>In our case the engineering and outside scholarships aren’t dedicated to any one expense. Those can be used towards meal plan debt, housing debt, or something else.</p>
<p>Does that help? If not, please clarify. :)</p>
<p>I should add…</p>
<p>No matter how your child’s school sets up its billing, you should be able to determine what each item costs individually.</p>
<p>On the school’s website, there should be price breakdowns for tuition, for fees, and for various choices for housing, meal plans, etc.</p>
<p>Thank you. Yes, that’s helpful. I see on the website what the original prices are, but if finaid or a scholarship brings the total cost down, it seems that the family would need to determine if each area was credited equally or if all of the finaid goes towards one area - tuition for example for the part they credit as “tuition scholarship”.</p>
<p>Your example helped me see how it works for your school, and probably the other schools as well. </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>