Is it just me, or are things different this year?

Paying for College
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<p>The acceptances have started coming in for my kid. Not a surprise, she's worked very hard, good grades, NHS, well within top 25% of everywhere she applied, great activities, letters, etc.</p>

<p>But in a year of studying this financial aid stuff, I was under the impression she would likely receive offers from private schools (including the loans parts) that would bring the cost down to the FAFSA's EFC. It's not happening. So far all offers are about $10K more than the EFC, and very heavy on the loans.</p>

<p>Is anyone else finding that offers are much lower this year? Have last year's rules gone out the window? Did she get her hopes up for nothing? I can phone and find out, I just wanted any indication if this is the new norm.</p>

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<p>Do the schools your daughter applied to and has been accepted at offer to meet full financial need? Is it written on their financial aid websites/paperwork that they will meet the full need?</p>

<p>Are they FAFSA only schools?</p>

<p>Did they require the CSS Profile or their own financial aid applications?</p>

<p>In the 10 years that my kiddos have filed the FAFSA and applied there were many, many schools that gapped than those that met full need. And remember need has always been met with loans, except for those very, very few schools that have specific No-Loan policies in place.</p>

<p>Financial aid packages are built upon loans. Loans are first in the package and than any eligible federal grants (Pell, SEOG) and then federal workstudy, and then any institutional funds that are available (merit scholarships and/grant-in-aid).</p>

<p>And then of course the gaps between FAFSA EFC and what is offered in the FA package.</p>

<p>Been this way for our family for at least 10 years.</p>

<p>Of course, having a worse economy is not helping.</p>

<p>Kat</p>

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<p>I have only recieved financial aid letters from University of California schools. Our EFC is $1,800. So far all have about $10,000 in loans. This was a surprize as I was thinking less than 5k would be the norm. I have no previous years to compare with. Has 10k been the norm in the past few years with this EFC?</p>

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<p>Did you d apply to schools that meet 100% of need ?</p>

<p>If schools don’t meet all of need for every student, then student needs to be in the very top of applications. Not 25%, more like 10%. That is how it has been at most schools for a long time. Just as families have budgets , schools don’t have unlimited funds either.</p>

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<p>Public schools don’t have a lot of aid to give. While $10,000 per year is a lot in loans, if otherwise your need I met,that is a darn good package from a public school.</p>

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<p>Kat is absolutely right. Please be aware that the EFC is just a number for FEDERAL monies. That some schools and programs use it as well does broaden its usage, but I don’t think there are more than a handful, if that, school that will guarnatee to meet full need as defined by FAFSA. The most generous schools will use their own methodology, many using PROFILE to get additional information. PROFILE schools also are not like each other in methodology, generating what could be a wide variance in offer. Don’t expect your EFC to be your total cost. I don’t see it happen often, if ever. </p>

<p>The fact of the matter is that there are not that many huge merit awards. It is a myth that there are a lot of full ride scholarships out there for your kids. Most of the time if you want that kind of money, you will have to dig into the hardly known schools where most of the candidates are local, that may have an award or two to give to truly excellent candidates. that the schools are so unknown is what may give a well qualified candidate a good shot at getting such an award. But we are talking aboaut schools like East New Mexico Technical Institute, where one can get an excellent education but is not a school you would know if you don’t live in the area or are not looking for it. Some of these schools have the best programs and experiences for certain niches and majors, but are not mainstream schools. Really, if you and two others know a school, it is not an obscure school. I remark that our son goes to a school that is not well known, but that really isn’t true. Those in college circles do know the school.</p>

<p>Momfromtexas put together one of the best threads that CC has as a resource for those who truly need a lot of money for their kids’ college experiences, want the kid to go away to school and do not have top notch stats (or even has top notch stats). </p>

<p>It’s also become more competitive each year with more kids applying to more schools. The schools are still giving out the same number of awards, or even less in some cases, and there are usually the same number of seats. Admissions is becoming more selective not because there are more kids out there who are college age, but there are more apps out there. It’s making the admissions folks jumpy too. If you are only giving out x number of awards, you need to offer them judiciously. It would be a problem if you give out twice as many as you have in the budget, and also a problem if no one to whom you offered the monies accepted. I wouldn’t want the job of having to guess right on these things with the way it 's been going.</p>

<p>The worse economy is an issue too. Though jobs are up, many people are still recovering from bouts of unemployment and the financial fallout that comes from it. Plus there are many who are underemployed. People have raided their savings and their extras to get by when the breadwinner was out of work, My dear friend who has her own business, has downscaled tremendously these last few years because her income has take a solid hit whereas she has certain fixed expenses in running the business. The only way her kids are going to go to a private college now is if the costs are close to the state schools’. Just can’t do it and she is up to her eyebrows in debt she took to keep her business running. If all goes well, she may be where she was ;7 years ago in the next 5 years, but there is no guarantee and she is getting older.</p>

<p>Clearly your daughter did not apply to those schools that limit loans. Did she apply to schools that guarantee need? Is it that your FAFSA EFC does not take into account some things that PROFILE does? A lot of kids get whacked hard if they have a divorce situation regarding the parents or if there is a lot of home equity around. PROFILE and most schools own fin aid apps do take those things into account as more assets and income.</p>

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<p>Just saw your post. UCs do not guarantee to meet need nor do they generally do so. But with an EFC of $1800, you family is PELL eligible. DId you not get ANY PELL grants? Do call the financial aid directors and ask about this. She should get PELL money, at least along with some subsidized loans. I have no idea how the UC system, or California, for that matter works, for low income students. NY has TAP for those purposes, and if she lived here she would get TAP monies and possibly other resources. But the SUNYs do not guarantee to meet full need either. Unless she got lucky and got some grant money from the schools themselves, she would have to commute to a SUNY or pay the schools quite a bit more, or take out loans.</p>

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<p>Wow! Fast responses. Thanks for all the info, everyone.</p>

<p>I guess I just thought I had most bases covered in terms of expecting private schools to come close to the EFC. You’re all saying, no, that was never the norm, even for a top student.</p>

<p>I suspect the issue is that the EFC doesn’t consider that my house is almost paid for. CSS does. At my age, with a layoff in the family, I’m not refinancing. </p>

<p>I’d place her in the top 10% at most places she applied. She hasn’t heard from the schools that do limit loans and/or guarantee need, but even that was not my question. I just wasn’t expecting such a big gap between the total package (with or without loans) and the EFC. I had been considering taking out loans to get BELOW the EFC. </p>

<p>It’s not a disaster. She got a good offer from Rutgers, a good state school, where I know scholarships are cherished, at about 1/2 what the private schools are now offering. She’ll be fine. </p>

<p>Mostly, I was just wondering if, overall, others thought there was a sudden drop this year.
Thanks again.</p>

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<p>Sorry if my post caused confusion as to who was being answerd. If this helps original OP. I have twins. One NMS the other 17/487 standing in her class with the stats that go with it. They only applied to USC and UC schools. We live in CA. Their packets were almost identical. 10k in loans and my EFC met with plus loan. No money out of pocket. No complaints just thought thier loans would be lower. Probably will be after summer work and cutting down on expensives.</p>

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<p>@sofrustrating - I have been thinking the same thing. I don’t expect the private schools we applied to to meet full need, however, evern with the 9500 in loans, we are still over 10K short of our EFC. Now, compare this to…6 years ago. My S is going to attend the same school my D graduated from. 6 years ago when she started, tuition was at least 5K less. Comparing scholarships and grants from the school only (not outside scholarships or NYS TAP money), my S has HIGHER stats and applied to an equally selective major. Our income is similar, but we now have to consider 2 less people in our home. He received 3K more in scholarship money, and 1K less in grants. With the cost of attendance being more, he actually got less than she did.
I don’t know if that is a fair way to compare, and I am not really complaining(well maybe just a bit)…but it does seem that the institutional aid is not keeping up with the rising cost of attending the school.</p>

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<p>For financial aid, most of the “top” schools do not use EFC for their own aid money. DId you complete PROFILE? Not only does this form ask for more info such as house values and non custodial parents (and the silver and gold in your teeth), schools often have their own questions asking about value of cars and other things. So their “EFC” which is not so called often differs widely from the FAFSA EFC. Your child’s eligibility for PELL and federal loans is unaffected as the FAFSA will remain in use for those purposes. Most all of those schools are set up so that you will get only what they define as need met, not a penny more. Some may not even meet the need fully.</p>

<p>Merit money is a whole other thing. Usually it is given through admissions. But a financial aid student who get merit scholarships has that off set by any need aid that might be forthcoming other than PELL. So you can’t get both as a general rule. </p>

<p>If you want to know how difficult it is to get such merit aid, find out how many merit awards are given. More telling, how many big awards, not the $1-5K that are given as sweeteners but in the amounts you are hoping to get. In order for you child to be in the running for one of those, she has to be one of the top X kids in the applicant pool, not just in the top 10% or even 5%. And probably has to have something on the college’s wish list that they want to buy, like geographical diversity, an unusual major that they are trying to develop. etc Those kids are often the ones that are likely to be accepted at the very most selective colleges, and any school would love to lure them away. That’s what merit money is for. </p>

<p>Most schools do not have that many sizable merit awards, is what you will find. Getting that full ride is very difficult. So many families with outstanding students, talented kids, gifted children, great profiles and resumes , don’t get that it might come down to only a couple of scholarships per school that are even full tuition. And many of the more generous schools give zero merit aid. It all has to be need driven. </p>

<p>Also scholarships are not keeping up with the costs. Absolutely they are not. A good place to look is National Merit Scholarships. In my day, and I was a recipient, it pretty much covered the first year tuition at a private school. Now it covers the books and supplies. Colleges have a number of endowed scholarships that work the same way. I believe my son has one that used to be a full tuition award, once upon a time. Now it’s a 10% discount.</p>

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<p>Thanks again. </p>

<p>“I don’t expect the private schools we applied to to meet full need, however, even with the 9500 in loans, we are still over 10K short of our EFC.”</p>

<p>dlbarber, that’s exactly the kind of thing we found. Frustrating! I didn’t expect the private schools to expect us to pay $40K when so many sources said a very good student gets closer to the efc.</p>

<p>I’m not criticizing the schools. It’s the economy. I’m just trying to get a sense of the magnitude of the situation this year. The reason is only because I need something to tell my daughter, to assure her it’s not that she is suddenly somehow a loser. </p>

<p>Here in NJ, public is much cheaper than private, but still frustrating. My D’s 2 cousins got presidential (100%) scholarships for the state school a few years ago. It used to be you needed ACT=33 and top 5% of class.</p>

<p>Now with budget cuts, it’s ACT=35 and top 2% of class. D only got a 34. only…</p>

<p>CPTofthehouse…yes, we did the profile, and even as I filled it out I knew we were up against families where everyone had lost jobs, not just one. Again, I expected most of this, just not quite such high loans (mostly unsub) and such a large gap between total package and EFC.</p>

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<p>also, cptofthehouse, you’ve just explained to me why NMS scholarships are such a big deal. I couldn’t figure out what all the hoopla was about when the scholarships, while nice, are not life-changing:)</p>

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<p>Again, that EFC is a moot figure with schools that use profile. It just qualifies you for government aid. Those schools define aid without regard to the EFC. A kid with a millionaire non custodial parent living in a 3 million dollar house paid in full could qualify for PELL, the way FAFSA is designed. But such a kid is not getting a dime from a PROFILE school without proving that there is no contact or connection with the non custodial parent over years.</p>

<p>Was your student applying to schools that guarantee to meet full need?</p>

<p>I know what you mean. When my first one was applying to colleges, the school where my current freshman goes, required a 1350 for one of their top awards and about half the kids who applied got a full ride from it. Now it’s up the high 1400s, and kids have to interview and go through a whole other app process to get the danged award. You can’t even get into the Honors college there with 1350. And the tuition has doubled (this is a state school) for those in state. It’s crazy.</p>

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<p>@sofrustrating - There are a set of schools, mostly public universities (others have this list and will likely share) where NMF is an automatic full tuition or full ride. At many schools it is much smaller. Some schools will stack that with a “Presidential” scholarship of some kind to give a decent merit chunk.</p>

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<p>Yeah, those were the good old days of scholarships. I was flush with money when I went to college, because you were allowed to double, triple, quadruple dip those days. I had financial aid from the government , a merit scholarship from the school, plus a bunch of outside scholarship as well as the NMS award. These days, I would have lost the financial aid as need would have been wiped out by merit and the NMS award, wouldn’t meet the cost of supplies if I wanted a new cell phone and computer, neither item being in existence for personal use back then. Our phone was the hall phone we all shared and calculators were the new, new thing. I had a frigging slide rule. Oh well, it was better than the abacus, I guess.</p>

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<p>saintfan- I have a fantasy that parents of high school sophomores and juniors will read this site and start early and learn some of these things in time to insist their kids take advantage of them. By the time I woke up, my D was infiltrated with info from starry eyed classmates about Ivy Leagues and big city glamour. Then there were Barney and teachers and Oprah who have forever told the kids to dream big. If you can dream it, you can do it and blah, blah, blah. I warned her, but it fell on deaf ears. So when we got full scholarship info from, eg. Oklahoma and Arizona, she wouldn’t even look at it. Spoiled or just a product of her environment? It isn’t helping that several of her friends really have been accepted to Harvard and MIT and McGill and so on, and at minimal cost. Too late now.</p>

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<p>Speaking of MIT and minimal cost… I’d just received a call from our piano teacher that one of her students won a huge scholarship to MIT. The poor woman thought that his supplemental material has something to do with it. She didn’t realize MIT gives only need based aids! Sorry to digress but I literally just hung up the phone.</p>

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<p>Hi jvtDad!!</p>

<p>Just so you know that you can be awarded outside scholies for MIT. Son was accepted EA to MIT and had designated MIT as his first choice for a Navy ROTC scholarship. NROTC scholies (full tuition +) are NOT need based and rather difficult to acquire for the MIT/Harvard ROTC program. Also the American Chemical Society awards substantial merit awards that can be taken to any school. There is also one for Physics and comp sci.</p>

<p>Other outside awards do have need components, bill&melinda gates foundation and others.</p>

<p>So yes, MIT only awards need-based aid but maybe the student was awarded an outside scholarship.</p>

<p>Same was true for son at princeton, only need-based but was awarded an AF ROTC scholarship that covered tuition, fees + stipend.</p>

<p>Kat</p>

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<p>You’re right. I was thinking about the school based offer.</p>