Hello! Would anybody like to make a quick assessment? My daughter’s financial award letter came, we were thinking she’d get a bit more. Her GPA and SAT are little higher than the average
Lots of volunteer hours, awesome letters of recommendation, extra curriculars.
household income is less than 20,000 per year (I teach preschool 
)
they’re offering an 18,000 merit scholarship which is pretty wonderful, all other aid is loans and pell grant
the out of pocket expense will be about 19,000 per year (ie:terrifying amount of PLUS loans which I’m likely to die before I can pay off)
Is it super weird that she’s not offered any need based aid from the school??? They do offer it. When I called to ask, I got a kind of scripted response. Should I try again, or is this typical? It’s a private non-profit school.
Thank you for any advice!!!
adding: she was accepted early action and didn’t apply anywhere else since it was her top choice, so she doesn’t have any other schools to compare/bargain. ugh.
Some schools only give loan aid. 2 things: 1) if you give the name of the school, posters will know for sure good or bad. 2) if you want to try more schools, it’s not too late. Some still accept apps, and after May 1, a list of schools with space will come out if she wants to try more.
Run the NPC for the college, then IF there is a large discrepency between what their calculator shows and her net award amount, call them again.
Look at the colleges Common Data Set for last year to see what % of FA is comprised of loans vrs grants.
But be aware IF it is not a college that has a large endowment , you wont have much chance of getting loans turned into grants.
It was unfortunate that she did not apply elsewhere.
Very typical. At this sort of school, you get the merit aid or the need-based aid, but not both, or one will be a token amount.
My D was stung in a similar fashion, and I was the naive parent. I’d sold her on the school. And then I had to explain that, No, sweetie, we can’t afford it after all.
I wanted to rip my teeth out. Hugs to you.
You can’t afford this school. Apply elsewhere asap or have her take a gap year.
It’s unfortunate she didn’t apply elsewhere. Low income students quite literally cannot afford to not have choices.
Thanks everybody! I’m relieved to hear that this seems normal. She HAS TO go to this place no matter what, it’s just TOO perfect of a fit for her. I’ve amassed copious amounts of student loan debt of my own and I’m about to start grad school, hahaha! Just gonna have to add it on. Looking into loan forgiveness for employees of non-profits/government/academia. That might be the ticket 
Google “colleges still accepting applications for fall 2016” and you will get a website listing every single college still accepting apps. Some of these deadlines are a few days away, so do this asap.
In the meantime, call the FA office to see if there’s any more aid available, or if perhaps a mistake was made. But if the college does not promise to meet need, you need to have other options. Don’t delay! And don’t beat yourself up…this is a common first-kid-to-apply-to-college mistake.
You asked so I’m going to say it - you are more than naive. You are willing to take out more than your annual salary in Parent Plus loans so that your daughter can go to a perfect school, and then you aren’t going to pay the loans? This on top of the government already giving her a Pell grant of ~$6000 each year. That’s more than naive.
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No, she doesn’t. What are you going to do if you’re turned down for loans before your daughter finishes? There’s no loan forgiveness for partial degrees. She’ll have loans, no degree, and no money to get a degree.
You should encourage your daughter to either take a gap year and apply to affordable schools or look at the list that comes out in May to see which colleges have open seats. Your current plan is a recipe for disaster. Don’t loan forgiveness programs have some sort of cap? If not, they clearly should.
OP- step away from the brink.
There is no perfect college. There is no perfect fit. Imagine how you both are going to feel on some gray day in October when she’s just gotten a B minus on a paper she slaved away on for two weeks and her roommate is coming down with the flu so is snappy to your D and she didn’t get a part in the campus follies she tried out for. I.E. real life.
Except in YOUR case you are both in debt up to your eyeballs.
Step back.
You need a more affordable option, and you need to help your D understand that the perfect college is actually a nightmare if you can’t afford to go there for four years.
What happens her junior year when you’ve maxed out on what you can borrow- or if the muffler falls off the car, or the refrigerator dies, or anyone on a dozen things that happen every year- but you can’t tap your credit card (you are maxed out).
You cannot afford this college, and you need to explain to your D NOW that it’s time for plan B. Loan forgiveness programs aren’t just a “sure, sign on the dotted line” deal where they rip up your promissory note. And you can’t get the loans forgiven ahead of time- you will actually be heavily in debt- over your head- before your D has even graduated with a degree.
This is a bad idea. Time for Plan B.
Graduating isn’t required for repayment programs or debt forgiveness. Getting a job without a degree may cause an issue, but if you work for a government or non-profit, you usually qualify.
Is this Adelphi? Did you run the NPC?
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Her GPA and SAT are little higher than the average
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they’re offering an 18,000 merit scholarship
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With a GPA and SAT that are a little better than average, she’s lucky to have received a dime of merit. Merit is usually for those whose stats are quite high for the school…usually well within the top 25%
It appears that your DD was going to get either merit money or need money from the school…and she
You can’t afford this school. You couldn’t afford the Plus loans. They’re 10 year loans so the payments would be too high. With an EFC of 0, you really can’t afford to pay ANYTHING towards loan payments.
It was a mistake for your DD to only apply to one school when money was an issue.
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She HAS TO go to this place no matter what, it's just TOO perfect of a fit for her. I've amassed copious amounts of student loan debt of my own and I'm about to start grad school....Just gonna have to add it on.
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Well, it looks like you’re determined and won’t listen to reason. I guess you haven’t read those horror student loan stories. Someday in the future I hope we don’t read a very sad story about a desperate mom whose DD went to Adelphi on Plus loans taken out by her low income mom.
Step away from the ledge…
You are borrowing in excess of yoir take home pay for your daughter to go to college…and you are borrowing how much so,you can return to college yourself??
This is not a sound financial plan. At. All.
Can your daughter start t a community college and live at home? Her Pell Grant and Direct Loan would,cover those costs.
Yeah, clearly a couple of commenters went off the rails with assumptions. I don’t plan on making 20,000 per year after grad school (in 3 years)
Regarding Public Service Loan Forgiveness, it can be done:
- What is Public Service Loan Forgiveness? This federal program eliminates, or forgives, federal student loans for specific borrowers. To qualify, you must be employed full time in an eligible public service or nonprofit job, and you must have made 120 eligible on-time payments in no less than 10 years.
Why didn’t your daughter apply to more schools? What make you think you could get unlimited loans for yourself and your daughter?
Would your daughter have qualified for an automatic merit scholarship full ride at another school? See list on CC. If she qualifies then a gap year may be the best idea.
Does she have the stats to get into a meet full needs school? People with an EFC of 0 can get a free ride if they have the stats to get in.
There is NO such thing as a perfect college if you cannot reasonably pay for it.
The problem is not how much you will earn when you get out of grad school in three years. The problem is how you will pay for two of you to be on college for the next three years with $20,000 income…insufficient aid to cover the costs.
How much in loans will you need annually for,the next three years?
OP, your plans are super-contingent on things that may never come to pass. This is a terrifying plan, and in my opinion a poor example to set for your D re: responsible fiscal planning.
There are still some awfully good schools taking apps for the next couple days. Please at least look at that list and see if there are any instate options that are affordable without disastrous and contingent borrowing. Otherwise, I’m in the “gap year” camp.
“you must have made 120 eligible on-time payments in no less than 10 years.”
Are you going to be able to make 120 on-time payments of in excess of $1,000 a month on time for years? What are you getting your master’s degree in? Will it be a high earning profession or is it something like social work?
I agree with the other posters, taking on this kind of debt will likely get you about 2 years in before the wheels come off. Take a step back and think this over. Get guidance from people here who are incredibly knowledgeable, experienced and helpful.