<p>I got into a good college, one of top colleges in US. However, I do not know if they are offering me a good FA.
Please help me guys!!
The cost of attendance is 62,000/yr
(45538 tuition + fee
12000 room and board
4000 other expenses)
Here is the FA the college provided to me:
scholarships + grants: 43000 ( state + university + federal)
I know it seems pretty good right now.
But my EFC is 0 according to my FAFSA since my parents' income is very low, but the college put 6000 for my EFC and they give me
Work Study $2600<br>
Federal Perkins Loan $5000<br>
Federal Direct Subsidized Loan $3500<br>
Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loan $2000
to meet my rest need.
Which means I still need to pay 17,000+ each year since the loans do need to repay.</p>
<p>Please give me some thoughts about my FA package.
Thank you everyone!</p>
<p>That is a decent package, except for the family contribution of $6,000. Contact them, and ask them how they get that figure. If the place uses the CSS Profile, not just the FAFSA, they will tell you how they calculate the family contribution.</p>
<p>You may want to choose a less expensive option.</p>
<p>Are you a US citizen or permanent resident? </p>
<p>Whether you are or are not, it does not matter if a package is “good” in general. Yes, this would be considered a good package. For those who can afford it. You still have to come up with about $6K and you will owe $11,500 from the first year alone. Usually those loan expectations go UP and expected contributions go up as students are expected to take an increasing role in paying for their education each year. So if your parents are not going to give you the $6K differential and understand that this will probably go up year, you can’t do this. Not unless you have a someone else willing to pay or lend you the money. You are already looking at over $50K in loans as it is, since part of these loans are unsubsidized and start accruing interest as soon as the funds are disbursed. But even if you are willing to undertake these loans, you need to come up with some cash for the first year, like that $6K. If you and your parents cannot, or will not, then it doesn’t matter what a great package this is, You can’t do it, then you cannot. </p>
<p>But seriously, you did not expect to get every cent covered did you? How much have you and your parents have available for you to do this? You have to buy a ticket to get to the college, books and other supplies, you know.</p>
<p>Thank you for replying. I think my parent and I can handle this 6K since we have some savings in our bank account, but what I am thinking is why they give so much loans to low income family. It is normal to borrow that much? </p>
<p>Can anybody tell me how much you are given the loans?</p>
<p>Some schools package more loans in the aid awards than others. These loans are not for your family, however, these loans are all yours. You need to decide if it’s worth that level of debt. I think most folks agree that debt should not exceed the Stafford limits – or a total for all four years of about $25,000.</p>
<p>To be perfectly honest, this amount of loans is excessive. You are likely to end up well over $50,000 in debt when you graduate. That is too much. </p>
<p>Do you have any places on your list that are more affordable? If you do, drop this one right now, and move on.</p>
<p>OP’s loan is little too heavy, but “excessive” depends on his/her intended major and job prospect. When I graduated, I owed around $28,000. Mind you, that was a lot. But, my first entry level salary, considered extremely high back then, was around $30,000/year. So I managed just fine. If you are, for example, a CS major from a good school with good GPA and internship, then $50K+ debt is reasonable. On another hand, if you’re an architecture or liberal arts or even science major, that amount of debt would be tough, unless you could land one of those lucrative jobs. I am sure others would disagree with me, but I just wanted to share my personal experience. Also, if I didn’t borrow that much, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Of course, I never know. I could make it work.</p>
<p>The package is heavy on the loans, yes. I hope that the Stafford Subsidized rate does not go up as scheduled. If not, though heavy duty, with a job and living at home, it’s very doable. If it does, you will have some high interest rate loans in there. You understand you will be taking out $50K in loans, which is nearly double what is recommended. But most of it will be subsidized while you are in school. It’s not a great deal, but depending on your circumstances, a doable one.</p>
<p>Can you work this summer so you don’t have to take out all those loans? And how expensive is transportation to this school from home? Can you get a ride or find a cheap option to get there? </p>
<p>You don’t have to take out all these loans. The way I see it, there’s $14,538. between direct billable costs (tuition, room, board and fees) and scholarship/grant money. You said your parents are able to provide $6K. That brings you down to $8,538 + books + transportation + spending money. </p>
<p>Even if you just earned enough this summer for transportation and books (books can be $1,000), you should only need a maximum of $8,500 in loans for the year since the work-study should get you spending money. (Beware that work-study isn’t a guaranteed job. Call the work study office now and find out how likely it is to get a job. My kids have attended schools where all the students on work-study end up getting jobs and other schools where lots of kids are awarded ws but they far outstrip the number of jobs.) If you can win any small one-year scholarships or work extra this summer, you can bring down the amount of loans you will need. </p>
<p>Of course, you are still on the path to end up with a good deal of loans by the time you graduate. You have to decide if, based on your major, options and family situation, this is reasonable.</p>
<p>I’m just surprised that there are colleges out there that are charging $12,000 for room and board. Is that accurate? Also $4000 for “other” might be able to be trimmed. Take a look at those two costs also and see if they can be trimmed.</p>
<p>Room and board at my D’s school (which is NOT in a high cost of living area) was about $12,000 this year and will be even higher next year. However, the COA numbers include the most expensive room and meal plan options. If one were to choose a triple instead of an incredibly nice suite with private bedrooms and baths shared by only 2 students, the cost would go down by thousands. And after freshman year the unlimited meal plan included in COA is not required. So you really need to look hard at the COA and what it includes. I suspect other schools include the average or even the lowest cost.</p>
<p>The room and board figure for Happykid’s home-state public U for 2013-2014 is estimated at $10,662 - and that assumes the next to cheapest on campus housing and meal plan which means that most on campus residents will spend more. The kids who live in the on campus apartments will pay nearly that much in housing alone before the meal plan. Happykid and her housemates will beat this figure easily by living off campus and cooking for themselves.</p>
<p>Yes, I called the school and the FAC told me that everyone enrolled that college toke out that much loans or even more. I don’t know if this is true.</p>
<p>You can look up what the average loan taken out by students info on the Common Data set. Though I can tell you that it is not way out of line. Yes, on the high side.</p>
<p>But really, that isn’t what matters. It’s whether you and your family can take those loans without suffering financial damages. It’s really a subjective thing. Is your mother going to have to go out and get a night job cleaning offices to make the budget work? Is your dad going to have to take a second job? Are they going to put off some medical procedures? If they are putting their eye/teeth and more on hold and having to take some extraordinary steps to afford this, it doesn’t matter if every single person at that school takes out twice the number of loans. Your family cannot afford this without cutting into the meat of their life styles If it means cutting out the vacations and dinners and shopping sprees, that 's a whole other story. </p>
<p>There was an episode on “St Elsewhere”, a tv series where it comes out that a family has sold their home and moved into a trailer park to pay for their kids’ college educations. It was supposed to show how great they were and selfless and how much they so loved their children. I looked at it otherwise. I would not want my parents to do this, and my kids would not want us to do this. So we all draw our lines.</p>
<p>One thing to consider is that you must think PAST this year. Even if your family can use savings/scrape by now…what happens when next year’s tuition is due and there is no “extra” left over?</p>