I recieved my financial aid award from one of my top schools but im not sure if its good.
COA: $63,884.00
EFC: $0.00
Eligibility: $63,884.00
Total Aid: $57,875.00
Fall: $24,088.00- grants
$2,100- work based on award
$2,750- federal loans
Its the same for spring. I am a first generation, so im unsure how to read it.
There are parents better than me at this @mom2collegekids is one I see with lots of experience. It looks like it’s good but you are gapped. You have $24 (plus a bit) thousand in grants for Fall and probably Spring. That you don’t have to pay back. You have federal loans in your name that you will eventually have to pay back. You don’t get the work study money ahead of time. If you can get a job on campus, that is the money they are expecting you to make and apply to school. But you will need the money before you make it. You also have about $6 thousand gapped not including the work study money of just over $4 thousand. So it looks to me like you will need to come up with around $10 thousand.
i recommend you download a tool to plug in all the details so you can compare all your offers. see this comment:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19284230/#Comment_19284230
also, search for ‘is this a good financial aid package’ on google. there are many blogs that walk you through how to tell if it’s good (what details to make sure you compare and ask the school about if they’re missing). thecollegesolution is a good blog to look at.
@Iz57c4 Thank you.
as mom2 said, you look like you’re gapped slightly, or else the school has a big difference in its direct costs (tuition/fees/rm/brd) and total costs (everything including books/transportation/etc)
Add up the direct costs: tuition, fees, room and board. Then subtract the aid, the grants they have listed at $24,088 a semester, which is $48,176 a year. That is what you need to pay to the school.
Then estimate how much you need for books, supplies, transportation.
The total cost they list is probably COA (cost of attendance) which is direct costs plus estimates for books, personal expenses, travel.
So $63,884. Then the aid they give is $48,176. The rest is made up by taking a loan of $5,500 and work study of $4,200
and parent contribution of $6,008 (?). So they gapped you actually by over $15,000 (not counting loan or ws).
The work study money is earned during the semester as a paycheck for an on campus federal work study position, you will not have that money available when first semester bill is due, but the earnings can help with expenses during the semester and maybe next semester if you are able to save some of it.
Can you afford this school with this award? You’ll need about $12000 after the grants, which can be reduced by $5500 in loans, and you can earn $1000 in work study in the fall to be used in the spring (but really you’ll probably need that to live on in the fall). Do you have any savings, ability to work between now and Sept?
Second, do you have other offers? You ask if this is ‘good’ and I think it is, but you might have a better offer, or you might not be able to make this offer work. Still a good offer.
Is your federal Pell grant part of this 24k per semester or is it only university scholarships/grants?
@sybbie719 yes i have the pell grant
@“Ya Ya” Ya this is an out of state school for me. I will be a business major. The school is in the city so i will have access to internships.
@twoinanddone i won a 20,000 dollar scholarship that awards 5,000 a year, and i am currently working and my savings by myself without any help is a bit over 3,000. I received another offer but the amount they want us to cover is 19,000. Way more than this school and both are out of state.
@mommdc thank you it really helped I’m discussing it with my parents.
You’re welcome. Looks like after applying the grants they want you to come up with $15,000 a year. The loan can cover $5,500, your scholarship $5,000 and then you need another $5,000. You will need money for books and supplies, your work earnings can help with that.
Is the $20,000 scholarship from the school or an outside scholarship?
Since the school gives $48,000 in total grants and you said Pell is included in that, then they must have given you some institutional grants as well. You need to find out if your outside scholarship will reduce your need and if they will reduce their grants.
Hopefully since you have an EFC of 0 the school will allow the awards to stack.
@snowbunnybug:
Can you list here
Tuition for a year
Cheapest dorm /year
Cheapest meal plan/year
Any fees/year
total =
You may not have been gapped - some schools have a high coa on purpose but you can reduce costs easily. On the other hand, other colleges do the opposite so that total costs are actually higher than what you’d expected !
Also:
Distance home to school ? Can you drive/take à bus or would you need to take a plane ?
Keep in mind that schools may not allow you to take the cheapest meal plan and cheapest dorm as a freshman.
At my school, you are required to pay for one of the most expensive meal plans, and live in a mid-price dorm arrangement your freshman year.
Also, is there a possibility that any of that aid will disappear in future years - is any of it GPA / merit based or have other limitations. I know they will require a new FAFSA every year, but ask yourself what would happen if they decreased it in future years for whatever reason.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to negotiate with them and ask for more money. It can’t hurt.
You don’t “negotiate” though but ask whether they might reconsider your offer considering that z factor has not been taken into account (dental bills, mother starting in community college in the Fall…)
What school are you referring to? COA usually include indirect cost. You should back that out and use your own numbers. It’s hard for schools to know the individual needs of each student. People can answer you better if they knew the name of the school.
Have you informed this college about your outside scholarship? Schools require that you do this. Your school has a policy regarding how outside scholarships are dealt with. In the case majority of cases, your outside scholarship of $5000 would reduce your financial need, and therefore would reduced your need based financial aid award.
Most schools reduce self help first…so loans, then work study.
BUT you need to contact your college about this. There are some schools which allow stacking of financiL aid awards up to the cost of attendance. If your school allows this, they won’t reduce your awarded need based aid.
If your college does not allow stacking of awards from various sources…you may find that your need based award from the college will be reduced.
And yes,you MUST report this outside scholarship to your college.