Is UMich a good choice for OOS students?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I risk posting this in this forum because one of the mantras in this forum has been that UMich offers OOS students no chance at financial aid. I've heard many times that one should not apply to UMich unless one has 50K to throw at it.</p>

<p>I'd just like to point out that I've learned this is not true, and that for families making less than 100K/yr there is some to quite a bit of need-based aid. A poster here brought this to my attention, and here's the UMich webpage:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.finaid.umich.edu/TopNav/AboutUMFinancialAid/SampleAidPackages.aspx"&gt;http://www.finaid.umich.edu/TopNav/AboutUMFinancialAid/SampleAidPackages.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>So I apologize to any students or parents I've misled about this. There's some discussion about it on the FA forum here:</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1667739-university-of-michigan-and-oos-grant-aid-p1.html"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1667739-university-of-michigan-and-oos-grant-aid-p1.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

2

<p>Re: <a href=“http://www.finaid.umich.edu/TopNav/AboutUMFinancialAid/SampleAidPackages.aspx”>http://www.finaid.umich.edu/TopNav/AboutUMFinancialAid/SampleAidPackages.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Looks like the OOS net prices are under $9,000 for the <$20,000 and $20,000-$40,000 ranges, but increase rapidly above that (e.g. $25,101 for the $40,000 to $60,000 range). I.e. lower income OOS students may get a good net price at Michigan, but middle and higher income OOS students may not. It also looks like the worst affordability compared to income is in the $40,000-$80,000 range – the $80,000-$100,000 range gives an OOS net price only $5,468 more than the $60,000-$80,000 range.</p>

<p>Of course, each prospective student should check its net price calculator.</p>

3

<p>I don’t know why you need another post about it since you have your other one as you link to. I guess it was a mantra of your own creating, because I’ve been posting here a long time and never saw it that way.</p>

4

<p>Perhaps the targeting of OOS financial aid to the lower income ranges has to do with wanting to get more lower income students: <a href=“Report: Pell Grant rates at 'U' fall in recent years”>http://www.michigandaily.com/news/according-report-u-failed-increase-pell-grants-2008-2009&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

5

<p>Like most posters say, every applicants situation is different. You can not really know the answer till you apply, get accepted and receive your award letter. then you can make a decision based on other offers that you receive.</p>

6

<p>Net price calculator ( <a href=“Net Price Calculator”>Net Price Calculator; ) experiments for Michigan:</p>

<p>Assumptions: Alabama resident family of 3 with married parents with $2,000 savings, no other assets, no student income or assets, total income divided equally between parents, US citizen student is an engineering major.</p>

<p>



Income          Net price
$30,000         $ 8,670
$32,000         $ 9,024
$33,000         $ 9,201
$34,000         $ 9,377
$34,500         $ 9,466
$34,600         $ 9,484
$34,650         $ 9,493
$34,680         $ 9,497
$34,690         $ 9,499
$34,692         $ 9,500
$34,694         $22,519
$34,696         $22,519
$34,700         $22,519
$34,800         $22,537
$35,000         $22,572
$40,000         $24,668

</p>

<p>Note the large discontinuity in net prices between $34,692 and $34,694.</p>

7

<p>I wonder what the scores are for UMich OOS students. </p>

<p>Also, does UMich promise to be need blind for OOS students? </p>

<p>When a very selective school, and UMich may be more selective with OOS students, gives a lot of aid to OOS students, then the aid can really be seen as merit aid, with a need component. </p>

8

<p>Run the Net Price Calculators on a few “full need” private schools, then compare the estimates to the Michigan numbers in post 5 above.</p>

<p>Assumptions
Alabama resident ;
family of 3; married parents;
$2,000 savings, no other assets, no student income or assets, total income divided equally between parents;
US citizen student</p>

<p>Net Price Estimates (from College Abacus)
$11,927 Boston College
$10,500 University of Southern California
$6,939 Northwestern
$5,522 Notre Dame </p>

<p>Here is a list of ~60 colleges that claim to meet 100% of demonstrated need:
<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2013/09/18/colleges-that-claim-to-meet-full-financial-need-2014”>http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2013/09/18/colleges-that-claim-to-meet-full-financial-need-2014&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Given the above assumptions, you’re likely to get much lower net prices at any of these schools than you would at Michigan (or virtually any other OOS public university, unless merit aid is added). </p>

9

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<p>I am not sure what you mean. What should we be seeing when the income difference is two bucks?</p>

<p>@ucbalumnus‌ </p>

10

<p>Look above. The net price is much different according to the UMich NPC. In any case, stats for UMich OOS are higher and they do not claim to meet full-need for OOS. Not sure you can really call it “merit”, though. BTW, in-state kids have a higher graduation rate than OOS at UMich (probably because a higher percentage of OOS students transfer ).</p>

<p>I don’t expect UMich OOS fin aid to be as good as the full-need schools as they are still using OOS tuition to make up for the decrease in state funding (compared to the past).</p>

11

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<p>Usually, increasing income by $2 does not increase the net price after financial aid by $13,019 like it does at Michigan for $34,692-$34,694 in the NPC test runs.</p>

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<p>It looks like Michigan is specifically targeting the low income OOS students for good financial aid, since Michigan has relatively few low income students overall. Note that the lower-middle to upper-middle income range still gets rather poor OOS financial aid – giving good financial aid to those relatively numerous students would likely be much more expensive than to just a small number of low income students.</p>

12

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<p>What income level gives the above NPC results?</p>

<p>Of course, how that compares to Michigan depends on whether the income is below or above the $34,692-$34,694 discontinuity.</p>

13

<p>thanks, especially to @tk21769‌ and @ucbalumnus, I had hoped youse could come thru.</p>

<p>that is most curious, isn’t it, @ucbalumnus? I wonder if UMich is aware of it?</p>

14

<p>@ucbalumnus‌
I ran the College Board’s NPCs with 0 EFC (income level of <$20k, 15k assets, no home debt) and obtained the same results.
Would a school like UMich front-load students with financial aid and then replace grants with loans in later years?</p>

15

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</p>

<p>Sorry I left that out. Yes, it is key information.
Those numbers above are based on an income of $40,000 divided evenly between parents who are married to each other ($20K ea). But let’s change the assumptions …</p>

<p>Assumptions
Alabama resident ;
family of 3; married parents;
$2,000 savings, no other assets, no student income or assets;
$34,600 total income divided equally between parents;
US citizen student
Fall 2015 admission</p>

<p>Net Price Estimates (from College Abacus)
$22,588 UMichigan, from College Abacus
$10,977 Boston College
$10,500 University of Southern California
[ $ 9,484 UMichigan, from the table in post #5 above]
$5,989 Northwestern
$4,722 Notre Dame</p>

<p>I thought College Abacus pulled its numbers from the colleges’ Net Price Calculator services.
So I don’t know why the College Abacus number would be so different from the NPC number for this income level for Michigan. “$22,588” is more nearly in line with the higher numbers from the Michigan NPC cited in post 5.</p>

<p>Anyhow … YMMV. </p>

16

<p>Perhaps slight differences in age of the student and parents (I used 1996 and 1966 as the birth years), student’s major (I used engineering), etc. cause slight variations in the threshold income where the “financial aid cliff” occurs?</p>

<p>You can try a few thousand dollars lower to see if you can find the “financial aid cliff”.</p>

<p>In any case, even the lowest income families may have reason to pause before sending their kids to Michigan. What if, while attending college, the family’s income increases from $25,000 to $35,000, for example, resulting in falling off the “financial aid cliff”?</p>

17

<p>@ucbalumnus‌
By these standards, a VERY poor yet talented kid anywhere in the country would pay just as much for UMich as the lowest income California kids pay for Cal. In other words, they will need workstudy and loans to attend, but oh it’ll be so worth it.
Had I applied to Michigan, been accepted, and gotten this kind of aid, I’d have gone there in a heartbeat.</p>

18

<p>Yes, as long as his/her family stays poor enough to avoid going over the “financial aid cliff” while s/he is attending Michigan.</p>

19

<p>@ucbalumnus‌
Hmm, from another perspective… Ran the NPC with a family income of $27,000, student income of $6,000, and about $60,000 in assets. Net price turned out to be over $20,000.</p>

20

<p>The added assets and the fact that some income is student income instead of parent income in your example presumably moved the financial aid cliff to a lower level of income.</p>