It could also mean that students are failing to meet scholarship renewal requirements.
At our local 4 yr, the decent scholarships have a 3.6 GPA requirement (heck, even the 2500$ option), that is pretty onerous for students that are in eng, solid sciences, etc, and lots of local students come in armed with APs and IBDs, to be further punished by the reality of scholarships loss. It totally think it is front end loading mixed with some bait and switch, it rewards students taking the lightest load possible. Tuition is cheap though (8k). I now have a pragmatic approach and assume my students scholarships are probably lost after freshman year.
Also, some scholarship students transfer out, and other students transfer in (most colleges have fewer scholarships for transfers).
I was worried about my daughters losing their merit scholarships but it has proven not to be an issue. One, who is in engineering and had the bigger scholarships to lose, never came close to it happening. The other did flirt with a loss but did an appeal and we loaded a lot of specific courses we thought she’d do well in to get the gpa back up. I think a 3.0 is do-able, a 3.2 is tough, and a 3.5 should really really considered when comparing FA offers. A 3.5 is tough.
All the above things go into the freshman levels being higher - the loss of merit scholarships because of gpa, the transfers, some one time scholarships. Another reason might be that the schools increase the amount of merit for freshmen because the tuition increases, but the upperclassmen’s merit awards were fixed when they were freshmen. For example, a junior might be getting the max merit scholarship from 3 years ago which was $15k, but now the max is $18k so the freshmen are getting $18k (and everyone is paying the same tuition!! Yea.)
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I mean, if you don’t like the colored chart you can always just look at the actual FAFSA formula. I’m not sure why this is so hard.
@chipperd - Any updates to this thread? Has your son made a decision? How did the aid packages compare? Thanks.
@elena13
Yes, my son made a decision and thanks for asking.
Wound up getting admitted to: Syracuse, UNH(honors with 18k/yr total), UVM (honors with 23k/yr total), Uconn (honors with $7,500 k total/yr off instate tuition), UVA (don’t know the financials;son said to far away), Bentley (honors with 30k/yr), Northeastern (no honors with 22k/yr), Bucknell with 22k/yr. Didn’t get into : Upenn (regular decision), Duke (regular decision) and Lehigh(huh?).
In the end it came down to Uconn honors at 22k/yr net vs Bentley at 35k/yr net. We were fine with either option. He chose Bentley .
Factors:
The pros: He is so passionate about investing/finance and how math is used in that arena and Bentley seems to have a big edge in that arena, the prof. as mentor from day one in the honors program, all full profs, 9/1 student to prof ratio, the internship program, the corp finance and accounting major, the option to obtain his M.S. in quantitative finance (his goal) in 4 yrs, the A.P. classes he would get credit for that could make that M.S. a genuine possibility in 4 years and be covered by the scholarship, location from our home (75-90 mins), the Boston proximity (they run shuttles every 20 mins) for Red Sox and internship possibilities, lower GPA to stay in honors at Bentley (3.2) vs Uconn (gradually increased GPA to 3.3 as junior. Not sure what is needed to graduate with honors but Uconn’s does increase every year (very minor diff).
The cons: The cost is the only big con vs Uconn. He did a detailed cost/benefit analysis (of course he did) and given the avg. income over lifetime of grads from both programs, Bentley was the clear winner even tho much more $ up front. The other con, a bit more minor, is that he needs a 3.2 GPA to keep scholarship at Bentley vs 2.5 at Uconn.
He knows he will be paying more out of his own pocket due to his decision, but Bentley does seem to offer more of what he needs (a little hand holding will be helpful for him due to shyness) so he doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.
Interested in feedback. Thanks again for asking. Chipperd
Thanks @chipperd In full transparency for this thread, how did your merit offers compare to the NPCs you ran?
Congrats @chipperd! Those sound like great results and I’m glad he is feeling good about his choice. Best of luck to him and thanks for the update!
Be careful of average earnings by university as, frankly, it really doesn’t mean anything at all. If you want to look at career earnings, look at earnings by major as its more of an apple to apple comparison. Comparing English majors at one university vs engineering at another is just not applicable.
@CU123 : agreed. that is what my son did; I wasn’t as accurate, as you note, in my statement
@suzyQ7 : So, the NPC for Bentley, the state schools was really close. Northeastern’s offer was above their NPC. Bucknell’s offer was way above their NPC number. The rest, we didn’t pursue finances as they were to far away, didn’t want to go or he didn’t get in. Note: The chart referenced in this thread was not as close as most of the NPC’s
By “above,” do you mean the financial aid offered was greater than the NPC predicted? Or the EFC was greater than the NPC predicted?
I suggest your student take some summer school courses at the community college maybe even onlinei.e., GE classes if she wants to take a lighter load each of the upcoming 8 semesters with the bonus of stretching the scholarship. So your daughter would need to average no more than 15 units/semester for the first 7 semesters to have her current scholarship cover the 8 semesters at the 4 year university. That leaves 25 units to meet 130. The final semester could take up to 18 units covered by scholarship…leaving 7 units that would need to be taken along the way on your own dollar at a community college etc during the summer. Of course if she takes more than 7 units at a CC, your students last semester load could be lighter than 18 units. If take 16 units the first 7, the scholarship will only cover 8 units (part time status) during the 8th semester…so you would be shortchanged with that method.
This was directed to @twoand done whose scholarship only covered the first 120 units even though a minimum of 130 is required to graduate
Make that @twoinanddone sorry!
@brantly : When I say above, I mean the financial package resulted in the net cost to attend being above the net cost predicted by the NPC for that school. ie: Northeastern’s NPC predicted about 30k/year, but their offer after scholarship and aid resulted in the net cost being about 37k/year.
Got it. Thanks. So the NPC underestimated your net cost.
It wouldn’t have helped to take summer schools classes (and paid for them OOP) in her case because she had another scholarship that picked up the difference. I was just giving a warning to others who have the whole thing planned out and suddenly the scholarship is gone. At first I didn’t even notice that the scholarship had paid about $1200 less this semester because the bill to her was the same and she got the same amount refunded to her.
Pleased to announce that she took her final final today. She’s a college grad!
I guess for this thread the lesson is to know what the scholarship will cover and how long it lasts. D had some that were for 8 semesters only, this one limited to the number of credits, one that was tied to her NCAA eligibility and could have gone a 5th year, and some that were one timers.
In the context of this thread title, would it be helpful to start a “net price calculator accuracy survey” thread in the financial aid and scholarship forum section?
Basically, where students or parents can name colleges with:
- Net price calculator estimate of net price.
- Actual net price from financial aid offer. (Or the difference between the estimate and the actual offer if not desired to reveal the net prices.)
- Whether net price calculator estimated merit scholarships.
- Whether actual offer included merit scholarships.
- Whether parents are divorced or separated, if college requires non-custodial parent information.
- Whether the family finances are unusual in other ways (self employment, small business, real estate, etc.).