Lewis & Clark Financial Aid

<p>I finally received my financial aid from L&C. The estimated cost will be 43,000. I received 33,800 from the university (including a sub stafford and perkins loan). That means my mom will have to borrow 9200 each year. After four years, I will have 16k in sub stafford loan and 12k in perkins loan. Overall it will be 28k in student loans. My mom will be borrowing 37k in parent loans. My financial aid package didn't include work study, but I will ask if I could qualify for it. Work study will definitely help me lower my student loan for 10k. But I would like to get any input what do you guys think of ~18k student loans & 37k parent loans after graduating in 4 years? Is it sane enough to borrow that much?</p>

<p>what was your EFC?
I noticed that they made a point of mentioning they use PROFILE, I wonder if that is a new thing
I think 18K in student loans is reasonable- but if your EFC didn't indicate your parents would have to borrow so much- I would wonder why so much parent debt
I don't think Lewis and Clark is worth that myself</p>

<p>However- say your EFC is $10,000 and you don't have any of that.
Ours was a bit higher, but we had made a committment to paying what we could.
D contributed $3,000 each year from her summer job toward the EFC. We also did borrow some, as we couldn't pay the rest from income and savings.</p>

<p>Our EFC is 0. For L&C, we only used FAFSA. I didn't know it was a PROFILE school, is it? Assuming that I can contribute summer earnings (in this case, around ~3k) for 4 years, I guess I can help my mom pay it off, leaving 25k more?</p>

<p>We just visited L & C last week, my older daughter didn't look there, so I wasn't familiar with their financial aid, except I knew that friends said they were very generous.
However, the way that the PROFILE was mentioned at the info session it sounded like it was a new thing, maybe even for the 2008-2009 year.</p>

<p>I also think that if your EFC is 0, that while self help ( student loans- work study) counts as aid- that parents shouldn't be expected to take out loans.
However, I guess I assumed that L&C was one of the schools that met 100% of need- it doesn't sound like it is.
You should be able to get work study though, my older daughter had enough work study to pay for her personal expenses and some of her books.</p>

<p>( you are speaking of the one in Portland? and not Idaho?)</p>

<p>I recalculated how much my mom would be taking out a loan. It will be 7200/year, which accumulates to 28800 (in addition to the interest she will be paying off throughout that 4 years. I could help her out with my summer earnings that can tone down her loans for around 20000. I already emailed a financial aid officer about this, briefly mentioning that my mom cannot afford to take out 28800 after four years for my college. I agree that based on my EFC, my mom should just be able to borrow minimal amount of loan or maybe none at all. I'm hoping to get a response from the financial aid officer tomorrow. And yeah, its Lewis & Clark in Portland.</p>

<p>Drewhistle, I'm changing my post (I wrote something else and deleted it) -- I checked other posts and saw that your mom's income is only $27K annually --and that you apparently do have some better alternatives in terms of the financial aid packages at other colleges you could attend. </p>

<p>I think given the choices you will be better off attending one of the other colleges that has accepted you. I think you could manage the debt at Lewis & Clark if you had to, but it would be really tough on your mom and you do have some other alternatives.</p>

<p>if your mom doesn't qualify for the plus loans, won't that mean the student can take out a higher stafford loan?</p>