<p>What is your experience as to having your student live off campus and its effect on financial aid? </p>
<p>I have a call into S1's school to inquire and have not heard back yet
Thought I would turn to your collective wisdom....</p>
<p>I wonder as well. I have been assuming that COA is based on tuition and campus room and board (plus a few extras) and this doesn’t change whether or not the student lives on campus or off.</p>
<p>Living off campus made no difference to my daughter’s aid. </p>
<p>School’s may or may not have different COAs for students living off on or off campus. At my daughter’s school the COA is the same for on campus and off campus so the aid is the same (though I think it is lower for off campus with parent which would reduce the aid). After the direct charges such as tuition have been covered, the balance of her aid is paid to her and she uses it for her rent and bills.</p>
<p>UCLA, for one, has a different COA for students who live off campus than on campus. So it does depend on the school.</p>
<p>One more thing I wonder: If COA varies by campus residency, would then the financial aid office get information from residential life regarding where the student lives? I suppose so.</p>
<p>Student indicates on FAFSA and Profile where they will be living, on or off campus (or at home). They use that info to estimate the COA and the aid package.</p>
<p>Thanks, sblake7. I did not remember that.</p>
<p>It depends on the individual college policies. Some will adjust the COA to reflect off-campus living. My d’s college will NOT subsidize off-campus living in any way, so she would lose a significant chunk of her aid if she chose to live off campus – but this is at a college that guarantees housing for all 4 years to its students.</p>
<p>Rice budgets the same for off and on-campus housing.</p>