<p>Okay, so I applied EDII to a school that has a very good reputation with financial aid, who actually increased its financial aid budget this year. I have an EFC of 540 according to the FAFSA. I got accepted yesterday (I'm so excited, it's my dream school), but I have a slight issue. They want us to pay 32k a year. We got 16k of grants. (Total amount is 48k for tuition, room and board.)
My question is.. What can we do? I am the child of a single parent (my father is deceased), and our AGI from 2007 was -77000. The only complication I can think of is that my mom owns a business, but it is literally worth nothing. We do own the building is is located in (or maybe the store owns it, I don't know), but the amount of loss my mother has surpasses the cost of the building. Please tell me there is some way to fix this.
I know that you shouldn't really apply ED to any school if financials are a problem, but this honestly seems ridiculous to me. How do you go from an EFC of 540 to 32k a year? (As in, do not chastise me for this. I'll most likely ignore it because I can't undo what is already done.)</p>
<p>My mom is planning to call them to explain the situation, do you think that will help? We tried explaining it fully on the profile, but I don't know.. The financial aid thing says that none of it is final, so do you think it's possible for them to make a serious change?</p>
<p>Note: The college I got into only has financial aid. No merit aid whatsoever.</p>
<p>Was the EFC based on Profile? Does the school promise to meet 100% of need? Does your mother have equity in the building? What about home equity?</p>
<p>Do you also understand that colleges parse small business receipts, not allowing all the deductions the IRS does?</p>
<p>EFC is from the FAFSA. And yes, the school does.
I don’t believe we have equity in the building, and home equity is not factored. (I checked)</p>
<p>And no, I do not know exactly what that means. I know that the business costs my mother to keep it functioning. We’ve downscaled to only two part-time employees and then my mom, who is there almost all the time because we don’t have the money…</p>
<p>FAFSA and PROFILE can be worlds apart as you have discovered. Anyone who wants to know what they can expect from a college using PROFILE or their own apps in addition to FAFSA, needs to do a dry run with those figures. </p>
<p>Of course you need to talk to financial aid and see why there is this huge difference. Just maybe there is a mistake somewhere. However, there is a good chance there is not since those forms are not the same. </p>
<p>This is one reason that I believe those who need financial aid should not apply ED. Yes, it can have great outcomes. BUt you only have to be one who does not have a good outcome for it to be a major headache.</p>
<p>How exactly would you “dry run with those figures”? Because I’ve done the calculators using the institutional methodology, and the EFC was still around 1800.
Either way, it’s still a huge jump. I don’t understand how the Profile numbers could differ that much when the business is literally worth nothing. We could barely even pay to send the Profile to all my schools. I’ve gotten SAT fee waivers and AP exam fee waivers before, so it isn’t like I’m just making it up.</p>
<p>The most you can do is call. It’s probably unlikely for them to give you the aid you expect, so you’ll really just have to get an extreme amount of loans or back out of ED. :[</p>
<p>My mom’s credit is too bad to take out loans. Plus, 128k of loans to deal with is ridiculous, especially because I plan on going to med school.
So… My dream seems to be slipping away…
Does me being accepted to a lower tier school EA and receiving their presidential scholarship, plus being eligible for a ten thousand dollar scholarship to mount on top of whatever other aid I get (I’m a URM, btw - caucasian, african american, native american) count as a sort of bargaining chip? I mean… The school I want to go to is my dream school and I would do anything to be able to go.
Does anyone know of any scholarships that I could apply to? It’s a bit late in the game, but I’m desperate… I’m a URM, as stated above, with a 4.3 WGPA and a 31 ACT.</p>
<p>Floee…call the ED II school and discuss your enrollment status with them. Ask them to review your financial aid application. Check yourself also to see if there are any errors on it. They may not be able to make any adjustments, but you won’t know unless you ask.</p>
<p>Thumper - My mom is going to try and I’m really hoping that they overlooked the extra paperwork we sent them because they make estimates for everyone…
Does anyone know if the Pell Grant would’ve been added to my grant aid yet? That’d hopefully take it down to 28kish, I believe. And I am eligible for the 3500 unsubsidized Stafford loan, which I will take out if I have to…</p>
<p>The EFC relates to how much total aid you are entitled to before Federal Aid is reduced. You could be maxed out on Federal Aid, get all the aid the schools is willing to give, and still have “unmet need” that brings your cost to $32k/yr.</p>
<p>If you applied ED, usually there is usually an out if Financial Aid is not workable for you. If so, you would have a good out.</p>
<p>For the record: I do not want out of this, at all. I want feasible suggestions as to how exactly I go about this problem. I filled out my own financial aid forms, so I am trying to understand how this ridiculous jump could have occured/if it can be fixed.
The school is a 100% of need met school with a ridiculously large endowment whose financial aid budget just went up.</p>
<p>If this is where you really want to go and you say they meet 100% of need, then there may be an error. Call the school and ask them to explain the financial aid. If you received a grant, check to see if they gave you stafford loans as well. Freshman are eligible for 5500 and usually there would be workstudy for 2000 or 4000 depending on school. That is another potential 9500. Please let us know how this turns out.</p>
<p>I think the total stafford is 3500? (I’m probably wrong though…) That’s what it is according to my thing. And I just saw that I got an 1800 work study… So those together are another 5300. If the Pell Grant was not included (which I’m assuming that it was not because the max for this year has not come out, right? Or would they factor this in anyways? Please correct me), then I may get another 4000ish, right? That would bring my total award up to around 26k, which would bring cost down to 22k now… Which is still a ridiculous amount for my financial situation, in my opinion.
I will keep this thread updated as much as I can… If it wasn’t the weekend, I know that my mom and I would’ve been on the phone with them earlier trying to figure this mess out.
I’m certainly not prepared to give up. This is by far my dream school. It’s honestly the only one I can really imagine myself at. I found some smaller scholarships for me to apply to, luckily, and hopefully I can manage to get a few…
Thank you all for the help so far. Please keep the advice coming, I really need all I can get. I’m seriously hoping that there was some sort of error with interpreting my financial situation, because it is very complicated, in my opinion.</p>
<p>Even though you got 3500 Stafford you are eliglible for an additional 2000 unsubsidized not based on need. I don’t know about pell, my D was not elligible. But I think you will feel better once you talk to the FA office. Are you absolutely sure they meet 100% of need?</p>
<p>From the website > “…is committed to meeting 100% of demonstrated need”. (I have no idea why I’m censoring the name, but I love the college too much to be pointing fingers.)
Also from the site, “Average Financial Aid Package is more than $30,500” and “Average Scholarship is more than $25,700”. Oh, and “About half of all students are on financial aid”.
Thanks for the info about the Stafford. I guess I’ll probably end up taking that out too and hopefully I can work over the summer to alleviate debt… Hopefully I’ll be going to medical school, so I don’t want very much debt going into that.
So, I have no idea what is really going on. I hope that the FA office will clear this up…</p>
<p>floee, looking at your other threads, I looked up the school and their statement does reflect their committment to meeting 100% of demonstrated need. So I would relax and call the school on Monday. I would ewxpress how rthis is the school you really want to attend. Good Luck.</p>
<p>I am assuming that you had sent all of your mother’s tax information including those for her business. As Hmom5 stated, the school probably scrutinized any expenses that your mother reported. </p>
<p>For example, on her business taxes your mother may have reported depreciation on her building or her car. These are paper losses, and may have been added back as money available for college expenses. Also, if she reported automobile expenses at 100%, but it was a car that was available for personal use, they may have adjusted this figure as well. If a home office deduction was taken this may have also been added back into the numbers available for costs (not allowed to deduct home office for S-corps, but I don’t know how your mother’s business is set up so she may have deducted it) There are a number of deductions that the school may have added back as “available” income.</p>
<p>Did you say that your income was minus 77K?? That’s a lot of business deductions, and it probably raised a red flag at the school. Also, you stated that the business owns the building but there is no equity in the building. I understand that in today’s economy mortgages may exceed equity, you may need to show this to the school.</p>
<p>After your phone call, a face to face meeting may be better to present your appeal. Your mother may have to support all her business deductions, so it may be a good idea for her to collect all her receipts in preparation for this (I suggest she definately get involved in an appeal)</p>
<p>I hope that my mom will be able to work it out. I don’t know how much of our taxes she sent them, but I hope that they just missed something/my mom didn’t explain fully. I was trying to do them in a rush, so…
I really do not want it to go to the point of a face-to-face meeting, but I’m pretty sure we will if we must. It’ll be difficult and expensive to travel for a day, but I think it would be worth it in the long run. (My school is in NY, I am in MD. It’s an issue…)
Again, thank you for all the help.</p>