<p>Hello everyone!
I am new here- I was referred here by a friend of mine that frequents this forum, and he thought it'd help me out. This question probably pops up every now and then, but I just wanted to get an answer a little more specific to my situation.</p>
<p>My family is in a low income bracket. My father is a waiter at a not-so-popular Chinese restaurant, and my mother is an accountant at Kimberly Clark (newly hired, still recovering from recession lay-offs) as well as a part-time waitress at a decently populated restaurant (cutting back her hours there, though).</p>
<p>My eye is on some of the more selective and prestigious colleges in my area.
My brother attends Vanderbilt, and I believe most of his grants were financial-based, as he got a full ride there with some scholarships like the in-state HOPE, etc.</p>
<p>My question is if I was admitted to say, Duke, is it rare for them to give a student a full ride if the family makes ~40-60k/year (roughly, not sure yet) or would I have to borrow most of the money?</p>
<p>Duke meets need for low income students.</p>
<p>BTW…you could never borrow most of the money. You wouldn’t qualify. You can only borrow $5500, which may be in your loan pkg anyway, if Duke includes loans. </p>
<p>Make sure you have some in-state options on your list to potentially take advantage of that Hope scholarship.</p>
<p>What you can do with your parents is get some income estimates for this year, 2014, and what assets your family owns, if you are applying for next year, and run the NPCs for some of the schools you are considering. With two kids in college at the same time, the costs will be lower for those years, so you might want to run the numbers with just one in college as well so that you can see what your aid would be once your brother is out. You can also ask your brother if he knows what the family EFC was when he applied, and also run the EFC estimator. </p>
<p>It’s also important to know how much your family is willing to pay for you. You can start putting together some lists that keep all of this in mind with varying probabilities. </p>
<p>You are only guaranteed to be allowed to borrow $5500 as a freshman on your own, increasing a bit each year, on your own. Schools might have some other loans in their packages as well, but it’s not going to be most of the cost of a $60K+ a year school. Your parents would have to get on the hook for loans to get that kind of money.</p>
<p>Full ride is a subjective term. Duke and a number of schools do guarantee to meet full NEED. There are some full ride type merit awards that Duke has. But when it comes to purely financialy aid packages, most of them include self help. Most expect some student contribution even from families with an EFC of zero, which you definitely do not have. That includes some of the top school in terms of aid. </p>
<p>But go ahead and run some numbers to see what some schools expect your family to pay for you in college.</p>
<p>Okay, thanks guys! So how much, before I get the numbers from my family, do you think is reasonable for family contribution for a 60k year school? Would it be in the upper half or lower half?</p>
<p>There is a net price calculator on each college website. Run your family financials on them. This should give you a decent estimate </p>
<p>It doesn’t matter what is reasonable. You and your family can afford what you can afford and schools will expect what they expect based on their formulas. What will be in the upper or lower half of what?</p>
<p>To get you started a little further, launch the net price calculator for Duke at this link. You can go to the finaid pages of all schools you are considering to run their NPC. Read the caveats.</p>
<p><a href=“http://financialaid.duke.edu/net-price-calculator”>http://financialaid.duke.edu/net-price-calculator</a></p>
<p>Point taken. I don’t know what I expected; I thought you guys were like magical haha. My bad for assuming you guys had all the answers. I’ll do the calculations and figure out the amount, thanks though!</p>
<p>Also, you need to discuss college costs with your parents to see what they can pay.</p>
<p>Duke meets full need and with two kids in college, if your brother qualified for a “full ride”, it means you’d qualify for a lot of financial aid. Odds are that you’d need to borrow $5,500 and work a few hours every week, but for how much financial aid you’d get and how much your parents would have to contribute, you’d need to use the Net Price Calculator (link provided in post #6) and on every college website (Davidson, Vanderbilt, Emory, Elon,Rhodes, Hendrix, whatever - all colleges are required to have a NPC).
Note that only about 60-80 colleges “meet need” so aim for those, apply to your in-state Honors College, and look for colleges that offer full-tuition merit for your stats.</p>
<p>With two in college, you could end up with a very low cost at taht income level, with just the required student contribution at some school, maybe. Don’t know what the family assets are, and that can have effect, however. Look at what your brother’s package is in terms of financial aid, but if your parents’ income levels were different then, it 's a whole other story. But be aware that when your brother is no longer a full time student the numbers will likely change drastically. </p>
<p>
Post #9 answered your question - Duke meets full need; you should not need to borrow a lot if you admitted. See <a href=“http://admissions.duke.edu/application/aid”>http://admissions.duke.edu/application/aid</a>
</p>
<p>Check private schools in your state as well. We know one in Virginia, for example, that offers a free ride (tuition and room/board) for Virginia residents who make under 60K. There are other programs that might be worth looking at in your particular area.</p>
<p>However just like most schools, Duke considers more assets and income than schools that only use FAFSA.
My nephew was accepted to Duke, but with insufficient aid, so he attended his instate option of UC Boulder.</p>
<p>Update: if I become accepted to Vandy, with HOPE, sibling in Vandy, and current income, I would get in relatively free. Yay! </p>
<p>If you haven’t read this: <a href=“http://financialaid.duke.edu/awarding-and-policy”>http://financialaid.duke.edu/awarding-and-policy</a>
I don’t know about Duke’s policies - but a very cursory review of this page ^ looks as though they do not have some of the most generous policies at some selective schools that meet full need. Many full need colleges package financial aid awards with NO LOANS for family incomes under 60K. Many of these colleges will use outside scholarships or funding you receive from other sources to reduce the self-help requirement of your FA (work-study, summer work) and many will allow you to defer scholarships to future years or to purchase a computer with outside monies rather than reducing the institutional grant. So, even if you receive full cost of attendance from your university, applying for outside scholarships, if available to you, can reduce/eliminate your obligation (some students like to do work-study anyway). My kids (3 of 4 so far) have not paid or borrowed a penny for their educations at top colleges. </p>