Madison Financial Aid

<p>Just checked it online and wow, they gave me the crappiest aid of all my schools. I'm OOS and my EFC was around 5K and they gave me $800 in grants and $8525 in loans.</p>

<p>OOS aid is mostly limited to loans. Your local UW alumni club might have some money. Ours gives $2500 scholarships to three locals each year.
Much of the aid at UW for OOS is for current students who do well in their dept. Many depts control lots of scholies.</p>

<p>My son just got his notification also,EFC OF $5600, sent a letter of hardship due to high medical out of pocket last year and only $400 in grant aid and the same loans. Would it do any good to go visit financial and tell them Indiana and Ohio State have offered more?</p>

<p>OOS grant aid is very limited. Most is for minorities. I doubt it would help much.</p>

<p>If you were my son would you still go there and incur $100000 in loans . Is the school worth it?</p>

<p>I would go to the cheaper school. Save your money for grad school. I have partners who are still paying off their med school loans 7-8 years into practice. They went to private schools. In the end nobody asks their doctor where they went to school......It might help get your foot in the door to have been at an expensive University. But is that worth 100K and another 50K in interest over the next n years.......</p>

<p>Nope. That is way too much. $20K maybe for UG max.</p>

<p>Let me ask you this then if he does well his first year ,what kind of money could he expect for the last three years as far as scholarships, summer internship etc.. He really wants to go to UW and I don't want to be the one to shatter what he has worked hard for the last four years in high school to get too.</p>

<p>brucesprings - i'm guessing that Indiana's aid as well as Ohio State's were mostly merit-based, and Wisconsin's were need based. If that is true, then you can't really send an appeal to Wisconsin. Also, the schools aren't too similar academically, Wisconsin has lower acceptance rates, higher test scores, higher rankings. They aren't peer institutions. I mean, you can try, but you aren't comparing apples to apples. It would be better to appeal Indiana's decision to OSU, or vise-versa.</p>

<p>I spoke to someone from the FA dept. and they spelled it out for the most part that don't look for much aid from UW over the four years. They did say to speak to the residencey department about ways to try and figure out how he could achieve in state residency status for later years, so I might look into that.I am convinced though that the whole government FAFSA program is one big waste of money and time.</p>

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I am convinced though that the whole government FAFSA program is one big waste of money and time.

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To public schools, yes, I only received a combined $400 at my 3 out-of-state public schols where I demonstrated thousands of dollars in need. However, many private universities have been generous in their aid. I wish I wouldn't have checked the Work-Study/Loans box, and rather just grants, because I think i'm going to decline all, and just find my own job and take out my own loans. Maybe schools would have given me more grants then.</p>

<p>What amounts of loans are you looking at taking out?</p>

<p>It is very tough for an ug to convert to instate resident. Basically need to take a year off from school and work full-time instate. Then you might get it.</p>

<p>I don't know, I really don't want to graduate with debt. I think i'll just have to work throughout the year, have my family pay a certain amount and i'll be responsible for a certain amount. Loans are basically a last resort, otherwise i'll find a way to pay for the money. It's my school and my choice, my parents wanted me to stay in-state, but since it's my decision to go OOS, i'll be responsible for it. The max i'd take out in loans is about 20K (5K per year) for UG, and that's only if my work $$$ and my parents contribution don't add up to the COA.</p>