<p>D just received the financial aid package from a private Catholic college with a cost of attendance of more than $50K/year. Our EFC (they're a FAFSA school, not a Profile school) was a bit more than half the EFC. Despite D winning a merit scholarship ($15 K/year) there, the remainder of the FA package is debt, to the tune of $13K a year, which would probably increase each year since the scholarship is a fixed amount but the school tuition & fees will continue to increase. D was having a hard time understanding the FA package until we looked at it together for a while, but when she finally understood that the school was expecting that we'd be able to cover $39K a year of expenses, it pretty clearly dropped that school off the list. Luckily, she has some other, more financially feasible options.</p>
<p>Still, I'm a bit irked that this school claims to meet 100% of financial need, given that they did so with a huge loan component.</p>
<p>the aid package at a school that meets 100% of need- is what is above and beyond EFC.
Say the school cost $50K
Merit aid isn’t usually deducted from EFC, but it may be deducted from loans.
If the FAFSA EFC was $22K- then $28K in need would remain.
Sounds like $15K in merit aid was applied to that and the remainder was covered by a student loan.
Parent loans ( PLUS) to meet EFC, are not normally considered part of an aid package.</p>
<p>I totally defer to you as we haven’t gotten to that part of the process. I was just trying to come up with a way to make the numbers work. I think at one point OP wrote EFC when maybe he/she meant COA?</p>
<p>sorry, ara, but many schools fill “need” with debt. Some even include PLUS loans as fulfilling financial need. Dunno what the school is, but last year a parent poster was extremely disapointed with his D’s package from a Catholic college in NYC. He was an active alum, altho that probably means nothing in the annals of Finaid. While it was D’s first choice, she went elsewhere bcos of the $$.</p>
<p>Sorry for the confusion. School’s COA is $53K next year, our EFC is $26K. School offered a $15K/year merit scholarship. The financial aid package for the remaining need is 100% loans, to the tune of $12K a year. That $12K a year in loans is, of course, in addition to the $26K a year of EFC. Our estimate is that given modest growth in COA, we’d end up with more than $55K in loans by the end of four years, which is quite a bit higher than the school’s average debt per student. I think we were a bit surprised at this given the nice merit scholarship (which has ongoing gpa requirements) and the school’s average grant amount, which is significantly more than D’s merit scholarship.</p>
<p>I still think that published % of need met should not include loans.</p>
<p>was there 6500 in subsidized and unsubsidized stafford loans (which is the max for freshman). and was there any perkins loans included. I think all but a very very few schools don’t expect the student to take out something in loans</p>
<p>If your daughter hadn’t gotten that $15K merit scholarship, the loan package would likely have been $27K in loans. </p>
<p>Believe me, whatever specific school you are talking about is not the only one that does this. I have seen several “meet 100% need” schools offer just that sort of financial aid package. The implicit assumption is that the school has helped to meet your “need” by allowing you to borrow from future earnings to pay for the costs that you can’t cover from savings and current earnings (which is your EFC).</p>
<p>The school did meet your need, just not in the way that you’d have preferred.</p>
<p>That’s why everyone should make sure that they have a real financial safety-- a school that they can get accepted to and can afford --including offering an acceptable financial aid package.</p>
<p>actually, your package ain’t all that bad. A decent finaid package at that level efc will include a federal loan $5k, student summer earnings $3k, work study $2k, or $10k total self help. If I’m reading correctly, they gave you $12k in self-help…</p>
<p>I’m new at this college application stuff, but I think that meeting some of the need with loans (at least partially) rather than grants is more common that what you were expecting.</p>
<p>I have never understood how a school could market itself as “meeting your full need” by telling you to borrow from somebody to pay them. It just stinks. Yeah, I know it’s standard procedure.</p>
<p>Agreed with NSM…your package just isn’t what you wanted it to be. It is the general notion that college costs are paid (including your EFC) out of past earnings (savings), current earnings (income) and future earnings (loans). It sounds like you are planning to pay your college costs entirely out of loans. That is your decision to make…or not make…but that isn’t what is typically assumed by the colleges. </p>
<p>Also…the Stafford loans for freshman year are about $5000 (subsidized and unsubsidized included) which are in the student’s name. That would mean that you are being given an additional $7000 or so in loans. What kind of loan was packaged into your financial aid package?</p>
<p>I will say…DD goes to a Jesuit school and we would have been THRILLED to receive a $15,000 a year grant. Our EFC and yours are about the same.</p>
<p>Well, I guess I wonder why every school doesn’t claim to meet full need if all they have to do is to tell kids to get max loans and parents to get loans to make up the difference. </p>
<p>The school certainly doesn’t have any obligation to give my kid any specific FA package – and we made sure that D’s list included financial safety schools that she both likes and which we can afford. She’s got good places to choose from for next fall, and will probably have a couple more come the end of the month.</p>
<p>Older D attended a school where the COA was around $50K, ( and they use PROFILE, which for some increases EFC as it identifies not just additional debt- such as a mortgage, but also notes additional assets)</p>
<p>Our EFC was about $14K for the time she was in college. Still, $14K was a big chunk, and while we covered about $10K of it, D covered the rest with her summer job.</p>
<p>The school also met 100% of need- otherwise she would not have been able to attend.
$14K, was essentially what COA would have been at an instate public school- and she did not apply ED, just in case.
The aid package at her school was mostly a grant ( they don’t offer merit aid- one of those schools where " it is a priviledge just to be nominated" ), however the only loan was a small Perkins loan ( which are for low income students generally, & are subsidized) and the maximum Stafford subsidized loan , of roughly $4,000 & work study, which worked out to 10 hours a week.
So while it did involve subsidized loans, which an instate public school would not ( she would have only been eligible for non subsidized loans if COA was less than EFC), we decided that it was worth the extra expense.</p>
<p>( she also had an Americorp education award, which took care of about $5,000 in loans upon graduation)</p>
<p>Move on to the next kid and we no longer have a family of four but of three. Not eligible for merit aid at any of the schools she is interested. EFC is a LOT more than $14K.
She will be going to instate public school for more than it cost for her sister to attend a private.</p>
<p>"I still think that published % of need met should not include loans. "</p>
<p>Most people would agree, but the huge majority of colleges do not.
Almost every FA package includes loans, unless you are really low income at a very well endowed school.</p>
<p>"Well, I guess I wonder why every school doesn’t claim to meet full need if all they have to do is to tell kids to get max loans and parents to get loans to make up the difference.
"</p>
<p>Because most schools don’t have the money to provide enough loans to meet 100% of all students documented need.</p>
I think at one point OP wrote EFC when maybe he/she meant COA?</p>
), however the only loan was a small Perkins loan ( which are for low income students generally, & are subsidized) and the maximum Stafford subsidized loan , of roughly $4,000 & work study, which worked out to 10 hours a week.