<p>Can someone answer me a question? NYU gives my son a series of loans that amount to the cost of year of tuition, room, and board, which is the same as saying you pay full freight. Does NYU then get to claim that they met 100% of our need? I've always gotten a kick out of the "meets such and such a % of students financial needs" as a way to appear to be generous. I'm not complaining, just curious about the wording and it's meaning.</p>
<p>Yes loans count as meeting need. That’s a lot of loans :eek:</p>
<p>Yup. That stinks, doesn’t it? I don’t think that the schools should be able to include any loans that are unsubsidized in their % of need filled calculations, and the calculations ought to separately show the percentage of need filled by grants, workstudy and other sources that do not require repayment.</p>
<p>NYU never claims to meet your full need. What was your EFC?</p>
<p>you have apparently demonstrated no financial need. so they give you loans.</p>
<p>they have funny ways of evaluating ‘demonstration of financial need.’</p>
<p>jerks.</p>
<p>Loans = financial aid.</p>
<p>Yeah, we got the same response from SUNY Binghamton $27K in LOANS.</p>
<p>Somewhere in the CDS it asks for loans dispersed. It specifically say do not include unsubsidized and PLUS loans. </p>
<p>Personally, I think unsub Stafford could be considered aid. PLUS loans are not financial aid in my book.</p>
<p>There are schools that would consider 100% of need met when loans including PLUS loans are offered. Not that a school can really offer PLUS loans; just the opportunity to apply for one since a credit check is involved. Loan offerings can be valuable if they are to the student with favorable terms without a cosigner since it is difficult if not impossible for college kids to get such loans on their own. Since the availability of PLUS is something that is there for most folks whether the college presents it or not, as are the unsubsidized Staffords, I don’t think schools are “giving” anything when they present those alternatives.</p>
<p>NYU has poor financial aid. Their offer was by far the worst my dd received. Worse, she first thought they had a good offer because she looked at the total and then had to be shown that they had a huge amount of loans in it.</p>
<p>If your EFC is close to or equal to your COA, then the only aid available is going to be loans. Say you have an EFC of $45,000 and the COA is $47,000. You are going to be eligible for $2000 subsidized Stafford, $3500 unsubsidized Stafford, and $41,500 PLUS loan. You weren’t really awarded $47,000 in loans. You were awarded $2000 in need based aid because that’s all the need you had. The unsub loan is offered because even though it’s not need based, it is available to the student to borrow. The PLUS is also available - if the family cannot afford the EFC, the unsub and the PLUS are available to help with costs, if the family so chooses.</p>
<p>So your award is really $2000, if you think of f/a as need based only. You didn’t get more because you didn’t have more need.</p>