Hi
My son was admitted early action which is grat but a bit disappointed in merit if 22k offered. NPC had him getting closer to the 30k.
Does anyone know if you can appeal this and if Case will increase awards. This is a top choice but price tag is nuts! FAFSA insanity leaves us nothing in financial aid. Thanks
did you get need based financial aid? or only merit?
Only merit. Per the government’s insane fafsa efc calcs we get nothing because merit brings COA down lower than our efc (which is a ridiculously impossible number)
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Is merit scholarship info in your portal? I dont see anything in mine but I have really good stats
It was in the acceptance letter and cost of attendance lbreakfown also included.
Merit aid is not financial. Two different departments. Be sure call the FA office.
Yes correct. My son will only get merit. FA office can’t help us because of our EFC.
We are in an even worse situation than you. I posted this on another thread here, but here’s an updated version.
I spoke with the financial aid office about the net price my admitted daughter has in an attempt to have her aid revaluated. She got zero need-based aid and a $10k merit scholarship. They said it can’t be changed. Basically, for us it boils down to:
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They think our income is high enough that we can take out lots of loans for college expenses and pay them back over time. We have four kids, and TWO will be in college for the next three years. CWRU has no problem with expecting over 50% of our after-tax income going to tuition. Who needs to save for retirement? Pay for your kids college until you are 80! What fun!
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They think our home value is high enough that we can take out equity line funds. So, basically, they want us to undo all the equity we have built up in our home over the years.
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They are counting all four kids’ 529 accounts as available to our current student, even though the money in those accounts belongs to those siblings and taking it would be stealing from one to give to another.
For us, the gap between what we can actually pay and what they THINK we can pay is pretty significant. It’s definitely a problem for those of us in the middle. The lower income students get practically a free ride, and the upper income students can afford to pay. That leaves those of us in the middle in a bad spot. They basically want to put us into six figure debt ($250k) so that they can subsidize lower income students because our good credit means we can get big loans. No, thank you. We have already worked hard to save for our own four kids, we can’t afford to pay for other people’s kids.
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FYI I don’t think Case is the only college that calculates aid this way.
@bopper Probably not, but my daughter has acceptances from 7 schools right now, and Case is $12k a year over what the rest are charging. Still doesn’t mean it’s fair to all…
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If you don’t mind me asking, what was your daughter’s test scores?
If you don’t mind me asking, what were your son’s test scores?
@vamom4 Case is need aware. It’s been suggested that my daughter 35 ACT, 3.98 GPA, all other great stats probably got deferred because we have too much financial need. So no, I don’t think they’re asking more from you to give poor kids a free ride. If you look at the accepted thread, they just don’t give anyone much money compared to the COA. I’m starting to think that Case is becoming one of those schools that you have to be pretty wealthy to afford to attend. The higher scholarships I noticed were around $20k. That would leave families still paying $45k a year. Yikes!
I have seen $33K in this thread: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/case-western-reserve-university/2039096-case-western-class-of-2022-ea-thread-p1.html
There are also full-tuition scholarships which are competitive.
https://case.edu/admission/tuition-aid/scholarships
@alliblues
I would be very curious to know what the average price per student is. We can only guess by looking at published numbers.
Tuition, room & board comes to about $64,000 a year. (Not including other mandatory fees and such)
According to College Board, at CWRU:
The average need-based aid grant is $36,474, which means a net price of $27,758.
The average non-need based grant is $23,573, which means a net price of $40,659.
And some students are getting $0, which means net price of $64,000.
In the absence of a published average price per student, let’s assume the average is the middle number, roughly $40,000 a year.
So, yes, if many students are paying $27,000-$40,000 a year, while others are paying $40,000-$64,000, those paying more are absolutely subsidizing those paying less.
The school needs a certain amount of income, which is understandable and logical. They can choose to divide that needed income evenly between all students, charging all the same tuition, or charge a variety of prices, depending on the student. If one student is paying less, there needs to be another paying more to cancel that loss out, so that the needed income still comes in.
This is not at all a complaint about this school. Many schools are the same with this. It’s just a situation that one can be on the positive or negative side of. If it works out in your favor, awesome! If it doesn’t, then it’s a tough choice to make for students and their families.
Case has an endowment of $1.8 Billion dollars. They don’t need to charge some students more to compensate for giving others financial aid. The money comes from the endowment. Also I’d say only upper middle class folks (at the lowest), not the poor, can afford the $27-40k price per year. If your theory was correct, it looks like the rich are subsidizing the upper middle class.
We disagree.
I do hope you’re able to get more assistance if it’s your child’s #1 school.
My S18 was offered $28K in merit aid last year (applied RD fairly late in the day as a backup option, and ultimately went elsewhere).