My S’s award posted and it’s a small Gift Aid. Based on students he already knows at Fordham, it’s about the same as what have been Jocque or Loyola scholarships. We thought his merit would post as a scholarship - I read in another blog that often Fordham adds scholarship money as the clock ticks toward May 1st. Anyone else familiar with this? I’ve heard other colleges do the same, SJU in Philadelphia. With what he’s received, Fordham has really moved down the list from first place
$68,000 per year and an insulting “offer”. They didn’t even break down scholarship and grants. Just a puny lump sum. Plenty of other very good schools have offered twice the $$ just in scholarship alone. Easy decision without going into debt. Fordham’s loss.
Got an insulting 12k a year. Other with schools better rankings and lower coa gave twice as much… fordham is going for $ over substance.
How do you get your AccessIT ID…I only have an FIDN. And I got 34700, wonder how much of that was from FA grant
Now people are finding out why Fordham’s yield rate at 12.9 percent is so poor.
Mscharge1, can you share what other college were more generous? Thank you.
Kitty11, also would like to know what schools gave better aid. Thanks.
Loyola, Catholic, Scranton, St Joes for starters.
We’ll share ours too… we are in PA, not sure if this gauge works around the country… but most kids who do not get the $ they need elsewhere will end up at Penn State at $32,000 in state to live at Main Campus UPark. That said, trend here is most local schools try to meet PSU price knowing they’ll lose them if they don’t…every school so far he applied to either came down to or below Penn State price… all Merit money no loans… including privates like St Joe’s and Drexel. Temple is giving lots of merit $ and by far the cheapest in state in PA directly in the city…We had held out hope and still are ! that Fordham could come close… btw Seton Hall giving lots of $ this year
All of the schools listed above are below Fordham in terms of admissions difficulty, most are well below. They are using their money the same way Fordham and other private schools do, to attract the most qualified applicants and improve their rankings.
My son even had some similarly ranked schools offer more than double the merit scholarship money, but he decided that Fordham was the place he wanted to be. In retrospect if it was my decision I would have wanted him to take the school that gave him the best deal. There just wasn’t enough of a difference to warrant spending 10’s of thousands of dollars more.
If your child likes some of those other schools (and there is nothing wrong with any of them) I would investigate them in greater detail and see if they could be a good fit. I know students who took the better dollars offered by Scranton, Cathoilic, St. Joe’s, Loyola, and Seton Hall and they all are still in those schools and happy there.
Last year, my DD received several offers of money, but she looked at the quality of school and the money to make her decision. You should choose the best fit and specific program that you can AFFORD. Don’t make a choice just on money, and don’t make it just on ranking. Sometimes, it’s a hard decision. Good luck.
Thanks Mscharge1 and momshouse for sharing-good to know info!
Very good advice! mexusa
Visited Fordham Gabelli school this past week and was very impressed with the entire presentation only problem ,like some on this forum, is merit aid and casting an eye on yield rate .There must be something to it
I don’t like to hate on schools that I’m not attending, but I was pretty disappointed by Fordham’s financial aid package as well. I have a good amount of need and the fact that they didn’t disambiguate the grants from the scholarships is a bit frustrating. I didn’t get an “insulting” offer like some of the other posters in this thread, but considering that my stats were far above Fordham’s middle 50%, I expected to get more money. However, I never had any intention of going to Fordham and mostly applied because they sent me in a fee-waiver and accept ~70% of the applicants from my school so it was a safety for me.