I have always wondered what yearly income switches a person from FA to full pay in the eyes of the FA office. Any responses would be appreciated. I’m just curious.
Varies greatly among schools. Check out the guideline for Exeter: http://www.exeter.edu/admissions/1286.aspx And you will find some sort of guidelines in different forms on some other schools’ websites.
There is not going to be one answer to
that question because more goes into FA calculation than just income. Siblings in tuition paying schools, medical bills, and more can all factor into the FA formula.
Our journey suggests that once you earn more than $200,000 (coincidentally the top income bracket on Exeter’s calculator) as a family very few schools will offer much aid but it is true there is no one cut off point - and your income could be much lower and still not meet the benchmark if you have a lot of savings/assets. If you live in a high cost area, they do take that under consideration.
Many factors go into it, including the age of the parents. Older parents are expected to be saving more so they are given more allowance with a larger amount of savings. Number of siblings and how many tuition paying schools also affect the amount. The biggest factor is annual income. I have heard (not from a school official) that 60K is the cutoff and goes into a full FA situation. I also know people who make close to 250k and receive some FA due to multiple kids in tuition paying schools. Hope that helps.
There is no general answer to this question, so much is unique to each family situation. There are plenty of families that have received far less aid they expected, and I can say that my personal experience has been to receive far more aid that I would have ever expected.