Misleading Average Debt Figures!

<p>At Brown EVERYONE is dependant, and at most other elite schools I believe. To the gov't yes, I'm ind. That gives me pell grants which do me no good since Brown takes that money out of the aid they would have given me. I actually had them remove my portion of the family contribution and move it to perkins loan. They also removed my work study ($2400) and turned it into perkins loan. I wasnt sure if that was a good idea or not. My mother's medical costs are gone now since she filed bankruptcy.</p>

<p>according to the wall street journal Amherst is not taking students off of the waitlist this year.</p>

<p><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117927557746304211-search.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117927557746304211-search.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>on a side note: my D's package from Amherst was significantly lower than the packages she received from Amherst's peer schools</p>

<p>sybbie, I don't think it's conclusive whether theyre taking anyone from the transfer waitlist. they barely found out what their yield was from that. maybe you're right but maybe not.</p>

<p>Perkins loans are good as they are low interest and can be forgiven, but work study is good too, I would think a good aid package has both.</p>

<p>I think I'll ask them to add my work study back in.</p>

<p>Got my papers today, I'm looking at:</p>

<p>9500 in federal loans for next year
~6000 in family contribution
2500 for health insurance</p>

<p>= 18000 for one year</p>

<p>+2400 in work study</p>

<p>Wow, Brown is really loan heavy in FA.</p>

<p>Are you able to attend with that new package?</p>

<p>If I get outside loans or convince my grandpa to fork over some dough. I'm still confused as to why it's so high.</p>