Hi, I just ran numbers on some EFCs. Yale’s came out much higher than other schools that I would have thought were comparable. (Like 20K+ higher) - However, there was no place to put in private school tuition for siblings if applicable. This might make that difference. Does anyone know:
Is Yale's need-based aid on a par with say, Princeton or Harvard? (Or otherwise, please specify?)
Does Yale's actual calculation allow for other siblings' non-college tuition and do you know how it counts?
What I would do is wait for the actual financial aid letter that comes with the acceptance and if it is too high, ask for a review. I requested one and my family contribution went down by $13,000. Still too darn high but at least my DH and I can eat something besides franks and beans.
@Tperry1982 - thank you! But my son is a junior and it’s more like, “is it worth applying” But maybe you’re saying - yes, and then cross that bridge when we get to it…?
Definitely. Don’t let what the calculator says deter him. Cross that bridge if/when he gets there.
Yes, Yale, Harvard and Princeton are generally in the same ballpark though I have heard stories of some widely different awards. If that is the case, then the student can tell the school they want to go to that one of the others gave them more money and sometimes they will match it. These schools do not lose students once they admit them because of money.
Good luck to your son!! My D is a freshman there this year and I graduated in 1982. It is a great place.
Financial aid calculations vary greatly from institution to institution and there are some significant differences that might make Yale more expensive than Harvard or Princeton. For example:
Yale includes home equity in their financial aid calculation, while Harvard and Princeton do not.
Parents’ income
Parents’ assets (cash, savings, home equity, other real estate and investments)
Family size
Number of children attending college
Student’s income
Student’s assets (cash, savings, trusts, and other investments)
Yale's upper income limit for financial aid is $200k with "typical assets." Although Yale doesn't specify a dollar value for "typical assets" Stanford does, and I imagine that HYP have about the same definition: Total net worth of less than $250,000 including cash, savings, checking, investments, home equity, equity in real estate other than the home and business net worth.
Princeton's upper income limit is also $200k with "typical assets" but does not include home equity.
Harvard's upper limit is $150k, but does not include home equity. If a family has multiple children in college the income limit is raised to $200k.
FWIW: Unless your child has special needs and requires a private school for their disability, generally colleges do not make an allowance for siblings enrolled in K-12 private schools.
If your student is admitted to Yale, and also admitted to Harvard and Princeton, Yale might offer to re-calcualte the parent contribution, however, because of Ivy League rules, which state . . .
. . . Yale cannot give one student – an academic student or an athlete – preferential treatment. That means that Yale must treat ALL it’s students equally, meaning they MUST include a home equity calculation for all families that own their own home. So, my guess is that if you own a home, and have significant equity built up, Yale would not be able to match the financial aid of either HP. On the other hand, if you rent a home, and have “typical assets” Yale might match HP’s offer.
FWIW: When you ask a college to re-evaluate their financial aid offer, if they choose to increase their aid, you have to ask for a side-letter which states that if your family’s income remains the same, the percentage of aid your student will receive will remain the same for all four years of college. If you don’t have that side letter, a college is free to match a peer school’s aid for freshman year, but then re-adjust their aid back to where it was for their sophomore, junior and senior years.
I don't know how Princeton treats K-12 private tuition. You should call the Princeton Financial Aid Office and ask. They might count it, but are asking the question to see how your family spends their yearly salary.
As you can see, financial aid is anything but transparent.
Actually right on their FA homepage they state that they only consider assets over 200k
Playing with their NPC I discovered two things. First, they don’t include assets until you hit 300k. Second although they might not consider actual home equity, running the calculator as a homeowner vs. a non homeowner resulted in a change in EFC of 6k
^^ Thanks for the correction on Yale’s “typical assets” being $200K (and not $250k).
With regards to Princeton’s NPC: $300K of assets on the NPC may not be correct – which was the point of the NY Times article detailing the inaccurate calculations of the NPC (see link in post #6 ), as Princeton’s website contains the below: http://www.princeton.edu/pr/aid/pdf/0809/xPU-aid-appl-0809.pdf
FWIW: My daughter (Harvard) and son (Yale) overlapped in college by three years. For our family, Yale’s financial aid was always greater than Harvard’s, resulting in our family having to pay $4K to $5K per more per year at Harvard. (Both school’s were looking at the exact same data, and neither was school transparent in how they came to their calculations, even when I questioned Harvard why we were paying more at their school than their peer.) My son was also accepted to Princeton and, for our family, Princeton’s aid was about $2K less than Yale’s.
But maybe you’re saying - yes, and then cross that bridge when we get to it…?