Hi everyone!
I am applying to UCONN for transfer in the fall and my EFC value is $47,586. Sure, my parents make enough so that they are not struggling however, they are not going to contribute to my tuition payments. What should I do??
How are you paying for school now?
Learn to play basketball?
If your EFC is that high, you will get no federal or state aid. If you don’t qualify for merit aid, you will need to pay for your tuition on your own. HOw? Work and loans (but your loans will be limited). Where do you go to school now? How are you paying for it?
Your EFC is calculated based on your parent income and assets, primarily. This determines, by formula, what you can pay…not what your parents are willing to pay.
A $47,000 EFC would mean your parents are earning somewhere in the $150,000 a year range…and/or have sizable assets.
If you are a transfer as a sophomore, you can take out a $6500 Direct Loan. If you are a junior, you can take $7500.
If your parents will contribute nothing, then this school is not affordable for you.
Are you instate or OOS? Your EFC is definitely higher than instate cost of attendance…which would mean no need based aid.
Did you apply to transfer anywhere that gives merit aid to transfer students (not many schools do).
Are you transferring from a community college? Who is paying your college costs now?
Curious as to why your parents won’t pay. If there are extenuating circumstances, you might explain that to FA dept.
Consider deferring college for a few years?
They paid for my community college and that was it. I always knew that it would be my responsibility to pay when I transferred. There is no possibility of deferring.
I live in NY and go to a local community college. The tuition is cheap ($3200/year). My GPA is 3.95 and I work on campus. I am a member of Phi Theta Kappa, an international honor society for community college students, NOT apart of Greek life.
How are your college costs being paid for now? Are you living at home and commuting now, and wanting to transfer to a 4 yr college next year?
What did your parents tell you when you were in high school about what college expenses they were willing to pay?
You will not be able to borrow $47,000/year on your own, and even if your parents co-signed a loan with you, you would be buried in debt that would haunt you and constrict your life choices for years to come.
What year/academic status will you enter college this fall? (Soph/Jr/Sr ?) Multiply that $47,000 times the number of years you have left in undergrad. Then, think about the next step. Will you go on to grad school? Who will pay for that? And if you can’t find employment after UG, you still have student loan payments that will come due six months after graduation.
Whether or not your parents have “enough” money to be able to pay your outrageous bill at UCONN is not for you to decide. And even if they DID have the finances available, they are under no obligation to pay such a large amount.
You can drop out of school and wait until you are 24 years old and can declare yourself independent, then reapply to colleges, and work during that time to save money for tuition.
You can’t afford UCONN. Look for a school that you can commute to. You can pay for that by working and Stafford loans. $7500 for two years if you are a junior.
If you’re parents aren’t helping, you absolutely have to find a college you can afford - and that likely means an in-state public. Sorry, but there’s not way for you to come up with tens of thousands of dollars on your own - and even if someone were willing to cosign for you, you do NOT want to borrow that amount!
Please tell me you applied to a SUNY within commuting distance of your home. Is there one?
Did you discuss transfer applications with the transfer advisor at your CC? Were there any SUNY campuses where you might have gotten merit aid?
UConn as an OOS student will not be affordable for you.
@thumper1 yes, I have applied to several SUNYs. Unfortunately there is only one 4 year SUNY school within my area and it does not really offer the program I wanted. My problem is that my program is only offered at a few different universities. I had an appointment a few months ago with my transfer advisor and have a follow up tomorrow at noon to discuss more about how I am going to be able to pay for all of this.
I’m not sure what this specialized program is…so it’s hard to comment. But sometimes students find that they don’t need that special program, and that their local or less expensive options have a related program that will get them to their career goal.
I would suggest you also discuss your potential career goals, and ways to attain those.
Your transfer advisor is likely not going to be able to tell you how to fund the OOS costs for UConn. Usually these are academic advisors. In addition, their real familiarity would be with four year schools with articulation agreements with your community college. Usually these are instate public universities. I doubt that UConn has any articulation agreements with CCs in NY state.
But do ask…I could be very wrong.
I have learned so much from reading here on CC, and a common theme is that there are many routes from Point A to Point B. Yes, it would be convenient to attend the school that has your special major. But a creative student can figure out other ways to gain a similar knowledge base, maybe add in an internship to gain experience, and graduate with less debt and more flexibility.
What is your intended career after you graduate? Have you spoken with people working in that career, to understand what it takes to get a first job in that area, and also what practical knowledge and skill set are actually used in that field. Find out if there is a chance to enter your field of choice with a different major. Maybe you have to take some online classes to fulfill course requirements.
Are you going towards a career that requires a graduate degree? Speaking with people at several grad schools could give you an idea of whether your intended major is a requirement for grad school or not. Like in pre-med, you can major in anything in your undergraduate years, but you need certain science courses, etc.
Don’t give up. Determination and persistence can drive you towards success, if you are flexible and allow for some unexpected bends in the road along the way.
Is there an acceptable alternative at the close SUNY? That is probably your best choice. You can have big plans for grad school when you are working.
Unfortunately, the willingness of the parents to pay the CoA or not is never a consideration in the financial aid office. In addition, the EFC is likely the minimal amount you need to pay out of pocket as most schools do not meet need and part of the aid would be loan and workstudy that are also out of your pocket. You should have checked the NPC of each school before you submit the application and discussed with your parent what would be their maximum contribution. The reality is, most student do not have the financial freedom to go to the school they want even if they are admitted.
Your transfer advisor is not going to be able to help you figure out how to pay.
You’re going to have go to a much cheaper school.
Right now, submit FAFSA for the CURRENT school year and ask for the loans for THIS current school year, then bank that money.
Then work as much as you can between now and school starting in the fall. Then work during the school year, and work next summer too.
It is absurd for your parents (and you) to think you can pull money out of thin air as a transfer. As a freshman there are colleges that offer merit aid for stats but as a transfer the pickings are nearly nonexistent and token at most. You will usually find them at your instate publics.Yes people here do know the honor societies. Use the PTK page for scholarships.
So you can borrow 7,500 each for Jr and Sr year. You can make summer earnings and a small job during the school year but that doesn’t pay for tuition/room/board. I can’t understand why high income parents wouldn’t want their child to go to college. Being picky about major instead of picky about graduating doesn’t make any sense. People who go into neuroscience commonly have an undergrad in biology if that is the issue. Otherwise you can wait until you are 24 when you will be independent for financial aid and work in the meantime to save for your last 2 years.
I find it hard to believe that with 64 schools in the SUNY system as well as 19 schools in the CUNY system, that OP can’t find an affordable option. Even if s/he were to pay full freight at SUNY, it would be less than half the course at UCONN out of state.
What is your proposed major? Is it something that you may need to attend grad school to do? Can you be flexible enough to add something else (since you are currently attending CC, are you really rooted and grounded in your major to the extent, that you can’t be flexible enough to do some modifications?)… If you are majoring in neuroscience, I would be hard pressed to believe that you can’t find it at Stony Brook, Albany, Buffalo or Bing, which are the major research universities in the SUNY system.
THe net-net is that a parent’s unwillingness to pay will not be grounds for you to receive aid, especially at an out of state school, whose main goal is to provide an affordable option for its taxpayer base.
If you are a neurobiology major then you’re likely needing grad schooll. If so, if you look at the grad schools, it is highly unlikely that any require the undergrad degree be neurobio. Likely they accept psych majors, bio majors, neuroscience majors and so forth.
Your priority needs to be getting a degree so that you can move to the next step. Don’t put a roadblock in your way by stubbornly insisting on a particular major that can only be found at unaffordable schools.
There are more than one way to a career.