Need eligability question

Hello to all. Yesterday, my daughter was lucky enough to get accepted to BC. I am so very proud of her. She worked so hard and overcame a lot of adversity in her short 18 years. Now that the euphoria and elation of getting accepted by BC has waned a bit, I have to deal with the financial challenges if she is to enroll.

BC was a stretch school for her both academically and financially. Short of taking out loans for the full $70k x 4 years, I don’t see how we can afford it. My spouse and I are divorced and estranged but I hope we will work together to make this dream happen for her. As we are divorced, and not living together, there is little money left over for savings as we have double the expenses by maintaining 2 financially independent lives. There is money set aside but enough for 1 year enrollment. TOPS! I have read on this site that there is a need calculator, but I have not been able to access it. Can someone please post a link? Is it easy to compute? We don’t wish to get her hopes up high and taking out student loans is an option for a state school, and while that is still burdensome, it is half the cost of BC. We also don’t want to go through the full enrollment process without knowing what the outcome would be and get sticker shock at the end, only to back out. I am not looking for an “exact” need eligibility but an approx. amount would help me understand if going through the full enrollment process makes any sense. Anyone’s help is truly appreciated.

Congratulations on a wonderful acceptance! Did she apply for financial aid?

Net Price Calculator https://npc.collegeboard.org/app/bc
The link is also on the financial aid website https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/admission/affordability.html (scroll down this page)

Taking out $70k/year in loans (Parent Plus?) is not a good plan.

NPC generally provides a good estimate, but why not get fafsa and CSS Profile in for a real number as non-custodial parent financials can be tricky)?

https://www.bc.edu/content/bc-web/offices/student-services/financial-aid/undergraduate/applying-for-aid.html

Congratulations on your D getting in! That means she has some amazing achievements!

Good guidance counselors would share the information about NPC and FAFSA, let alone the colleges application portals talk about the FAFSA, IDOC, CSS? Puzzled.

Perhaps at private schools, but our top public had a student/GC ratio of 700:1. The counselors were definitely ‘good’, but there was no way they had time to get involved in individual finances and individual college portals.

@bluebayou

Great point.

@bluebayou Both my older ones went through a public of the largest HS’s in the city with a 1920:4 ratio of guidance counselors. My last was in a private with 623:1. None of our counselors got involved in individual finances or college portals.

It’s on the last tab on the common app website (Financial Aid Resources).