<p>You can get by on the cheap. I mean there are people who go to Pod and spend $20 on a lunch, and then there are those who go to a food cart and get it for $4</p>
<p>@JohnnyK:</p>
<p>At first I didn't believe it, but there actually are people who eat at Pod every day. It amazes me.</p>
<p>@ matt</p>
<p>I KNOW ***. Only at Penn can a regular lower-upper-middle class kid like myself feel like a "man of the people" ;)</p>
<p>...apparently w.t.f. is now a potty word that requires censorship...</p>
<p>
[quote]
$4 for <em>rice</em>? Is the west coast really that outrageously expensive that you've been conditioned to pay that much for something that gets given out free at many restaurants?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>no I'm talking about the same quality of food. not plain white rice.</p>
<p>Pardon moi? </p>
<p>My financial aid notice arrived today with my 2007-2008 Educational Expense Budget of $49,930. This does not include another $2,400 for health insurance.</p>
<p>Fear not though. Penn has awesome financial aid.</p>
<p>no they dont....</p>
<p>Yes they do...I got 45k per year in financial aid. Penn's financial aid for people who actually need it seems to be great.</p>
<p>Penn's aid is not nearly as good as many of its peer institutions.</p>
<p>When I started looking at schools in high school, we (my parents and I) talked about college as a "40k" per year expense. Now, going into my junior year at Penn, we talk about it as a "50k" per year expense. To those of you who Penn is funding, thank your lucky stars. Penn's now crossed over the $200,000 expected expense mark for many families, and that's not chump change to <em>anyone</em>.</p>
<p>Financial aid is far better than most schools out there for most people, but it's still behind Princeton and Harvard, due to the relatively small endowment.</p>
<p>Any college that is need blind for internationals provides good aid in my book. The rest are just at different levels of stingy. Princeton only gives grants (no loans). Harvard and Columbia (I think Stanford too) guarantee full need met if you earn less than 50 or 60 thousand per year. In comparison, Penn isn't doing so well. Penn is still better than the vast majority of colleges out there in terms of giving aid, but thats not good enough if we truly want to be considered as good as HYPS.</p>
<p>I did not get excellent financial aid from Penn. I was actually expecting more. The gave me about 28 K in penn grants and other federal stuff. So my family contribution was about 5.5K and 3K in federal loans. Considering that my family income was below 50K cuz my dad was sick and wasnt able to work, it was bad. Luckily, however, I got this amazing scholarship and now my Penn grants are only 2K.
But still, it is better than other private schools like NYU, BU, etc.</p>
<p>Well yeah, coming from NYU this is like a dream come true. NYU gave me 10k, and Penn gave me 45k.</p>
<p>Penn gave me 0. Maryland would have probably given me full with the possibility to make a profit by going to college.</p>
<p>
Is that so? Penn made a big deal of announcing earlier this year that it would replace loans with grants for any student whose family makes less than $60,000 a year:</p>
<p>negative: ppl are too sarcastic and use too much cynicism
lol ppl on the board probably knows what i'm talking about</p>
<p>sarcasm is the way to go :)</p>
<p>Also, 45 percenter, the no loans means that you may not get 100% of costs met by need, so you will still have to pay out of pocket. At the other schools I'm pretty sure that all costs on the financial aid sheet are met. While you probably spend several thousand more than the estimated financial aid costs, that can make a big difference.</p>
<p>Well, for what it's worth, financial aid at Penn should improve dramatically over the next few years, with the multi-billion-dollar capital campaign to be announced in October:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Universities usually conduct capital campaigns to raise money for new facilities. Penn officials say this one, currently in the ``quiet'' phase of cultivating the biggest donors before going public, focuses on student aid and endowing faculty positions.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>unless I see a dime of it, I could care less :)</p>
<p>That's why I said "for what it's worth."</p>
<p>Just wait til you're an alum--then you'll care. Especially when they keep hitting you up for contributions!</p>