Negotiating Aid - Medical Bills Too High

Paying for College
1

<p>Hi there! </p>

<p>I have been accepted to several schools like Fordham, Drexel and UM (Miami). However, the amount of aid given is not sufficient. My EFC is like 17500 (not sure what that means exactly ...). I have suffered from neurological issues (like brain tumors) and have needed MRIs quite frequently. In light of that, medical bills are where most of our money goes. This is not reflected in FASFA though. If there anyway I can convince these schools to give me more aid ? Or maybe there are scholarships for students with neurological disabilities ? I don't know. Honestly I just want to go to a good school so that one day I can be a neurologist and help those in need. Ugh why is college so expensive D: ?!</p>

2

<p>You can request a special circumstances adjustment from each school to reflect high medical bills. You would have to provide documentation showing the unreimbursed (by insurance) expenses incurred during the year. If they do decide to make an adjustment it is not $ for $ reduction of the EFC. Instead, they first reduce the qualifying expenses by the amount included for medical expenses in the protected income allowances, then they basically reduce reported income by the balance of expenses approved and calculate a new EFC. We did one my daughter’s first year of college. I think in our case, $10,000 ish of medical expenses reduced the EFC by around 2,000.</p>