Negotiating financial aid and scholarships

Paying for College
1

Is there any room for negotiation on the cost of attendance, or for asking for more scholarship money? If so, what is the procedure for this?

My son has narrowed his selection to two liberal arts colleges. They are similar, but Option A is closer to home and Option B has a slightly better plan for his major. They are nearly the same in cost.

Option A will not decide merit packages for a few more weeks. Option B has come forward with a significant merit scholarship package. Based on conversations with former scholarship students, I do not think Option A will be able to match the package that Option B has offered.

We have two more children coming after him. My husband is fully disabled, working only in a simple part time job and we are on full (private) disability with mostly replacement income. Most of it is untaxed. I am full time employed. We do not qualify for any help according to FAFSA.

On paper, our income looks larger than it should. Before his disability we made a ton of money and we saved and invested a ridiculous amount of what we earned. Since his disability, we have extremely high medical costs (high enough to itemize and receive full deductions each year). My husband has frequent brain surgeries and expensive medications for a condition that is incurable but will likely be long lasting. We have long term plans that we must prepare for that most families do not have at our age and stage of life. We now must prepare not only for the college funds but also for long term health care for my husband sho is fairly young with lots of years left to fight.

If Option A would be able to match the amount Option B is providing, we will be able to afford Option A, and I do believe this is his first choice. If Option A can’t negotiate, we probably need to close that chapter and start making plans with Option B.

Do I have any case for negotiation, or are we living an extremely difficult game of Life, and need to suck it up?

2

You can explain all of this to some colleges and they may be able to figure out need beyond their normal formulas.

I know a family with two children with special needs. They will never live independently. One college took the time to talk with the mother and offered an additional $20,000 need based aid per year based on this long term family commitment that they must save for.

Colleges will usually be honest with you if they can do anything to get closer to another offer or not.

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I don’t have advice, as we are in exactly the same situation. Different medical condition, but same worries. We are waiting to hear from schools, but I am flummoxed by the whole situation. Our assets (mostly a small rental property) disqualify us per the net price calculators, and the disability income looks fine on paper, but our financial future is precarious. Our medical expenses can be through the roof. I figure when the time comes, I will be having conversations with financial aid folks.

Even though I have no answer, I just wanted to reach out to say you aren’t alone, and there are people out here that know how challenging your situation is. Hope you are hanging in there ok.

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@Pathnottaken Thank you, that is exactly what I was wondering.

Would I discuss this situation now, before official financial aid packages come out, or later, as an appeal?

5

@CateCAParent So kind of you, thank you :heart:

6

Usually you wait until the financial aid package comes, but you can proactively reach out based on the NPC And FAFSA EFC numbers.

7

What you are asking them for is need based aid, not merit. You can appeal after you get your package.

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Contact the financial aid office and ask how they deal with special circumstance considerations. Explain about the ongoing medical issues. The college(s) will tell you what their process is.

These are handled on a case by case basis.

Some colleges do these, and others don’t
but you won’t know until you ask.

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9

Agree with the above. Also, if the schools are peer schools, I would show School B’s offer to School A. Sounds like both schools are actively using merit/discounts to attract students so I would at least have the conversation with an FA Director of School A, after the FA package comes in.

At that point you would share School B’s offer, as well as the disability and medical expense information and go from there. I also recommend not approaching this as a ‘negotiation’ with the FA staff. Just simply state the facts and that School A is your son’s #1 choice and he will attend if you can get COA to X. This is a conversation the parents should be having with FA, not the student. IMO. Good luck.

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I agree that many schools have a special circumstances process, and medical expenses are definitely an area that they look at.

I would consider calling them and asking for their process and following that path, rather than asking them to meet another school’s offer, as you may get more that way, and save the other offer as a request if the medical needs don’t come through.

And second that this is a conversation for the parent, not the student.

Also sometimes you can find this information on the schools website.

Is this a CSS profile school?

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11

hi
Keep in mind that this is just November. You do not have to make a final decision until May 1 (national decision day).

You may be asking too early. The school has not accepted the majority of its applicants yet. to ask right now, may trigger a no, because there may be stronger students out there who the school wants to woo.

Do not use the word negotiate. If you are talking about an increase in need-based aid, you will want a financial review and present your case regarding your financial situation that the school has not taken into consideration. Make sure that you have all of your supporting documents.

If the school states in their financial aid policy that they will consider an offer from a peer school, make sure that the other school is actually a peer. Some schools (Conn college for example- will straight up tell you they do not look at what another school gave you as part of their financial aid package).

Regarding merit- make sure that you are comparing apples to apples. If school A is giving you 25000 for a 4.0 unweighted GPA 1400, and School B is giving full tuition for 4.0 and 1450 and your kid got 1500, don’t automatically assume that school A will cough up more money (remember, nothing beats the institutional mission, and you won’t know what that is. They may need to build the classics department and you are one of many STEM majors. It may not be something the school is willing to pay more for). School A may not consider school B a head-to-head peer.

If you can find out, you may want to find out the revealed preference.

I. Why a Revealed Preference Ranking? In this study, we show how to construct a ranking of U.S. undergraduate programs based on students’ revealed preferences –that is, the colleges students prefer when they can choose among them. The result is a ranking of colleges based on their desirability.

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C:\Working Papers\10803.wpd - National Bureau of Economic 


https://www.nber.org â€ș system â€ș files â€ș working_papers
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Regarding merit money- Read the fine print regarding merit because all merit is not created equally. At some schools, you only need to make satisfactory academic progress to keep your scholarship (this means as long as you get a C, you are good)

At other schools, you may need a certain GPA to keep your scholarship. Remember college is not high school, there. will be no calls home or gentle reminder emails saying that your Egbert has an assignment due on this day. The rigor of college work combined with being away from home, trying to meet new friends, and adjusting to college life can throw off even the best straight-A student off of their game. You will want to know when does the clock starts ticking on the GPA- does it start at the end of the first term or the end of the first year. You want to know what happens if the student misses the mark - a 3.48 is not the 3.5 gpa requirement (there is no rounding). You want to know if they can get the scholarship back once it is lost and the requirements for getting the scholly reinstated.

In the worst-case scenario, if student loses the academic scholarship, will there be enough need based aid to make the school a viable option?

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Thanks to so many of you who have responded!

There is some really amazing advice here, and I assure you I am taking every word of it to heart with my child. We completely understand the different viewpoints you’ve all presented, and will do a little research and wait to ask about this at just the right time, thanks to all of you.

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I sent you a DM. Let me know if you have trouble accessing it.

14

Don’t wait. Small lacs like contact. They also actually want your student to go there.

So
 Make your contact connections now. At a small lac it helps with interest in the school. Be honest. Let them help you. You can always “negotiate later”.

If your child is in demand that’s all the better. My daughter was being looked at by several schools and we used one offer against the others etc BUT nicely.

When they gave us their “final” merit offer we asked if they could do anything with housing fees since it wasn’t merit. They gave us another $2,000


When visiting some lacs and waiting in the admissions office for my daughter to finish her tour I have overheard the staff talking about so and so calling back and the financial aid person was just in the next room and yes, they talked about helping the family and the interest they continue to show. This happened at several Small Lacs


Good Luck. We were told once. They usually want you more then you want them :wink:

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15

As you negotiate this try to get them to commit to 4 years of aid due to the planning you need to do.

Easier to do with Merit than need based sometimes. But with need based ask if all factors stay the same can we expect a similar amount of support and try to get that in writing.

You do not want to commit and then have to have him transfer out because you do not get as much in year two or three.

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