Negotiating for more financial aid...

@swimmingdad and your wallet. LOL I’ll be glad when it’s all over. I’ve been negotiating with the private schools too. Got an extra $2,000 and another $2000 loan!!! Not nearly enough to fill the gap between that and our state flagship school. My understanding is the state schools won’t negotiate so I haven’t tried yet. But that might be where she ends up unfortunately. I’d be willing to pay a few thousand more for private but not $15K a year.

@SwimmingDad keep us posted. I think my S could go to Utah and get a degree for around $90,000 for 4 years, if he establishes residency after his freshman year. This makes the $160,000 that UVM will require look like a ton of money.

I am kind of having buyers remorse. My S had good offers from so many other less expensive places - even private schools. I feel like I feel into the UVM marketing scam and i should have known better. I need to take a few days to rethink this whole thing. We already put down a deposit and also paid for orientation. Still, even losing this money we would come out WAY ahead. S got a merit scholarship at UVM, but still thinking that we made a big mistake.

UVM has really high OOS tuition, $40k. There is no way to look at that and not think it is a lot of money. If the student’s gpa falls below 3.0, the merit aid is gone. FA is determined every year so if you make a little more, you may pay a little more. If you negotiate for more need based aid this year, you’ll be doing it every year, and what if they say No next year?

LuisaL, I’d work on getting your son to LOVE Utah! It is really a good deal and a beautiful place to live.

@twoinanddone, these are scary thoughts. Do you know these things from your own experience?

@OnEdge2021 what are the other options for your S?

He had many and some with major scholarships of upwards of 30+
Ursinus ($29,000), Ithaca (37,000), Rutgers, UMass (36,000), College of Wooster (24,000) TCNJ, URI (28,000)

UNH too.

@OnEdge2021 Wow! I agree, maybe going back to the drawing board is something to consider. Those are some major scholarships at some great schools. Did your S get $18,000/year from UVM?

Binghamton - 4,000 scholarship - but forgot the total cost.

@luisal, no only 15,000.

@luisal, to be clear the amounts above aren’t the scholarship amounts they are the amounts of tuition after the scholarship. So for example, he got 20,000 at Ithaca, leaving the cost of the school for him at 37,000.

@twoinanddone I know! Go Utes. We are going out to tour the campus and ski Alta. If it is a good fit, I will be excited. If not, #gocatamounts

Wow, it sounds like you have many options that offer more affordability than UVM.

@LuisaL, I didn’t really know about the possibility of losing my job and well, I am not sure what else I was thinking. I liked the environmental science department. I was not wild about the places S got the most money from - they were too small and well besides that I think maybe I lost my mind a bit.

I really don’t want to hijack this thread or be one of those help help me kind of pathetic college confidential people. There are some crazy folks on CC and I fear that this evening I have become one of them! Carry on…

I do know a student who lost her scholarships for falling below the 3.0 at UVM and the cost of her senior year is very high (well, I’m sure it is $13-18k more without her scholarship).

My daughter goes to a school that also has a $40k tuition price tag (cough, choke it was only $32k when she selected it), and her merit scholarship requires a 3.0 to renew. If she lost it she couldn’t attend the school anymore. That’s just a financial reality and she knows it. She doesn’t receive any need based aid from the school, so I’m not negotiating with them every year.

You have to weigh the offers and options, what might happen, including losing the scholarship. We did, but decided it was worth the risk, especially as my daughter works pretty hard in school (for my other daughter? no, we wouldn’t have taken the risk). If I was also worried about losing need based aid every year, I think that might be too much stress and too much risk for me to take on. Of course she could always transfer, but we didn’t want to start with the mindset she would transfer.

@OnEdge2021 You haven’t hijacked the conversation…you have simply (and thoughtfully) hit the topic that keeps many of us up at night. Frankly, it’s the honest conversation colleges need to be having these days.

When my son was a HS freshman, our financial planner told us to start having the conversation with him that $$$ is going to be a factor in the selection of a college. When we hit this year we reiterated to him that he didn’t have to choose the lowest cost option but rather one that was in the ballpark of the lowest cost option. (So give or take $10K per year…a number I pulled out of my you know what.) I told him I would help him do the negotiation with the school but in the end price was the final factor.

Why did our financial planner do this? Because one of his families sent a child off to an Ivy…Cornell I believe…and then had to tell her they couldn’t send her back because they spent all of their savings to send her for the first year. She literally went from an Ivy to a community college/living at home…and understandably it caused a lot of friction in the house.

@twoinanddone You nailed it. Everyone needs to think about the risks involved and then, with thought, make the right decision for your family. But do it with your eyes wide open and try to involve your child. They are smarter and a little more worldly (for the most part) than we give them credit for.

Best of luck to all.

I’ve had contact with both the FA and admissions office on this topic. FA only because they asked me to contact both however I hadn’t expected them to adjust anything (we are full pay) and they confirmed that they do not negotiate or review FA offers.

Admissions did say they will reconsider merit awards if there is new information (test scores and gpa specifically).

I can relate to all here. We are debating a strong regional school versus UVM. For his program, UVM wins and there are many many other reasons why UVM seems to be the clear choice but…the strong regional is 90k for 4 years. That gives us all pause.

I have also gone back to Ursinus for a merit review as at the time of the request that was his #2 choice but I think it’s fallen to #3 now.

Ursinus will be willing to negotiate, but moreso as it gets closer to mid April. Also different majors are worth more to them in terms of money. Environmental science will be willing to negotiate.