Net Price Calculator Shock

College Majors Music Major
1

<p>Hello Everyone,</p>

<p>Just started running the numbers and it doesn't look good. I assumed that my son would qualify for grant aid since our income is modest at best. Never assume. Eastman and Oberlin are still on our list, but otherwise we'll be looking south and also at SUNY (we're out of state, but SUNY offers stronger programs and is no more expensive than our state schools). Where there's a will there's a way, but I have to wonder how all of this is going to play out both on the micro and macro levels. We don't want to take on a lot of debt and there's been good advice on this forum to that end. How much longer can college costs continue to skyrocket? It seems to me that we are way past the crisis point. Sorry to vent.</p>

2

<p>I agree wth you, and it’s got to affect the private conservatories, inasfar as fewer Americans are and will be attending those conservatories. Most people are in the middle; they can’t afford full tuition and don’t qualify for much “aid”. For us, if that aid is in loans, it doesn’t count. I expect to see a slow rise in the caliber of students at public university music departments.</p>

3

<p>Another thing to remember and to hope for are merit scholarships. We found that the NPC underestimated the amount of aid and scholarship money that son qualified for. Also, we found the SUNY schools came through with extra scholarship money over and above their initial offers and beat every private school son applied to. If you read through the master list list of acceptances, you’ll find that some earned total scholarships to some top schools while getting much less from lesser schools. Fortunately (unfortunately) for music majors you won’t know until you go through the whole process, get the award letters and talk to the schools what the final Cost of Attendance will be. So, have your child work on the audition repertoire and apply to a wide range of schools from financial safeties to reach schools and be prepared for a grueling audition season, excrutiating wait for the acceptances and an exciting time deciding which school to attend.</p>

4

<p>The sticker shock is huge, especially at the top level private conservatories, and from what I can tell most of them are using need based formulas in determining aid,several of the top conservatories state that they don’t do non need based merit aid, including Juilliard. One of the ways they are handling this is with the influx of students from Korea and China, many of whom are from well off families (not all, obviously), who will pay full freight. On the violin, it is often Korean young women from well off families, with China it can be either.</p>

<p>The irony is with classical music the cost of getting a kid into a high level program, let alone paying for it, is soaring, the cost of private lessons, the cost of the music festivals and instruments and such, is not small, and then when you reach conservatory, massive sticker shock. If you are a string player, the prices of instruments are through the roof, on violin a violin in the 20k range is considered “modest”, new violins from unknown makers are in that range (we are going through the process) and at the level kids are entering conservatory at, finding an instrument that matches that level at that price is not easy (it is different for other instruments, last I checked a high end buffet clarinet was about 5k). </p>

<p>Currently people are willing to pay the freight to get into these programs , in large part because the typical level of student there is high as compared to the better priced alternatives (in large part because the big schools, like Juilliard, have name recognition), go into debt, and so forth, but I think what will happen is students and their families simply will go for the better priced alternatives, raising the level of playing there, and the current top level schools will be left with either well off kids who can pay the freight (increasingly upper class foreign students) or maybe someone from really low incomes or from underrepresented groups (for example, Aftican American or Hispanic students). </p>

<p>There was an article about that, with academic schools like NYU that are known for large tuition but give aid, and in the end, it hurts everyone other then those who can pay full freight, that for the less well off students, the aid still leaves their family with a bill they cannot pay, and for people in middle or upper middle incomes no aid with a huge bill they prob cannot afford. I think the same thing is going to happen with music, they are going to find that eventually the cost of going isn’t worth it, especially given how fraught a career in classical music is.</p>

5

<p>Not a pretty picture. We have already broken the bank with lessons, prep, instruments, summer camp, etc… But this is our son’s dream and I won’t give up. I am determined to find the right place for him at the right price with the right teacher. I won’t elaborate on the global, political, and class ramifications of what is currently going on in higher education except that it requires a federal response.</p>

6

<p>Hi Bachmom, I understand completely. My daughter just went through this process, and it was stress inducing from start to finish because I knew how much aid we needed (tons). April was full of surprises. A school I hadn’t expected anything from because they give no merit aid, came up with a big need-based package (and then increased it), a school that has a reputation for giving a lot of merit aid gave only a modest amount (and then tripled it), another with the same reputation actually gave a lot (and then upped it), a state school gave nothing at all (and then came up with a bunch of money), one school gave only merit money, which they increased to the maximum they ever give…but their max was still below my minimum. Bottom line: I could afford not one of the 7 schools my daughter was accepted to on April 1, but by May 1, I was able to afford five, and the other 2 had moved closer to affordability. </p>

<p>Those that provided the most need-based aid asked for the FAFSA and the CSS profile. Those that only asked for FAFSA did less on the need-based side of things, but tended to do better on the merit side. </p>

<p>My recommendation, if you receive offers that fall short of affordability, is to appeal. Some have formal processes, some don’t, but my daughter contacted admissions departments, teachers, heads of departments, and heads of music schools. I contacted financial aid folks. I didn’t play offers against one another as I wasn’t seeking the best deal, merely one I could – with herculean effort – afford (although one conservatory asked us to provide other offers). They all responded – some a little, some a lot, and in the end, it made all the difference. </p>

<p>I don’t want to go through the process again, although I will (another daughter 15). Best of luck!</p>

7

<p>FAFSA declared that our D did not require need-based aid, so her offers were merit-based only. As in StringPop’s D’s case, the offers that came in varied a lot, and didn’t always make sense to us, i.e. a top program offered the biggest scholarship, and a program that was much less well-known offered nothing. One school said they would do their best to match peer schools’ offers, and went so far as to invite us to send them in. I think it makes sense to apply to a variety of schools because you can’t predict what anyone is going to offer your child in the end. And even for the schools that are famous for not offering much merit aid…is this the year that they change that policy? Is this the year that your child was the absolute best auditioner on his instrument? Or is this the year that they had 50 applicants for only one spot?</p>

<p>Don’t cross a dream school off the list because it seems as though you won’t be able to afford it, and at the same time don’t expect a seemingly second-tier program to come up with more money. Time to start working hard on those audition pieces! :slight_smile: That’s the only real control your family has over this process! That and where your child applies, and where he accepts!</p>

8

<p>For us, the only way to go into this was to set financial restrictions before she started and then have a very clear understanding with DD that if the numbers did not work she would not go. Her initial first choice did not come through with any money. Others did and the one she chose ended up being the best place for her all around. You don’t need to eliminate schools ahead of time if there is a clear understanding of the financial rules. It is too hard to figure out who will have the lowest COA in the end.</p>

9

<p>Thanks everyone. We will continue to include a mix of dream schools as well as targets and “safeties” on our list. I’ve actually started to call some of the schools directly and was told in no uncertain terms by one top tier state university (with an excellent music school) that there would be no grant aid out-of-state unless you qualified as extremely needy. Ironically, this school currently advertises itself as a “best buy.” The financial aid landscape seems to be shifting overnight, making a daunting process that much more daunting. Yes, herculean efforts are required.</p>

10

<p>I think it’s good advice not to “fall in love” with any particular school and that a “dream school” is one that you can afford. You have no idea which one of these choices is ideal until all the numbers are in. You are right in assuming that the financial aid landscape is constantly in a state of flux, especially at music schools. This can be a good thing, as there is likely a school out there where the pendulum will be swinging in your students favor. Good luck!!</p>

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<p>Having just completed the process, my advice is to look at the financial picture as clearly as you can. That means asking questions at every opportunity–before visits, during visits, during sample lessons, after visits, before applications, before auditions, after auditions, etc. When you visit, set up appointments with financial aid. Since most teens are not wired to ask questions about finances, I don’t think parents should feel as though they are being “pushy” when they do so. I’ve never felt comfortable talking about money, but I really wish I had forced myself to ask a lot more from the admissions and financial aid people. As well as running the EFC calculators yourself, do it with an admissions officer, or call the school once you have done it to ask questions. Make sure you ask the counselor to differentiate between grant aid and loan aid. You might be surprised how low your income needs to be before you will get grant aid. Don’t believe what you read on the websites or in the glossy brochures that give examples of how they have helped kids from middle-income families attend. And make sure you understand what “needs-based aid” means–it could very well mean lots of loans, not real money. Ask who gets merit aids and in what amounts–I mean, ask really blunt questions about the size of merit grants. We found many conservatories and universities give no merit grants at all to music majors, regardless of exceptional academic ability. So don’t count on your kid’s great high-school record and bag full of APs to help you out. Same for music scholarships–ask really blunt questions: what students got scholarships in the last couple of years and in what amounts? What instrument did they play or what voice part? If your child is a soprano singer and the school never gives music scholarships to sopranos, have them tell you that before you go to audition (we found out this key information after a costly trip). Ask what instruments/voice they will need for the year you enter–that is where the money will go. Ask about the size of their graduate program–and make sure your no-scholarship dollars are not shoring up the graduate program. Keep smaller schools in consideration–small LACs are the ones who will give great money to academically achieving, musically talented students. I wish I had asked many more questions (and wish I hadn’t felt embarrassed about asking them) when we first planned visits. We would have saved a lot of time, audition cost, and stress if I had done a better job of asking tough questions and insisting on answers. Good luck!</p>

12

<p>Great post, annie43</p>

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<p>Ditto, annie43. I could have used your post a year ago! Sidenote: That’s totally true about the loan part of need-based aid! One conservatory “matched” an offer from another school by adding loans to the “aid” package…admittedly, there are different types of loans, and some of the federal loans are better in some ways than others, but I still find it tough to regard debt as aid.</p>

14

<p>You’re welcome! One more aspect that still confuses me–I thought I was being financially responsible by running each and every school’s EFC calculator before letting my daughter add that school to her application list. All results showed me the school would be somewhat affordable to our family, and the websites and visits lulled us into thinking we had a shot at merit/music scholarships. I still cannot fathom why, but in every case the EFC calculations were way off once we received post-offer financial aid packages. I ran the calculators again with numbers from our tax return/FAFSA and got the same results I had first time around. I talked to some of the schools about the huge discrepancy and was told that the calculator is there as a government requirement and is meant as a guideline only. One school told me that there are additional costs for music that are not accounted for the the university’s general EFC calculator. In many cases, where the EFC had requested GPA/grades, the calculator did not take into account that music schools don’t generally grant academic merit awards. I still am mystified by the huge gap between EFC estimates and our final packages, but am not clear exactly what else I may have misunderstood. So ask questions–don’t let the EFC calculators (which the schools admit are flawed) lead you to believe you can afford a school that is a huge financial reach for you.</p>

15

<p>The same true here. No correlation between packages and those calculators. If I’d relied upon them, I wouldn’t have allowed my daughter to apply anywhere. Thankfully, I just crossed my fingers and allowed her to apply everywhere she wanted. This was actually pretty easy to do, since it seemed there wasn’t a single college I could actually afford.</p>

16

<p>Annie – Thanks so much for your “blunt” advice. It makes a lot of sense. I’ve already started to ask the tough questions and will continue to do so. Like many of you, I don’t consider loans to be “aid.”</p>

17

<p>Thanks for this thread. About to start this process with D, and yes she’s a soprano (so no help there), academically talented (and as you all are saying that may or may not count.) My plan is to let her audtion where she wants, but be aware that in the end the finances have to work too.</p>