<p>I just read an article (Williams</a> Record - Latest Edition: January 16, 2008)
that states, " Beginning next year, a Harvard student whose family earns $180,000 will only have to pay $18,000 of the schools $45,600 sticker price".</p>
<p>Is Caltech doing or planning to do something similar? <please dear="" fsm=""></please></p>
<p>DMRenrel, I read in the Tech that students with family incomes under $60,000 will have no loans starting next year. It doesn't sound like that would affect you at all :)</p>
<p>Snowcapk, can you point me to any links?</p>
<p>It would be very helpful.</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Yeah, we're not in the under 60k bracket, for which I don't suppose I can complain really. That said, it would be fantastic if Caltech would offer something like this 10% scale...we could like exactly afford 18k/year. I'd dearly love to get out of this state and spend some time with people to whom an 800 math is a given. More than anything, I just want to be around intelligent people. High school is such a hindrance.</p>
<p>DMRenrel, Caltech doesn't have a policy like Harvard's 10% scale, but I would hold out and see what Caltech asks you to pay. Loans were never a part of my financial aid package, and my mom was asked to pay <10% of her income. If you find you really can't afford what the school offers you, I suggest calling to negotiate and explain any special financial circumstances - you might be able to get a better offer.</p>
<p>Arwen, here's a link to the article in The</a> California Tech.</p>
<p>My friend's parents were relatively old, didn't have that many assets, house wasn't worth much, and they earned around $160,000. My friend received zero (that's right, zero, nada, not one cent) financial aid from Caltech. Friend was completely distressed and was unable to attend.</p>
<p>yeah. my mom is young, was asked to pay a LOT more than 10% of her income according to our estimate from EA. I don't know if they used my dad's income or something when calculating that, but they had a separate section for "non-custodial contribution" (which was in addition to the EFC), so I don't think so. a Harvard-like policy would be really good.</p>
<p>basically, if my real fin aid package comes out like that... I'm probably not going to caltech... unless MIT's is even worse? haha. <em>yayyyyy loans? lol; we'll see</em> so, yeah, a Harvard-like policy would be wonderful, from all schools, namely MIT+Caltech. (the new fin aid policy was like 40% of the reason I still applied to Harvard, even though I would possibly be happier at MIT or Caltech...)</p>
<p>so, yeah. I feel your pain. esp since my parent's are divorced, but their COMBINED income is a lot. <em>sigh</em> oh well</p>
<p>Etyso, the sad part is that if your friend's parents owned a very expensive house and channeled their income into material goods, your friend would probably have gotten some aid. I'm guessing that Caltech saw that there was money in savings just waiting to be spent, and it pounced.</p>
<p>Lalaloo, maybe you should take it as a sign that you need to be applying for outside scholarships. Your chances of getting a significantly better aid package somewhere else are poor. My mom was not too thrilled about my EA aid package (even though it was <10% of her income) and threatened to send me to state school (!) if it didn't improve by May. So I applied for scholarships from my school district, Rotary, etc. which ended up covering a lot of the EFA. At any rate I wouldn't pray that MIT's package is any better than Caltech's ;)</p>
<p>So maybe someone can answer this question about Harvard's new policy: you only have to "contribute" 10% of your parents' income per year, but what is the policy on loans? Are they just loading you down with loans to make up for all the money you're "saving"?</p>
<p>I really hope that Caltech doesn't adopt a policy like Harvard's, because we simply don't have the money to do so. If alums start donating more to make it possible, great, but if we did it now I'd feel like we'd have to sacrifice some part of the education here. Caltech doesn't exactly have a huge endowment.</p>