<p>Silverlight, in general, colleges do NOT promise to meet FAFSA EFC. The colleges that purport to meet full need mean need as they define it. They will consider financial information that is not included in the FAFSA and apply their own formulaa.</p>
<p>And meeting need does NOT mean the money will be grants – financial aid packages are generally a combination of loans, grants, and expected contributions from student earnings. Even when the EFC is -0-, they will still expect the student to contribute a modest dollar amount from earnings. </p>
<p>A college that says that it does not require a parental contribution under some circumstances may still expect the STUDENT to contribute – again, via loans and/or earnings.</p>
<p>Agree with calmom; if a meets-full-need school determines your EFC to be zero, your costs will be covered by grants, and, depending on the school, loans (up to Stafford limits, generally considered affordable) and student jobs.</p>
<p>In theory – with a combination of Perkins & Stafford, a student’s aid package might include $9,000 in subsidized loans their first year, increasing to $11K for each of the final 2 years. I don’t think that is often the case – funds available via the Perkins program are more limited – but the point is that schools that write loans into their packages may expect the student to take on more than the Stafford limit.</p>
<p>I’d note that I though the work-study allotment was unrealistically high for some of the schools which admitted my kids, as well. That is, I thought it highly unlikely that the kids would be able to find jobs or work as many hours as the college seemed to expect.</p>
<p>Let’s keep in mind that Silverlight originally asked about schools that pledge to meet need WITHOUT loans. If you go to the link he supplied [Project</a> on Student Debt: Financial Aid Pledges](<a href=“http://projectonstudentdebt.org/pc_institution.php]Project”>http://projectonstudentdebt.org/pc_institution.php) you can check which schools will use the institutional methodology and which use federal methodology to determine EFC. To get back to the original question, if the school pledges to not use loans and uses federal methodology to determine the EFC, then you should be able to count on that. There will probably also be a student contribution required from a summer job and/or work study. Those that use institutional methodology may not differ much from federal if you don’t have any assets beyond your income.</p>
<p>“That is, I thought it highly unlikely that the kids would be able to find jobs or work as many hours as the college seemed to expect.”</p>
<p>My limited experience is that schools provide the Federal work-study job (on or off campus) at an appropriate number of hours when expected earnings are part of the aid package; that’s how it works at our LAC. For those not eligible for Federal work-study, such jobs that are part of the package are always on campus.</p>
<p>It doesn’t make sense (to me, at least) for a school to require a job as part of aid, but then not provide it, precisely because students would be unlikely to be able to find an appropriate job on their own.</p>
<p>I think we keep talking about loans because there are few full-need schools that don’t use them.</p>
<p>In theory – with a combination of Perkins & Stafford, a student’s aid package might include $9,000 in subsidized loans their first year, increasing to $11K for each of the final 2 years. I don’t think that is often the case – funds available via the Perkins program are more limited – but the point is that schools that write loans into their packages may expect the student to take on more than the Stafford limit.</p>
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<p>This is what we experienced with our financial aid package at one meets-full-need college. It’s been several years, so the memory is a bit fuzzy, but I recall a loan other than Stafford & Perkins (something the school has in addition to those loan programs). The freshman loan amount was around 8000 or 9000, and there was a considerable work study award in the package, as well. And the COA had little “padding,” so the loans and work study were a big deal for us. As much as my D liked this school, it was off the table as an option due to the package. So, even though they met need, it was not meeting need in the sense that we would liked to have had our need met. ;)</p>
<p>D is at a school that meets need without loans. Our Profile EFC as determined by this school is a bit lower than our FAFSA EFC, and there is a lot of padding in the COA. This school is one of the most expensive schools, and we pay less than we are paying for S at a state school with a decent scholarship.</p>
<p>I have seen many “award” letters from my students over the years, and of course, my own children. On many of them it has said that if one is awarded FWS, it does not mean an automatic job, and that is up to the student to secure the job. At some schools that is not easy.</p>
<p>I have never seen it work that way at any college I’ve had experience with. Generally it is the student’s responsibility to apply for available jobs on campus and arrange hours. First year students are often at a disadvantage and find that upperclassmen are able to get the better-paying positions and more flexible hours, in part because they’ve got more experience navigating the campus job market, and in part because once they’ve got a job lined up that they like they can often come back to it in later years. Sometimes the campus jobs are also open to non work-study students, although usually work-study students have some sort of hiring priority.</p>
<p>calmom, the details you give are exactly how it works at our LAC. The school provides enough open jobs, and students must apply for each individual job, just as you say.</p>
<p>Calmom, it’s the opposite situation at my college. First years are at an advantage because on campus employers want to have an equal number of “employees” per class year. </p>
<p>There still aren’t enough on campus jobs to go around though.</p>
<p>There definitely is no guarantee of “enough” jobs or available hours for any given student at many schools. Often the good jobs are in short supply. My son managed to get a job his first year working at the 24-hour campus recreation center, manning the front desk in the wee hours of the morning – for example, working a 1am-5am shift. The pay was lousy and it’s likely the hours are part of the reason he ran into academic problems down the line. My daughter was never able to get enough hours fit into her schedule her first couple of years to earn anywhere near her relatively small work study allotment – she found it more efficient to work an off-campus job that paid more.</p>
<p>When I have seen how tough it is for a first year student to earn a work-study grant in the range of $1500… I really have to question how realistic it would have been for my kids to earn the work study allotments of $4000-$5000 that were in the financial aid packages from other schools.</p>
The school provides enough open jobs, and students must apply for each individual job, just as you say.</p>