With your stats it is simply not necessary to pay full price if you can get your undergrad education for less at schools who would offer you full tuition or even more if you are NMF. Isn’t there a Hope scholarship in Georgia, is that need based or for high stats students?
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apparently we cannot declare them as dependents because they aren’t American citizens)
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No, it’s because they don’t live with you.
Why Auburn? Alabama would give you more money whether you’re NMF or not.
My son was premed at Alabama. He’s now a 3rd year med student.
@twoinanddone I’ve actually done a couple for them and shared them with my parents. I cannot read their expression of whether this is something possible for them because they don’t ever answer. They just kind of ignore me. When I do them, however, I play around with the numbers just to see how much each thing impacts the EFC. I’ve seen that what impacts it the most is assets which unfortunately is the thing I know the least about. We don’t live an extravagant lifestyle by any means. We live in an average house, our cars are all '06 and older and we don’t shop or eat out much not to mention my mom has become sort of an obsessive couponer. I’ve helped my parents write bills before so I have an idea of our normal monthly expenses and it’s not anywhere close to their monthly take home as far as I know. My household is kind of on a “be grateful and don’t ask questions” basis so I don’t know much and my parents like to keep it that way. I don’t know where all the money goes but I know that neither me nor my sister have college funds because they tried to create one for us earlier this year and then gave up on it. I have a feeling that they either have the money stowed away and they don’t want to tell me or they use it for something I don’t know about. Either way I seem to be the one most concerned about paying for college.
@mommdc part of Hope is based on need I think but the majority is based on a certain GPA and test scores. The only problem is that it only applies to in state schools and I’ve never wanted to stay in state.
@mom2collegekids Auburn is on my list because my cousin and a few of my friends have gone there and really enjoyed it. I heard that they have pretty decent scholarships that I hope I can qualify for and they are in the process of creating a medical school if it’s not done already.
If your parent EFC per FAFSA is $24,000, then your family income is more likely in the $100,000 range than the $200,000 range.
With an income of $100,000, many families would find it challenging to pay $60,000 each year for college out if current earnings (which would be the bulk of the family take home income).
But really…the MOST important question is…how much WILL your parents pay each year for your college costs. That is your budget. If the net cost of a college is in excess of what your parents will pay, you will need to be prepared to walk away from any admission offer that is unaffordable.
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My dad did the FAFSA calculator and it said our EFC was only around $24,000
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Either your dad made a huge mistake (maybe he put down all those relatives as dependents, which they are NOT), or you have other siblings in college…do you?
A $200k income with - say - a family of 6 people in the household (2 parents, 4 children), with one child going to college, would have an EFC of about $60k per year.
Auburn is not “creating a med school.” It is allowing a DO PRIVATE med school (not owned by Auburn) to build on its property. Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine. Auburn is a state owned university and the state of Alabama won’t allow another public med school. The state only will allow the two existing public med schools…UAB and USA.
It doesn’t matter much to med schools where your undergrad studies are done, what matters is how you perform there.
Auburn would likely have a net price of ~$25,000 for you.
At Georgia or Georgia Tech you would qualify for the Zell Miller Scholarship and you’d have a net price of ~$12,000.
Other colleges like Alabama and Ole Miss would give you merit scholarships to reduce their price to something similar to or even lower than the in-state options.
I was going to point out the same as @mom2collegekids. The $24K EFC cannot be correct. That’s low even for $100K in income. I would guess the father only used one income, not both.
Does anybody know anything about the kind of merit scholarships Rice offers?
Once people have identified schools that may have merit, you can go to the school’s website to find out the details.
I say you just proceed as if you are full pay for everywhere. That’s in info your parents have given you. You can now decide if you should just rule out all the schools without merit that will be full pay (Harvard and the gang) and perhaps even those that have merit but are pretty competitive for those merit awards like Vandy and Duke; it’s up to you if you want to take that chance, but just be sure to have a bunch of affordable schools where you’ll be admitted.
If your parents don’t like your list, then they are going to have to understand the economics, that if they make $150-200k, you won’t be getting a lot of need based aid and they would be expected to pay $50k+ per year after your loans.
I’d start loving those instate schools, make sure you get the Hope/Zell miller and that you earn some of the rest yourself.
Apply to 1-2 Ivy Leaugue schools, then schools like Rice, Vandy, USC and Duke where you just might get merit aid, then a few schools like Tulane, U Rochester, Case Western, and Northeastern where you will likely get aid, then a few true financial safeties like UGA, GTech and UA. You are a likely NMF? So make sure some of the NMF scholarship schools are on your list: USC, UA, Drexel. Check out Temple, too. This way you will have a variety of choices that cost different amounts. It may come down to your parents being more willing to pay more for certain schools over other schools. Since you might not know their financial situation, you might think about hedging your bets. $100,000 income at an Ivy League school will receive more aid than at other less aid generous schools.
we’re pretty new to this all; but from what we’ve seen playing around with FAFSA and EFCs this year for our senior and for our rising senior – income plays into the formula more than assets. (we have not toyed with CSS/Financial Aid Profile)
It was very discouraging at first as we knew NOTHING about how scholarships/financial aid/Out of State schools/Private schools worked with aid; and we didnt know the costs of colleges. thanks to this site, we have more of a plan . . . and are trying to be realistic.
@bgbg4us sounds like we’re in the same boat. I really had no idea that financial aid had so many requirements and limitations. It’s only within the past year that I’ve started to discover all of these things. It’s hard working your entire academic career trying to get into an Ivy League school or the like and then discovering that no matter what you do, you can’t pay for it. I understand that I have lived a blessed life and I really am grateful for it but it’s disappointing to see kids who can pick any school without a thought about how much debt their family will incur while I have to “be realistic” as you said and limit myself.
Most college students need to be very realistic about their finances…most. The vast majority of college students go to instate public universities. Most also do not venture far from home. Most do not spend upwards of $60,000 a year on their college educations.
OP, assuming you’re Nigerian, I would encourage you to add to your list:
Vanderbilt (they definitely look for URMs)
UT Dallas-apply for the McDermott Scholarship, which is a full ride + scholarship
University of Pittsburgh-Not sure how their scholarships are looking these days, but they offer full tuition+
WUSTL-they have merit scholarships
Do either of your parents work for a company that offers scholarships to its employee’s children? Check that out.
Apply for the “big” scholarships found on this forum. Look for ones that don’t take income into consideration.
@thumper1 yes of course. I don’t pretend to be the only person in this situation. Frustrating nonetheless
@sbjdorlo I’ve seen some other commenters in this thread say that even for scholarships that don’t have an income requirement, that my income level puts me at a great disadvantage. Is this true?
“I understand that I have lived a blessed life and I really am grateful for it but it’s disappointing to see kids who can pick any school without a thought about how much debt their family will incur while I have to “be realistic” as you said and limit myself.”
I think you are feeling a little sorry for yourself when the reality is that MOST students cannot afford to pay full costs to colleges, whether to Yale or to the local college. Many many students fall into the donut hole of family making too much for need based aid and yet not having cash on hand to pay for school.
You’ll read stories on CC of kids getting full tuition but the family still needing $20k for other costs (travel, r&b, books, internships). I have one daughter who is lucky to have most of her full costs paid, but it is a combination of 7 sources of funding including merit, athletic, state grant, Bright Futures, two school grants, a pell grant, and I got the AOTC. Her sister had 6 sources of aid, and yet came no where near to meeting her COA. Two kids, same family, same financial situation, but just different at different schools. The daughter will full costs met could have gone to a much higher ranked school, but it wouldn’t have been better for her and would have cost me a lot more.
You have to make it work for your situation. There just aren’t that many kids going to Harvard or Yale for free Most families are paying a fairly large portion of their family income to go.