Fortunately, only one of the 6 accepted schools put parent plus loan on my D’s FA package last year. Others just show a family contribution amount above our EFC (except one need met school that after aid amount is exactly our EFC).
That’s misleading. Federal government should rein in those practices!
^i just bought a car with only $3k out of pocket costs then! You are right…misleading!
You were not misled. You went in to this process knowing that your mother only made 20k.
When you were given a parent plus loan of 14k, how were you going to manage a loan that was 2/3rd of your mother’s income?
You misled yourself and had some wishful thinking.
Simple math would have told you that you had a loan package of 5500 (subsidized and unsubsidized loans) + the 14k plus loan. Right here you were at almost 20k in loans, not counting the Perkins loan which is probably another 4/5k making your loans close to 25k a year.
No where in the world is 25k a few thousand $$. You heard what you wanted to hear. You have loans, so there is no way that NYU was then or is now nearly free.
It does not matter which were “good” or “bad” loans, you knew that any loan would have to be repaid and your family currently has no way of doing this.
No, you did not do everything you were supposed to do in this situation. what you were supposed to do what not apply ED to a school where you admit yourself was not affordable and to make sure that you had an affordable option.
You are not going to be able to for one semester because you don’t have the money for the semester. If you have been offered more than 20k, in loans, you will need that money; for books, health insurance, fees , room and board. you will be billed in 2 semesters. this means that you need over 10k paid so that you could move in to the dorms and go to class on the first day. Even though you can get an additional 4k, you will only be able to use 2 of that 4 k this term.
NYU is unaffordable and is not a financially feasible option for your family. For your mother to be denied a loan is a blessing in disguise as she would have to be eligible and reapply for a loan each year you are in school. Given your current situation, even if they were to do something year one, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to graduate from NYU sustaining this kind of debt.
Senator Al Franken was trying to get a bill passed (with bi-partisan support) that would force colleges and universities to use a standardized format for financial aid awards, clearly spelling out what was grants vs work study vs loans and allowing for straightforward comparison of offers across schoolsl It would have created standardized definitions of all terms for use by colleges and high schools and made net costs for each school easy to identify.
As far as I know it’s never made it out of committee. And comments in articles about it typically included things like “But the FAFSA is already standard” - missing the point that award letters are NOT the FAFSA, and “if people aren’t smart enough to understand aid awards they’re not smart enough to attend college” - I wonder if those people have ever tried to compare these apples and oranges?
I would love to see this bill passed. I consider myself fairly savvy financially, yet I still had to spend a great deal of time creating a spreadsheet to allow me to compare the true cost of each college. Terms like “total cost of attendance” are definitely NOT standardized! And D also received one of those award letters that showed $0 cost - even though the family contribution was expected to be $10K/year OVER our EFC, which would have meant significant loans!
I, too, would like to see the awards standardized. If anything, at least the federal aid could be since the feds should have “some say” on how their aid is disclosed to students/families.
The schools could agree to issue a standard letter if they wanted to without government regulation. Please don’t get the government involved. Does anyone, ANYONE, think the ‘5 simple black boxes of the Truth in Lending Act’ which are standard on any loan are clear and show the entire financial picture of the loan? Do you know how many people think the APR is the interest rate?
The form that DD’s school used did have the COA at the top, and then listed and deducted the merit awards, other school awards, any outside awards that had been reported. Then it listed the loans to the Student, and finally the Parent Plus loan. They weren’t trying to be misleading, but did want the marketing punch of saying OOP = $0.
Other daughter’s form was similar, except that it had an amount due and on the next page showed all the ways you could fund that remaining amount, including the Stafford loans, the Plus loans, work, private borrowing. Either way, you have to know what the terms mean (Stafford, Plus, Private).
Because the parent was denied a Plus, the student can take out an additional $4000 in Direct Loans. I believe only $3500 can be subsidized…so,this additional amount would be unsubsidized.
That would still leave $10000 for the student to fund.
The problem is that this child was unfamiliar with the paperwork and went to two trusted adults whom she thought knew how to read financial aid packages which include Ed loan packages.
NYU obviously did not separate the possible loan options from the actual package offered.
This child had no experience in this. She knew her parent couldn’t afford this school, yet when the adults told her to go for it, she trusted that those adults knew what they were speaking of.
I agree she got poor advice from the adults. But the financial aid package still included TOO MUCH in loans for a family with a $20,000 income. Regardless of the source of the loans, the amount of loans was too high.
But the OP,said she “did everything right” which included applying ED to NYU. Sorry, but that was the first big mistake. It was not the right thing to do…at all. This applicant needed to be able to compare bottome line net costs amongst colleges. That was not possible.
There is a thread on the Parents Forum about counseling low income students with 2.8-3.2 GPA for 4-year college admission. The person who posted the thread is working under the guidance of a non profit. There was a mention in one of the posts that $10000/ year loan amount was a somewhat acceptable (Although not ideal) option . So it is not inconceivable that the adults advising this child may have themselves gotten information which is questionable. That other thread was quite illuminating in itself, and could provide some context to our OP’s dilemma.
In higher education circles, there is this whole talk of “undermatching” and “dreaming big” for students in low SES brackets. University of Delaware not being “good enough” is typical of “advice” that’s doled out. There are people in prestigious Schools of Education advocating this. It’s all fine if the package is truly loan free, but that will not always be the case unless we’re talking about Harvard etc.Even a full ride will not cover expenses such as travel and incidentals. The funding from programs for low SES students at my university sometimes will not be enough to cover textbooks. So the students don’t buy them, and can’t keep up with the assignments.
Back to the OP - hope she is still reading this thread - I would suggest a gap year too, and then start an RD search for a university that is affordable and will have programs of interest. UD may not have the cachet of NYU, but it is well respected. Kids from my affluent NJ neighborhood go there by the truckload, and some have gotten full merit rides at UD, and have turned down pricier universities.
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There was a mention in one of the posts that $10000/ year loan amount was a somewhat acceptable
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The OP wasn’t being advised that $10k was somewhat advisable. She was being advised that $20k+ per year was “few thousand” and no big deal.
Plus, her career goal is some kind of theater writing or similar…and anyone with half of a brain would know that is a risky career that can’t justify that much debt…particularly with a low income parent.
@123jove I wished you had come back before your meeting with financial aid tomorrow. Please make sure you add up all grants and scholarships first against the COA, then look to see what is left and what your true contribution will be. NYU did not come close to meeting your ‘need’. Need = COA - EFC
Parent loans are not ‘meeting need’. You need to ask NYU if they can meet your need because you don’t have resources to borrow that much and it would be a very bad decision to do so if you did. If you are going to take the additional 4k a year then they really must find 10k in grant to give you. If they will, you MUST ask for a side letter that you will get that (tuition and room & board, say) every year because otherwise you will have to just drop out the next year from lack of funds with no diploma and a lot of debt.
REMEMBER that freshmen get the big aid offers. So you need to apply as a freshman for next year so you can find a school that will ‘meet full need’ and/or give you merit that will allow you to go to school Save your money for a good grad school. Take the loans for grad at NYU, Emerson, USC, AFI wherever --hopefully you will have some idea then what money and loans are about. Maybe you will find how to get that funded, you have 4 years to learn and plan. Good luck.
<<The OP wasn’t being advised that $10k was somewhat advisable. She was being advised that $20k+ per year was “few thousand” and no big deal.
Plus, her career goal is some kind of theater writing or similar…and anyone with half of a brain would know that is a risky career that can’t justify that much debt…particularly with a low income parent. >>
I should have been more clear in my previous post - I think even $10K for low SES student is a bit much. Personally would not advise more than the $5700 student loan limit per year. My point was that the “Advice” the adults in these schools are getting is itself flawed. I work with teachers/administrators in low SES school districts from time to time, and the general consensus is to simply follow whatever advice is handed to you. @mom2collegekids mentioned that it sounded crazy that the GC’s etc. don’t look up this sort of stuff on their own - well, most of them just don’t. It’s a job, and that’s it. A kid going to NYU from a low performing school brings a lot of pride to the school staff, and there is that angle to think about too.
And the theater writing being a risky major would be obvious to any parent on this board, but again, the “dream big, bright lights, big city” philosophy trumps any sort of common sense. I see a lot of this in my own students. I can’t tell you the number of times I had to tell students that a career in Goldman Sachs (or some other Wall Street firm) was not going to happen for someone w/ a business or math degree from my directional university. My chem and bio colleagues likewise have to deal with so/so students who are aiming for med schools (that’s not going to happen either…)
If OP has applied to a school that does meet his/her financial needs at a much more reasonable basis - the in-state option for example. It doesn’t hurt to check if she could still receive the awards/FA package for this year (be it first or second term start) - to soften the blow of taking a gap year. However researching all the options that are financially worthy - meeting the needs. I agree with the student loan amount, and maybe campus job.
Some schools have students that committed to going and then don’t. It may be the college is willing to help get you in - however only if you already applied and met the previous FA/scholarship deadlines. I know this can happen - case by case.
OP, you do not want to use up your entering freshman FA opportunities for an un-affordable school! You would be severely crippling yourself, and you need to have the four year FA package!
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work with teachers/administrators in low SES school districts from time to time, and the general consensus is to simply follow whatever advice is handed to you. @mom2collegekids mentioned that it sounded crazy that the GC’s etc. don’t look up this sort of stuff on their own - well, most of them just don’t. It’s a job, and that’s it.
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You know, collecting a professional salary should require that one stay “up” on relevant issues. Being a GC at a school and collecting a good salary should include having some expectations.
The attitude of “it’s a job and that’s it,” is pathetic and no excuse. Either learn your job or let someone who is willing to learn the job have it. I’m disgusted by people collecting tax-payer money who view their job as some kind of right to keep, with no need to learn relevant info. This isn’t a welfare program. This isn’t a jobs program. It’s a professional job.
@123jove , don’t lose heart! My brother is a Tisch alum. He didn’t start out there; he transferred there after two years elsewhere. Lots of kids transfer into Tisch. Delaware is a very good school. Apply there, get in, do well, set your sights on Tisch for the future. (You already know you can get in!) Or look around for other schools with programs you’d like that may give better aid – now that you know more about what “better aid” really looks like. I’m pretty sure you don’t want to try to live in NYC on the kind of salaries (or rather occasional pay) that my brother and his fellow Tisch grads were living on after graduation if you have 100k in debt … it’s a crazy expensive city and you’ll have to be willing to take low-paying gigs to get your foot in the door. You want to be free to do that, and that means free of huge debts. But you can still manage to do what you want to do! It’s just a longer story line and has more plot twists than you were planning on in your original draft 
@momof2collegekids , I agree this type of attitude is unacceptable - but it is the larger reality in my world of nonprofit education.
Getting back to OP’s dilemma- I hope she is taking all the good advice on this thread…
Hi everyone, I’m sorry for such a long absence on my own post, but it’s been a hectic few days for me.
Thank you for your advice, and believe I am taking it to heart. I spoke to several financial aid counselors at NYU today, none of whom were particularly helpful, several of whom were flat out mean, as I had expected they would be. Going into this, I expected no sympathy from anyone that I spoke to, as the error was, fundamentally, my fault–not theirs and not the school’s. I take full responsibility for this.
After being thrown to many departments, I was able to speak to a very kind advisor who was able to get me the Stafford Loan of $4,000, as a result of my mother being denied the Parent Plus Loan. He was also able to arrange for me to be placed in efficiency housing, which drastically reduces the amount of my outstanding balance from nearing $5,000 (following the addition of the Stafford Loan), to a much more manageable $2,000. I am looking into external sources to help cover this cost.
The denial of the Plus Loan, as many have suggested, was a bullet dodged for me. Without the Plus Loan, I will owe just under $12,000 a year, without interest. I know this may seem to be too much to many of you, but it is an amount that I am prepared to burden myself with under current circumstances. I was also made aware of an organization which very well may be able to provide me with more financial aid money, so I am looking into that as well.
To those telling me that I was not misled, and that by applying ED1, I was foolish, please try to remember that I have no experience with the college application process and have little to no experience with loans; again, I take full responsibility for the error. I understand that as an 18 year old, I am not a helpless child and I could have easily done the research that I asked my teachers to do on my own. Maybe if I had done that, I wouldn’t be in this situation.
I also understand, however, that many young people are in situations similar to mine. Perhaps their parents, like my mother, have no knowledge of the American collegiate loan system to no fault of their own; or perhaps these young individuals are alone in their application and acceptance process and rely strictly on what knowledge they have as adolescents (which is not much). I suppose I am saying all of this to remind those of you who may have been less than kind or less than empathetic that not everyone has the advantages that they have, or that their children, as a result may possess. Many students go to schools like my high school, where teachers are understaffed, undereducated, and underpaid, and this puts them in positions, like mine, where they might serve to suffer from ill advice, be it ill advice as to when to apply (ED1, ED2, regular decision, etc.), or ill advice on what a particular loan entails or requires.
If more people had empathy for these underprivileged students, rather than discounting them as foolish dreamers (when they only want to do the “proper thing” and elevate their socioeconomic positions), maybe they would feel more comfortable turning to people who could help them, rather than fearing that they may be judged for daring to go to a school other than their state university.
Again, thank you all so very much for all of your help and advice. I can’t express how much it means to me that you all listened, and that you all commented such kind things that reflected true genuine concern regarding my predicament. I hope that you are all not too disappointed that I have chosen not to defer my enrollment for a year, or to attempt to enroll in another school.
To those students who may be reading this thread with similar problems to mine, know that there isn’t always a solution to financial problems where higher education is concerned. There is a great deal of bureaucracy behind the shiny exterior that many universities allow you to see, and often times, the financial branches of this proverbial bureaucracy are extremely cut throat with no sympathy to your struggles. Other times, however, there is a path through your struggles, as I have discovered today, and it’s always worth trying to find :).
From what you posted, I don’t know how you got from needing $14k (amount mother was going to take as a Plus loan), getting $4k extra as a Stafford loan (extra Stafford loan, but not interest free or subsidized), getting some room costs reduced, and then concluding you have enough. Where is the $10k, or even if it was reduced by $5k, the $5k? $14k-$4k-reduced housing still leaves $5k or more.
Just make sure you understand where this money is coming from and how much it will cost you. Please post again in a few years when you’ve borrowed $100k that needs to be repaid and tell us if you think it was worth it. Some do, many don’t.