Parent reneges on financial commitment to Brown

[owlice]

<p>mini, you don’t know whether the student will indeed have to borrow that much; you are assuming she does. That may not be the case; a worst-case scenario from the standpoint of the amount she has to borrow. Maybe she would have to borrow it, but … maybe not.</p>

<p>marite, I don’t know; that’s why I asked sybbie the questions I asked.</p>

<p>From her post, quoting Brown:</p>

<p>

Outside scholarships and employer tuition benefits are an excellent way to help reduce the need to work and/or borrow student loans while at Brown. When you receive an outside scholarship, our office is required to reevaluate your financial aid award and account for the additional resource.</p>

<p>Outside scholarships can be used to reduce the entire amount of student effort. Student effort includes campus employment, student loans, and the standard summer earnings expectation.

</p>

<p>The family contribution is at this point $15K. Her mother is paying half of that; the father was supposed to pay the other half, but is not, so now, the student has to pick up that cost. The only way she has to do this right now is probably loans. (We don’t know that that is necessarily true, but that is IMO a good assumption.)</p>

<p>So… she borrows $7.5K for the upcoming school year, and during the year, applies to all the scholarships she can find. Maybe she gets one for $1K. Next year, she works during the summer and earns the (presumably) expected $3K. Brown is expecting her to put that toward tuition. (Is it? Do we know that? No, we don’t, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that it does.) Student lets Brown know about the $1K outside scholarship; Brown reduces the “standard summer earnings expection” by $1K as a result, so expects the $1K from the scholarship to be applied to tuition and expects $2K from the student’s summer earnings.</p>

<p>The student still has $1K from her student earnings to apply toward tuition, applies it, and takes out a loan for $6.5K instead of the $7.5K she borrowed last year.</p>

<p>Yes?</p>

<p>That’s how I’m reading it. Could be wrong.</p>

<p>But from what the OP stated, it could be that Brown is expecting $15K from the FAMILY. Sure, dad agreed to pick up half of that and the mother the other half. Student doesn’t have to pay anything under that scenario. (We don’t know whether that is or is not the case, do we?) Student earns $3K this summer and will, because her dad’s a bum, has to now 1.) apply that to tuition; 2.) borrow $4.5K to cover the shortfall; 3.) probably work some during the year for her ongoing expenses.</p>

<p>We don’t have all the details.</p>