Hello. I was accepted into Yale College this December through SCEA and was super excited. The net price calculator said my EFC would be around $20,000 and I decided I would be able to pay that with the help of my parents and other resources. However, last week, I received my financial aid letter. My family’s EFC was supposedly high than the cost of Yale!! I have another sibling attending college, so if you multiply that EFC by 2, it exceeds the amount of my parent’s annual income! Is there any way that the college has made a mistake? We do own a farm, but the operation is very small. In addition, our house and land is all paid off.
Are there any ways for me to attend Yale, or since my parents are not willing to pay that much am I screwed? Yale claims that “the college is affordable to anyone,” but that is a load of crap. I honestly cannot imagine myself going anywhere else but Yale though. I want to finally do something for myself and take control of my life, instead of attending a state school and being held to my parent’s decisions the rest of my life. There are many other reasons I want to go to Yale, but I won’t expand on that here unless it is necessary. I plan to go pre-med, so taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans does not seem fathomable. Any advice would be appreciated. This whole situation just makes me so sad and angry, although I’m not even sure where to focus my anger. Thanks.
I’m sure that you’re upset and angry. I understand the frustration. I recommend that you make contact with the financial aid office, and sort things out. I have faith in Yale. I have faith in the students that they select. Go over the offer with them. This is a stressful time, and a little sleep, and a telephone call will be the start of a better day.
@MidwestDad3 I’m actually using a friend’s account, so that is definitely not my income! If only.
@ElMimino That’s what I was going to plan to do, as long as their Fin Aid office is open. It wasn’t today due to the weather. Thanks for your response and the advice.
It is against the TOU to use someone else’s account and you can see it leads to confusion and mistrust. Try posting with your own account, please.
Also if you want help with your aid package, go to the financial aid forum. YOu might post the details of your package. While FAFSA gives an efc that can exceed college costs, that doesn’t really mean anything. The college computes its own package and that package will list the COA and the amount you are expected to pay which will never exceed the COA.
What is the current value of your family’s house and land that is all paid off? Given that you have a high EFC, I’m guessing the answer is because the value is substantial.
If your house and land is all paid for, Yale assumes there is absolutely no reason why your family, even with two kids in college, cannot take out a home equity loan to help pay for their children’s education. Look at it from the perspective of the college: why should Yale give your family substantial aid, when your family has the assets to leverage for their children’s education?
The value of our home and land combined is less than $400,000. And I haven’t gotten a final say from my parents yet, but they said they would pay around $9,000. And for my financial aid package, I did not qualify for financial aid.
^^ Not to be disrespectful of your parents, but their offer does NOT cover half the cost of a state school, many of which are $17,000 to $22,000 for in-state tuition, including room and board.
Given your interest in medical school, you may want to consider living at home and going to college locally, as you can take basic pre-med courses at numerous state and city colleges. In fact, my daughter, who just graduated from Harvard, is doing a post-bac here in New York City at CCNY picking up pre-med courses that she didn’t take in Cambridge (she graduated as a humanities major, but now wants to go to medical school).
Telephone Yale’s Financial Aid Office and have them walk you through their calculation. Maybe they did make an error, or maybe they are placing a higher value on your parents Home Equity. Or, maybe your parents have more cash/stocks/bonds than what Yale considers to be normal.
The cost of my state schools are at most $16,000, so I would be able to go there without being financially troubled, but I do agree that my parents are being “cheap.”
“I want to finally do something for myself and take control of my life, instead of attending a state school and being held to my parent’s decisions the rest of my life.”
Your desire to attend Yale is understandable. But as gibby points out, home equity is a financial asset, whether or not your parents want to borrow against it. Their desire not to do so is also understandable.
If you have been accepted at Yale, chances are that you have gotten generous offers at state schools and invitations to their Honors/Scholars program as well as special status and perks at these schools. MANY students, especially those who are pre-med, turn down admissions offers at elite schools to attend state schools for free and enjoy the special perks and privileges there. You do not need to attend an Ivy to get into med school.
How do you expect to pay for medical school? If you accept a scholarship at a state school, will the money your parents would have paid for undergrad then be available to you for med school? Minimizing the crushing debt that you might otherwise acquire as a med student would be a good way to “take control of your life,” it seems to me.
My advice to you would be to think about your education in the long term, financially, especially if you are quite certain you want to pursue medicine. Good luck.
You have confused me. You say that you don’t qualify for financial aid, but you expected an EFC of $20k. I’m afraid to add up my family’s numbers, but it is closer to $65k than $20 (much less $9k).
I would weigh carefully what bookmobile says about premed students and their UG choices.
I used the net price calculator to get an estimate of what my EFC at Yale would be, and it was around $20K. However, when I got my actual letter, I did not qualify for ANY aid. My parents are not willing to pay much money for my college, no matter where I go and I realize that it is their choice to make.
So, in your case, Yale’s NPC is off by $40K! That doesn’t makes sense, as the NPC should be accurate to with a few thousand dollars. Either you didn’t enter the correct information on the NPC (your parents’ total cash on hand, including savings, checking, stock accounts, total equity in their home and farm, retirement savings, and gross income), or when you entered the information on the CSS Profile and FAFSA, you made a mistake, OR Yale made an error. Which is why you need to speak with a Yale Financial Aid Officer and ask how they arrived at your FA calculation.
FWIW: When a family owns a business, like a farm, they are self employed. Sometimes colleges can and do make mistakes, especially if a Financial Aid Officer is viewing “business accounts” and “home accounts” and combines the two. This is why you and your parents really need to speak with a Financial Aid Officer and seek some clarity.
Yale’s NPC does not take into account of home equity and is misleading. If the house was paid off, Harvard and Princeton give much better financial aid than any other colleges.
If you look through the archives, you will find a number of posts from a student whose forum name was Evilrobot. He was accepted to Yale. Parents owned real estate as a way to make a living, getting a not so big income from the rents, but the market value of the investments were enough to make him ineligible for financial aid from Yale. Selling the building and paying for Yale, dug into the family income that came from the rents. Paying back loans (not easy to get for low grade rental property) would do the same. Also the properties were the retirement nest eggs for the family. I have a friend who is in the same situation.
So Evilrobot did not go to Yale because he did not want to put his parents in the situation they would be if they paid what they needed for him to go there.
The student got no aid from Yale because the parents are business owners and they took $100k in depreciation, which Yale added back in.
this student is horribly naive.
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So I recently found out that I did not qualify for financial aid at Yale and my parents are not willing to pay for my college because they think “it’s good for me” if I have to pay for my own college. I’ve talked to the fin aid officers but they are not helpful at all and cannot even tell me why my EFC is so high. I’ve thought of only one option.
-Take a gap year and get married.
I do not want to have to attend my state college. Ugh. My goals in life are so much bigger than that, and I honestly don’t care about money, but I think I’d starve if I had to take out $250,000 in loans for my first four years, as I plan to go to med school afterwards. I feel so desperate because I cannot do anything about it, and it’s not even my fault. Does anyone have an answer for this?
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She thinks that going to a state school would somehow thwart her “big plans”…lol. Her goal is medical school. Hello…most people in med schools went to STATE SCHOOLS.
Then she says that she’ll take a gap year and get married. Oh, and that’s better than going to a state school? And that won’t thwart big plans? hmmm.
Anyway…you can’ take out those loans anyway…even if you wanted. No one would lend to you… Your parents would have to cosign.
Getting married only qualifies students for Pell, doesn’t it @mom2collegekids? So OP would only potentially gain $5000 or so which isn’t enough to pay for Yale or most other colleges. Do students who get married have to live on their own and be self-supporting to be independent, or is just getting married enough?