Please help clear up confusion!!

<p>Ok, so I'm trying to wrap my head around the "need-based" aid we may or may not get.</p>

<p>If my D is interested in attending a school which guarantees to meet 100% of demonstrated need AND they use the CSS, can I use 27% of gross income as a rough guide??</p>

<p>If so, than our contribution would be in $40k range for a school that has a COA of $55k. So, would we get $15k from the school in need? Or, do you just get to a point where they look at your income and decide that you get 0 in need based aid?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>Your income is likely more than $150k, so your EFC is more likely to be in the 30% range. If you have assets or your own business, it could be higher. The best thing to do is use the net price calculators for each school - but know that owning your own business makes those calculators pretty much un-usable. In that case, you need to contact the schools to discuss your situation.</p>

<p>Even if your “Need” would be $15k, it could be met entirely through loans and work study … not grants. </p>

<p>With your EFC, it is probably a good idea to look at schools with significant merit opportunities.</p>

<p>Thanks! That’s pretty much what I thought. Merit aid it is…</p>

<p>Take the time to run the Net Price Calculator at each institution’s website. If you do not have a lot of property, or run a small business, and you aren’t self-employed, the NPCs are fairly accurate. The more questions they ask, the better they emulate the actual financial aid processes of the institution in question.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, we are self employed and own a small business. </p>

<p>I totally understand that we make a very good living and probably don’t deserve any need based grants. However, we certainly don’t make enough money to pay $55k/ year for 4 years! So, I guess my kids are stuck in that awkward position of either getting enough merit aid or attending our public schools. </p>

<p>Fortunately, my kids are wonderful students and better people, so I’m sure it will all work out.</p>

<p>BigDaddy, I recommend that you get a pre read on your financials from some schools. Depending on your business, you can be eligible for nothing as many business deductions will be added back in and business assets included as family ones. Better you know this up front. The NPCs are useless for you, particularly for PROFILE schools.</p>

<p>Take a good look at your state schools and look at schools that give out merit money. No sense applying to a $60K school when the top merit award they give is in the $10K range with maybe a couple of free rides. But you see some schools like Rhodes or Sewanee or Dickinson, or Fordham that have a number of bigger fish to catch and the numbers are achievable for your kid, that’s where you cast your line.</p>

<p>Thanks for the input. I’m actually a Fordham alum. We live in TN, so Rhodes and Sewanee are in our backyard. </p>

<p>I just feel bad for my D. She’s done everything right and everything she’s been told to do in order to have a plethora of opportunities. I just don’t want my income to be the deciding factor.</p>

<p>Also, we make a nice living now…but we had many lean years building a business, repaying student loans, etc. So, it’s not like I was born making $150k!!</p>

<p>I just feel bad for my D. She’s done everything right and everything she’s been told to do in order to have a plethora of opportunities. I just don’t want my income to be the deciding factor.</p>

<p>Don’t feel badly for your D. Thank goodness that she’s done well, so now she’ll have merit opportunities that she wouldn’t have if her stats were average.</p>

<p>Many of us have top students. My kids were Val and Sal at their HS, high test scores, National merit scholarships, etc. Your kid has done what kids supposed to do…use their God-given talents to the best of their abilities (lol…the topic of one son’s grad speech…and likely a Jesuit message that you learned at Fordham). </p>

<p>Look at it this way…if your child had stats that were just-below merit worthy, she’d be VERY limited to the schools that you can afford to pay full freight. But, because she has strong stats, she’ll have many choices. (I always feel bad for the kids who have good-but-not-top stats who also have unaffordable EFCs…there are millions of these kids, and their only options are commuting to the local state schools).</p>

<p>Also, consider this. Undergrad is often not the last educational stop. If your D does well, then she can get into a better name grad school. My kids went to a Flagship on nearly free rides. The older one was accepted to an elite school’s PhD program, and the younger one is going to med school in a few months.</p>

<p>Mom,</p>

<p>Good points! Obviously, I don’t regret that my kids are great students. I just want them to go to a school they love and that they can be admitted to. Our flagship is nothing to get excited about! In retrospect, we should have moved to VA or NC!!</p>

<p>There are PLENTY of colleges for your kids to love.</p>

<p>There was a great program on NPR yesterday about college financing. One of the speakers again stressed that current earnings are only one part of where college funding should come from. Past income (savings) and future income (loans) also need to be considered in the equation.</p>

<p>But back to my first comment…there are 3000 or so colleges in this country. There are some where top students can be offered merit aid…guaranteed…to soften the financial blow to the family. Many students have fallen in love with these schools.</p>

<p>Clearly you are much more experienced in these matters than I am. I’m just a father who wants the best for his children. It’s a little uncomfortable to think that my D will have the stats to get into top tier colleges but may very well have to be content with a lower tier school because her parents make a good living.</p>

<p>Every year lots of kids with the stats for a “top” institution don’t get in. Even when they do, many of them find out that they can’t afford it. Your kids are lucky that you are here asking the questions before they even have begun to make their college lists. Way too many kids find out after their acceptance letters are in their hands that their entire list is unaffordable. I know it is hard to work through our parental feelings about not being able to pay for the institutions that we think we’d like to send our kid to, but in the end it will be OK. </p>

<p>My kid started at the local CC and just loved it. She’s now at a not-top state U and just loves it. She doesn’t feel deprived at all that we couldn’t scrape the money together for fill-in-name-here. My bet is that your kids will be happy wherever they end up, and when they graduate, you will look back and wonder what your angst was all about.</p>

<p>^ That’s a family choice. We make a good income but I couldn’t afford to send my Ds to the Ivies. They attended some excellent LACs where they received merit money making it much more affordable. And they were very happy in their schools. Other posters have bitten the bullet to put their children through the best school at which they were accepted.</p>

<p>Care to share the names of the LAC’s with the merit aid?</p>

<p>Many of us thankfully make too much money to qualify for need-based aid, yet we can’t afford $55K a year. My high stats son got into schools we couldn’t afford (e.g., Berkeley).</p>

<p>He ended up taking a full ride offer at Maryland and is completely happy there. He’s likely to be going to grad school for free, and he can pick a tippity top school then if he likes. Your daughter will thrive at many schools. Good luck!</p>

<p>*Mom,</p>

<p>Good points! Obviously, I don’t regret that my kids are great students. I just want them to go to a school they love and that they can be admitted to. Our flagship is nothing to get excited about! In retrospect, we should have moved to VA or NC!!
*</p>

<p>Well, what are your D’s stats? And what are her career interests/major? If her stats are high, then she’s not just limited to her own state’s flagship.</p>

<p>Also, how much do you think you can contribute each year (you have younger kids to put thru college, too)? That amount will determine where she should apply. For instance, if you feel that with multiple kids to put thru college, you shouldn’t spend more than $15k per year, then your D would need a full tuition scholarship so that your $15k can go towards room, board, books, fees, etc.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that some schools have competitive merit and some have assured merit for stats. A good strategy would include a few schools of each type. You don’t want to only rely on competitive merit because what if you don’t get enough?</p>

<p>There are some LACs that give merit. depending on how much you can pay and your D’s stats, there may be some that would give enough to fit your budget.</p>

<p>Most of them. Few schools have only need based aid, such as Vassar, Wesleyan, Williams, Amherst, to name a few. Barnard, Bates, Bowdoin, Bryn Mawr, Colby, Colgate, Connecticult College, Haverford, Pomona, Middlebury, Reed, are only ones that come to mind and some may have changed their minds. About half the top 25 USNews ranked schools do not give out merit money, the ivies dominate that list of those that don’t; the others do. </p>

<p>The issue is more as to how difficult it is to get the merit money at schools and if the awards there are substantial. It was quite sobering when my son got a $30K award from Fordham, to realize that it didn’t cover half the COA.</p>

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<p>But often it is. Listen to the good advice regarding how various schools package, but understand that your income could potentially absolutely be a deciding factor if you decide that you have a dollar amount ceiling that you are willing to pay. College bound kids SHOULD do well in high school and do all the things to lay a foundation and prepare for a college education, that is a minimum threshold. As Thumper says there are plenty of good colleges in our country…you just need to find one your D will like and you can afford. The very first thing YOU need to do is to figure out what you are willing to pay out of pocket and make sure your D knows what that number is so there are no surprises when the finaid letters arrive and a school or two needs to be on the chopping block.</p>

<p>We’ve already had that conversation. She knows exactly how much we are willing to pony up. </p>

<p>As far as finding the right schools goes…how do you know which school is right if you don’t know how much merit aid you will receive? </p>

<p>Also, kicking in $25k/yr to attend a really good school that D loves is a lot easier than spending that money on a school that is a little further down the food chain that D likes but doesn’t love.</p>

<p>Does that make?</p>

<p>Encourage her to pin down one or two dead-on safeties where she is guaranteed admissions for her stats, and that you know you can afford because of guaranteed merit or just because they are so freakishly cheap, that offer her major, and where she feels she can be happy. If she can build the list upward from that solid base, the likelihood of you feeling that you ought to shell out for a place that she doesn’t love just because it is “higher ranked” won’t even enter into the equation. She will have a place or two that she does love that meet her minimum standards. Anywhere else will have to be significantly better/even more affordable/better academic match to even stay in the running.</p>

<p>That was our basic process. Kid loves her cheap school.</p>