PLEASE HELP! I received no financial aid from my top choice (Northeastern University), What do I do?

I’m sorry you’re having to navigate this process with so little support, both financially and in terms of helping you to understand how financial aid works and strategize accordingly. There is literally nothing about a high school education that imparts this insight, so how are students supposed to know?

As has already been stated, the combination of business ownership and home equity set your family up for not-so-generous assessments of financial need at many schools. You saw this with the Northeastern NPC, but you hoped that merit aid would “stack” with need-based aid and get the price down to something affordable. Unfortunately, nobody told you that they don’t do this. Merit aid reduces your need-based aid to keep you at the same baseline cost. The only way the price gets below your EFC (according to their formula) is if you get a merit award bigger than your documented need. But as far as I know, Northeastern’s max merit is $30K (for which you have to be NMF) and even that wouldn’t have gotten your out-of-pocket down to your $30K max budget. Not to mention that if you’re funding college entirely with loans, $30K/year is still a terrible idea.

I agree about the NY STEM scholarship. Having to stay in New York for 5 years is limiting, but it’s a big state, and working within this constraint could be well worth it. That’s assuming, though, that you want a STEM degree. What are you hoping to study?

if you are a NYS resident, consider community college and transfer to Cornell. CALS even has transfer agreements with instate community colleges. Run Cornell’s NPC and see how they calculate finaid.

@bluebayou this student has a parent who owns a business. IIRC, the Cornell NPC doesn’t ask about that. It’s likely not to be accurate.

Folks are saying this student has no financial support from parents, but didn’t he say upstream that $30,000 a year was his target price? Where is that coming from if not his family?

@thumper1 , OP says that parents are cosigning loans but not providing direct support.

If this student wants to major in a STEM field, it would be a good idea to take that STEM scholarship which will pay SUNY tuition. That would leave room and board, and personal expenses to pay OOP. That should be way less than $30,000 a year.

$30,000 a year in loans is too much for undergrad school…too much.

If your parents won’t pay anything why not apply to Stony Brook for math or engineering? It’s on the Island, you might be able to commute, and tuition is less than $10k/year. You could cover most of the costs with the federal student loan and summer work earnings.

If you take the STEM scholarship and decide not to say in NY it becomes a long - probably under better terms than you could get from a private loan right now. You won’t have to make the decision not to stay in NY until 4 years from now. Why not take the chance?

@austinmshauri this student has been accepted to SUNY Binghamton and says it’s affordable.

(Although “affordable” means coming out with $100,000 in debt, so far as I can tell.)

@thumper1, SUNY Binghamton is $25k/year and OP said (pretty far down in the thread) that his parents are contributing $0. OP is talking about taking $100k of debt (plus interest) to attend residential college.

OP, two years at a cc followed by 2 at Stony Brook is affordable. Four years at Stony Brook might even be affordable. But if your parents refuse to contribute to your education then neither Northeastern isn’t affordable and Binghamton isn’t either.

If you are in the top 10% GO TO BING!!!

Free tuition
Use your $5.5k loan
Get a summer job (work for dad in the landscaping business
This should get your remaining cost down to ~10k/year

Op, do you have any idea as to how many Tech companies now have a presence in NYC? My D, who works in cybersecurity has plenty of friends at Uber, Lyft, Google, Facebook, etc. She was thrilled that they were amongst the first people to work from home during COVID-19.

Personally I think that some of these schools that recently went to meeting 100% demonstrated need (Northeastern) may have to walk it back in the upcoming years because of the economic landscape.

@thumper1 the $30,000 is not what my parents are paying. $30,000 is close to the price of binghamton, and my parents are only letting me go to a school if it is close to the price of binghamton. They are not contributing anything to my education.

@aquapt my major is Engineering so the STEM scholarship applies. The scholarships decisions are postponed due to corona virus and I have until august to apply to that. So I will most likely do that.

@austinmshauri Stony brook is a good idea, but I cant stay home for college, I really just cant live in this house anymore, and my parents would force me to commute like they made my sister do when she attended Adelphi on the island.

Why do your parents have a say in where you go to college based on the cost, if they are not paying any of that cost? Not that you should be making unsustainable choices, but it sounds like it’s your choice to make…

Your parents are going to co-sign $100k of loans for you? Most small business owners aren’t in a position to take on a lot of debt right now.

You can save a lot of money by commuting. A lot.

You say your parents will co-sign or take out a loan for your college. Right? In my opinion…that is supporting you while you go to college.

If you don’t want a lot of debt when you graduate, and that is something you should want…no debt…then you need to choose a college option that’s not going to cost you much.

Read what @sybbie719 wrote. If you take the STEM scholarship, your tuition will be covered at Bing. Then you take a $5500 student loan and get yourself a job…any job. Will your dad pay you to work in his landscaping business? Start there. If not, apply somewhere else. Maybe another landscaping business?. You will be paying the costs of room, board and personal expenses only. Not tuition.

That’s going to be WAY less costly than any other option you have.

If you want it your way then get a job and work PT and study PT and pay your own rent. Take 6/7 yrs to graduate.

Parents want kids to commute because it saves wasted money. R&B might be 14K a year in your neck of the woods, that is money for literally nothing if your parents allow you to live at home for nothing, Do you have your own room? Your own bathroom at home? Do you have a vehicle you use? That they pay for?

I feel for you. I had to walk away from Duke and JHU (ages go) when they offered me $0 financial aid. (Divorced parents, the one who make $$$ wouldn’t contribute). I was devastated, but the commenters above are correct---- neither you nor I are entitled to anything. Supposedly NEU meets full need, but it’s what they think your need is, not what you think it is. It’s a raw deal, but it won’t be the last raw deal you get in life. Welcome to adulting. (P.S. I attended a LAC that offered me full merit and later went on to public grad school and a successful career. Your college choice doesn’t have to define you.)

I know it’s hard, but let go of Northeastern…

Apply for the STEM scholarship NOW. If the state runs out funds whoever applied later may end up having to do without.
(There’s no “V” economic recovery in sight. The conditions for economic recovery require testing to ensure people aren’t contaminated/contagious, following social distancing for however long, and even then there might be a second wave, a third wave…)
If you can’t live at home, forget SB, go to Bing which is far enough - take that scholarship, take on the 5.5K loan, see how much you can earn (if you can, as jobs are scarce) or how much you have in savings, and borrow just whatever’s left and nothing more. Keep debt to a minimum.
Were you invited into one of the Honors Programs at Bing?
If not, choose a living learning community.
https://www.binghamton.edu/residential-life/live-and-learn/specialty.html
https://www.binghamton.edu/residential-life/live-and-learn/lc.html
Your ability to choose your housing depends on the date of your enrollment deposit so hurry.

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