<p>Our daughter is admitted to SDSU as a nonresident student. We are all very excited and happy for her and she is all set to go there this fall, however ., I just got a financial award notification which devastated me. Heres what it stated:</p>
<p>Federal Pell Grant $5,350
Subsidized Fed. Direct Student Loan $3,499/$3,483
Unsubsidized Fed. Direct Student Loan $2,000/$1,990
Federal Direct Parent Loan $19,118/18,641
Total Award $29,464</p>
<p>Our EPC is $0.00 </p>
<p>Does this Award Summary make sense? When EPC is $0, how do they expect us to have almost $20,000 loan per year? And she wasnt even awarded FWS.<br>
Also any suggestion what we should do besides finding extra $20,000 per year will be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>You can call the FA office and ask about work study and FSEOG. It’s possible they might add them if they still have funding available. Also, if she meets the criteria for ACG that will be awarded when they verify her transcript. But, even with these three in place, you’re still going to have a big gap. </p>
<p>I see from your previous post that she’ll be a communications major. I think anything over the Stafford amounts would be too much in loans and I would look at an instate public or another school she got a good merit award to attend. Good luck!</p>
<p>Unfortunately, all you can do is move on and choose another school. Clearly your DD is an OOS student they decided to give no aid to. CA does not have much aid for OOS students and just awards what they have to a few very top candidates. These loans would be nuts and realize very few get out of SDSU in 4 years, so you’d be looking at 5 or 6 years of paying that.</p>
<p>My DD has an OOS friend at SDSU, there is not much aid available for OOS kids, even in state kids can only get Pell/CAGrant/ACG, the basics.</p>
<p>DD’s friend has been told she can become a resident whilst a student so if your DD has her heart set on SDSU, then either go for the 1st year and lower costs by becoming a resident (she has to stay in CA for the summer, etc) or move to SD and work for a year and become a resident, deferring enrollment for a year. This would lower the costs</p>
<p>As a CA resident, I would think long and hard before doing this. As has been mentioned above, SDSU doesn’t have a great four year graduation rate. Additionally with all of the budget issues facing CA public schools, this is not the year to pay OOS tuition for a CA public school education. IMHO.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for all the replies. We know it’s wise to move on to another school. But our daughter fell in love with SDSU and San Diego. She worked extra hard for SDSU though she could have gone to any local public university without any extra effort. Also, application deadline for good schools are gone already. So we don’t have heart to tell her “NO” because of the financial reason. We’ll find our way to let her go to SDSU… may be using grandparents power… She called financial aid office this morning and got FWS. Also we are seriously considering moving to California. Thanks again for all your help and support. I’m getting over my initial financial aid shock now.</p>
<p>Has your D seen the FA award yet? Kids are pretty resilient and get over their “dream” schools quickly when it means putting a burden on their families. My D eliminated those that would require alot of debt and quickly got excited about schools that were more affordable! Please don’t jeapordize your family’s financial sanity over a college…$20,000 per year is alot of money when your EFC is 0! Most kids end up happy at their second or third choice too!</p>