<p>My D rec'd this Award Notice today. Unfortunately, it only says we can have loans...no mention of any other merit aid (which she has readily rec'd from three others). If any of you have this notice, can you tell me if it includes scholarships/grants or if that comes in another form that we have missed? Thanks for the assist.</p>
<p>i too received only loans and a work study...sigh</p>
<p>Where do you both live? We did not receive anything yet.</p>
<p>Loans only-NY. I have read JMU does not give a lot of merit money.</p>
<p>This is what my son was awarded 2 years ago too. The bottom line is that they cost us less than all but 2 schools. The 2 schools with better offers were only better because of merit aid. If aid were lost because my son did not meet the gpa requirement, both of those school's would have been a disaster for us financially since they both only meet around 65% of financial need. I think that for someone with an efc in the 23k+ range this school can be a good deal for the OOS student. If efc is lower, one might very well get a better offer somewhere else. I have read that JMU has made lists in the past for poor financial aid. In the past they have had a lower sticker price to begin with. I think that this differential is getting smaller. At some point with COA increases for OOS students, if grants are not given, people will go somewhere else. I guess at this point seats are still being filled with OOS students at a rate of nearly 30% without offering many grants.</p>
<p>JMU is a state school...therefore little money available for merit aid; even need based aid. UVA and WM have larger endowments but still, as state school, offer little aid to OOS'ers. Sad Fact.</p>
<p>30k in loans. How thoughtful. Naht.</p>
<p>momray, you are right, and currently they are priced so that they are able to fill 30% of their seats with OOS students without offering grants. At some point that will change though. What that point is, I don't know. Will it be a COA of 30k, 32k, or perhaps 35k when 30% of seats will no longer fill? There will be a price point where enough families will not or cannot pay what is being asked to fill 30% of those seats. This is the reason that my son did not look at schools like UVM, or UConn. They reached a COA that was way too high for us, and many private schools would have been more affordable than schools like UConn or UVM (last time I looked at their sticker prices was 4 years ago, BTW).</p>
<p>nerbsmom, We are in PA. </p>
<p>Thanks all, for info/input. My D applied to 5 OOS publics, JMU with the lowest tuition rate (small margin). Three others who are very much in the same ballpark have given her nice merit aid $ so JMU just took themselves out of the running for her. Oh well, guess somebody on the waitlist will be glad we are moving on! ;-)</p>
<p>loans and work study here too. Oh well.</p>
<p>Did you apply for any of their merit scholarships? There was one for STEM majors, one only for women, and some departments offered opportunities to some applicants. OK, so the last one depended on your selected major, but the others were applications (which I forgot to actually do, so I guess I can't talk.) I don't know if there were more...I didn't actually research them at all.</p>
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My D applied to 5 OOS publics, JMU with the lowest tuition rate (small margin). Three others who are very much in the same ballpark have given her nice merit aid $ so JMU just took themselves out of the running for her. Oh well, guess somebody on the waitlist will be glad we are moving on! ;-)
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<p>Realtime, sorry to hear that JMU did not offer aid, but happy for your family that 3 other public Us did! This is a point that was trying to make. JMU had themselves posititioned with a lower sticker price, and it was attractive enough to enroll 30% OOS students without giving much in the way of grants. I think that you gave the perfect example, realtime, about how this is quickly changing. I see it happening because the sticker price at JMU is less attractive than it was just a couple of years ago to OOS students.</p>
<p>northeastmom, You make a great point! I can only hope the "trend" continues as my now HS freshman S starts looking at his choices. In the meantime, my D is very happy with her remaining options. Exciting times...good luck to all the decision-makers this month!</p>
<p>Hmm ... getting nervous here. We still have not received the preliminary financial aid offer. The website says they were beginning to send them out 3/21 ... 10 days ago? Is anyone else still waiting?</p>
<p>Son received loans and work study as well. I called to ask since this was "preliminary", is there a possibility of significant changes. For instance a subsidized Stafford becoming unsubsidized, work study being removed etc. They explained the tuition for the upcoming year had not been decided, that is mainly why it's an estimate at this time. Actual tuition would not be decided until after May, but that if our Fafsa was final the award info should not change. My concern is, son must accept by May 1, without knowing the upcoming year's actual tuition cost... which will surely rise... Any thoughts on this??</p>
<p>mdf, I spoke with someone in the financial aid office when my son was deciding too. She told me that she had worked at JMU for 4 years, and she saw the increases (I am only talking about OOS) at 6% each year. I cannot tell if you she was talking about tuition, and R&B, or if she was speaking only about tuition. We found the increase significant from year 1 to year 2, but we did not feel the pinch because we only took out the subsidized portion of the Stafford ($500 was offered as subsidized in year 1). In year 2 our efc was lower and we qualified for a subsidized Stafford, and we over paid a few hundred in year 1, so our out of pocket costs went down. For year 3 our efc has increased, so we will not be offered a dime. Year 3 will be painful, with or without the increases. I am only telling you our situation so you can all see what you have to look forward to.</p>
<p>Thanks, northeastmom. This is our first time with all of this and so your perspective is helpful. At this point we feel like deer in the headlights as we look at all of these costs coming at us. We are OOS as well, from the northeast, so our efc is of course high. Did you personally experience changes from your preliminary award to your final award through the years (assuming your fafsa was final at the time of the preliminary notice)?</p>
<p>Well my son is a sophomore, so we only have been through this for year 1 and year 2. Our preliminary award did not change, but the increase did occur sometime in the summer. To be honest, I don't know if the anticipated increase was taken into account when we received our preliminary FA offer. Our other OOS public was 4k more than JMU, but offered nothing at all (unless you count plus loans, LOL. We did not even consider plus loans). In year 2 we did not receive a preliminary notice (at least I don't remember it). We knew that we were eligible for something because of the increase in costs and a small decrease in our efc. This worked out. I know that for next year we will not qualify for a subsidized Stafford, but we'll end up taking it unsubsidized because we simply cannot afford the full freight out of our pockets. With it all, we compared 10 packages last year. 2 private schools came in costing less than JMU. We also felt that if merit awards were lost, then those would have been 2 much more expensive options. The reason is that they both only meet about 60-65% of financial need. Only one private school offered my son significant grants in the form financial aid to make themselves affordable, rather than in form of merit aid. That school would have also cost a bit more than JMU cost us last year, even with their financial aid. It sounds like your efc is similar to ours, since you feel like a deer caught in head lights. It is not an easy decision.</p>
<p>It is a little backwards that most do not decide their upcoming year tuition and fees until after students need to decide. One exception I know of is Miami/OH as they have 2008-09 rates posted already. (Kind of like finding out, after ringing out at the check out lane, how much your milk and bread will really cost). We just sort of figured a 5% increase across the boards from last year's rates...hoping that's not true...but it gave us a figure. It seems like if this is the way it works, we should all be able to negotiate with finaid reps...kind of like buying a used car! What an eye opener this whole process can be, huh?</p>
<p>realtime, it is a huge eyeopener. Schools do not want to feel like used car dealers, but I feel like I am buying the most expensive airline ticket of a lifetime, and doing so 4 times for each child. It is on a flight where everyone pays a different fare to get from point A to point B, and to top it off when we choose which airline (which college) we don't have a price (at the time of application). We get the price it is going to cost us around 4/1, and then have perhaps 30 days to decide!</p>