My kids are looking at a couple of private schools. We are willing to pay for if we can and ran NPC and seem to be within range though we have to adjust budgets or downsize. One thing I am not able to find information is, what if our financial situation changes (job loss, health etc).
(1) Would schools adjust aid for the following year, based on the unforeseen -ve impact on our finances?
(2) I have seen may kids graduate in 5 or 6 years from these private schools, my understanding is due to academic difficulties or breaking education to do internships or startups (which is the majority of the case). Would the need-based scholarships extend beyond 4 years if the situation warrants?
Thank you for your help. We are looking at few as Reach schools in the order of maybe to no-way but apply anyway. In that order.
AT most schools that give need based aid, unless the student is in an approved 5 year program, they will only receive 4 -years- 8 semesters of need based aid.
Please clarify, as to why would your student need 6 years to graduate. Are you talking about taking a leave and coming back?
If your kid needs extra time due to academic difficulties (retaking classes) anything over those 8 terms of institutional aid, is on you. At our house kid knew that they were on the 4 year plan, not the 4 year, i have to do summer school, not the I need another year because I changed my major, want to double major, etc.
If your child is chronically ill and may need to leave school, you should definitely look into tuition insurance
OK Thank you, I understand now that academic difficulties, not a consideration for extending need-based aid. Another scenario is for them to take 6 months off for internships as I see most of the kids do that.
And of course what happens if our financial situation changes due to unforeseen situations like losing my job, health etc.? do they recalculate for that/next year? T
If the internship is done through the school (for credit) your child is still enrolled at their school going to be getting financial aid that semester and getting credit. This situation counts toward their 8 terms of aid.
If your child is at a school like Northeastern, Drexel, Dartmouth where student maybe doing internships, while not enrolled in school, there is no aid being disbursed. If this is a big concern, make sure that your child tries to get summer internships so that it does not interfere with the completion of their degree.
If you have a financial change in circumstance, you will contact the school and ask for a financial review.
The school will tell you what documentation you need to submit, layoff/termination letters, they will want to know if you are receiving severance, if yes, what are the terms of your severance package, unemployment, etc.
For health care expenses, they will want to know your unreimbursed health care expenses.
Generally, eligibility for need-based aid, and the amount required, is recalculated for each academic year based on updated financials. So yes, if your financial situation changes form one year to the next, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for the student’s need-based aid to change. Of course, what actually happens depends on the school’s specific policies and the circumstances of each situation.
Merit aid is often set during freshman year and continues for the 8 (or sometimes 10) semesters as long as grades are maintain. Some schools require those to be continuous semesters. My duaghter’s did, and she almost screwed it up as she took a semester off to do a Disney internship, but her school didn’t recognize it. She had asked permission but that wasn’t recorded correctly and we had to beg for the merit aid to be reinstated.
My other daughter attended a school where a lot of the students do internships or co-ops. Those done through the school are as if there is no break. There is a co-op program where the students have two 6-month co-ops plus take one or two online classes during the co-ops and in doing so they graduated in the summer after their senior year. They get FA during the co-ops, but because they aren’t full time students, it is reduced. My daughter was more the exception than the rule, going for 8 semesters, not a single credit transferred in, no summers.
Most of the schools you listed don’t give merit aid, only need based aid which is re-evaluated every year and shouldn’t matter if the student takes time off for a co-op, although the 4 year grad rate is very high and it doesn’t appear students at those schools are taking a semester off to work.
Most of the students doing internships at my engineering firm, do so during the summer and while on break. Exceot for coop schools like Northeastern, they graduate in 4 years.
It would be the rare exception for students at these schools to take a semester off for an internship. Internships are done in the summer. Students who attend these schools overwhelmingly graduate in four years.
In any event, students have to reapply for need-based aid every year. In general, there are no guaranteed multi-year need-based grants (exceptions for QuestBridge and similar programs), so there’s no FA to “lose” if he is not enrolled for a semester. (Although I supposed there could be limitations on some named-donor grants.) You can expect that the FA will be the same or similar if your circumstances remain the same or similar. OTOH, if he is actually enrolled for more than eight semesters because of academic difficulty, you’d have to ask the FA office what the stipulations are for institutional need-based aid being given beyond 8 semesters.
How much aid did the NPC say you’d get at these schools? If you are eligible for a Pell grant, the max is 12 semesters. For federal subsidized student loans, it’s 150% of the duration of the program (so, six years for a typical bachelor’s degree). But, again, if he’s not enrolled, that semester does not count.
I don’t believe there is a limit to the number of years for an unsubsidized loan.
My husband suddenly and unexpectedly lost his job in mid-May of my older daughter’s senior year in high school, about two weeks after she had notified a university that she planned to attend. We wrote an appeal letter but my daughter didn’t get more financial aid, for her first year or any other year. However, I considered the university’s financial aid package to be generous and I didn’t think it was unreasonable for the school to not increase my daughter’s aid.
Need based aid is based on financial information from prior prior year. For example, the 2018-2019 FAFSA used 2016 tax year income information.
If you lose your job, you would need to do a special circumstances consideration with the college. This is done on a case by case basis, and might or might not result in increased aid.
If you get laid off, any severance or unemployment or vacation day compensation will also be viewed s income.
My opinion…if you are REALLY concerned about the finances…
Thank you. For the information - Yes we are planning on applying to a mix of schools that give full tuition scholarships to those that we can afford reasonably after NPC. This question is for me, to comfortably assure my kids that we got their back for the four years of college.
If we can’t then we have to tell them upfront right I don’t want to promise something I can’t keep even in unforeseen circumstances.
I think that the majority take at least 5 years, although many students graduate in 4. One reason for taking longer is a late change in majors. Another is if a student has a bad semester or two and needs to drop classes or repeat classes with poor grades. For some very demanding majors some students do better if they take 4 classes at a time instead of 5.
We tried to make sure that we would not have a disaster if things went 5 years, with no aid for the 5th year. Fortunately our oldest did graduate in 4 years and our youngest is solidly on track to do the same.
My husband was recently diagnosed with advanced heart failure. In 24-hours, he went from (presumably) “perfectly healthy” to disabled and unable to work. I became his full-time caretaker. We went from two incomes to one-half income. Add in $300,000+ in medical bills to our limited middle-income budget (an insurance issue that we’re appealing, but that our insurance company says is our responsibility, not theirs). We filed a financial aid appeal and, for the first time in the four years she has gone there, we will be receiving financial as well as merit aid from the school this year. However, they also made it clear that the aid is extended for this school year only and she will be expected to graduate on time, despite the family upheaval. While paying for school is considered a family responsibility that has been affected by an unforeseen health crisis, they consider finishing school to be a student responsibility and will be up to her.
I don’t want to promise something I can’t keep even in unforeseen circumstances.