<p>My daughter will be going out of state in the fall as a freshman. She has several food allergies and is Celiac (gluten intollerant). The school she chose allows medical exemptions to not live in the dorms so she will be living in the on campus apartment. My question is we have already seen the preliminary COA on the schools website and the housing is based on dorms (cheaper) and board (she won't have a meal plan) so the costs are different. Do I want a higher COA to get as much aid as possible? Right now the COA is $22,204 and our EFC is 16421. The housing is going to be $2560 more a year than they calculated and Im not sure about the board part, they have $3516 a year which if I figure she will only be there 7 months (September-April less 5 weeks for winter break) thats $502 a month. I think she could buy groceires for that no problem.
Also, they have $2592 - transportation and $2078 - personal expenses. Are those just guesstimates? Sorry I am totally new at this! Im just trying to get an idea what this is actually going to cost and if I should request they up (or lower) her COA for any reason.</p>
<p>Some more info:
We are in California, the school is in Colorado. Mesa State in Grand Junction. She was already given WUE tuition but we have not yet received her award letter.</p>
<p>You can put some feelers out with the FA dept, particularly if you’re going to be visiting. But do you think it will actually make a difference with grant aid? Most public schools don’t have much to give in the way of need-based grants, other than federal and state grants/loans and reserve what little they have for low-income students (ie with EFC close to 0). It looks like she has enough room in her COA budget at present to accomodate the freshman Stafford loan of $5500 although that could change with scholarships or the tuition adjustment. Parent loans are available up to the COA without regard to EFC anyway. Kelsmom, who is a working FAA, has previously posted info here to the effect that when schools do COA adjustments they must use actual expenses…so that potentially could mean that some reduction would take place in another category.</p>
<p>I think I would wait until the award letter comes and you have had time to analyze it and figure out what her actual budget will be. As you say, there is already quite a bit of “play” in most COAs and then you’ll know if you need to contact the FA office about a budget adjustment. My experience has been that they’re less than willing/helpful in the case of undergrad students, unless the student has dependents or other unusual circumstances (really, housing choices are open to other undergrads, which is not to make light of your DD’s condition). YMMV</p>