<p>Son one just received his Financial Aid package from one of his top 4 schools. The family EFC is 24K but each son, twins, has an EFC of 12K for next year. Total cost of attending this school including travel and spending money is 47K.</p>
<p>The package is as follows:
Merit scholarship: $16,400
Grants: $6,990
Loans: $9,000
Work Study: $2,900
Family contribution of $12,000</p>
<p>This seems reasonable to me with son working summers the loan total would be about 5K/year. Does this sound like a typical offer from a private school? We await final offers from the rest of his schools but I found this one interesting.</p>
<p>drizzit, I think that it sounds really good. I wouldn't worry about the loans too much, as engineering majors, I think that you can carry a little high loan amount as job prospects are good. Is the scholarship renewable? Also remember that engineering majors will have interships hopefully after sophomore year and that will reduce the cost as they should be making decent money and will be able to pay some of their own costs.</p>
<p>Also to consider, is the college in a town where the cost of living is high or low. If lower, you can consider that your room and board will be less and that will help with loan amounts.</p>
<p>I guess that what I am saying is that I would not worry about $9000 in loans this year, it might be possible to lower those amounts later in school.</p>
<p>This package is one that meets 100% of need, IMHO heavy on loans. When the FA packages come in from the other schools you may find a wide variety. some less heavy on loans, some more.</p>
<p>We have seen better FA packages from top schools, meaning larger grants, less work study and only the basic stafford loans each year, so the max loan load at the end of 4 years was roughly 16000.</p>
<p>I hope that others will comment on this. My S applied to engineering schools and we found that the FA packages were for the most part heavy on loans. I wonder if technical type schools will pad their FA packages with a bigger loan % than LACs. It would be interesting to see that information.</p>
<p>I just saw that they met 100% of need. I saw schools which met need with PLUS loans for the parents, which isn't meeting need. It also seems that for a major that could be making 50,000+ out of schools, $32,000 worth of loans seemed pretty reasonable.</p>
<p>Drizzit, According to data collected by the College Board and the US Department of Education, the average student in 2005 (last year available) graduated with student loans of $19,300. The average financial aid package, by the way, has student loans comprising 51% of the total package. So the loan amount in the FA offer your son received is on par with national averages for all 4-year institutions, the proportion of loans is quite good, and I agree that it sounds reasonable.</p>
<p>However, a few caveats. You may want to check on how much tuition has risen annually over the past five years at the school in question. Assume that it will increase each year at similar rates in the future, and ask the school if the FA package in subsequent years will be adjusted to meet increases using more loans or grants/scholarships. And, do take into account the four year graduation rate for students in your son's major at the school. If he's an engineering major, for instance, and a substantial majority of engineering students at the school take five years to graduate, factor in another year of loans. Finally, pay close attention to whether any GPA requirements for keeping the merit scholarship are realistic. </p>
<p>You, and others, may also want to crunch the numbers to see how loan totals and career plans may affect ability to pay. Two resources that I recommend in particular:</p>
<p>Sorry, I clearly mis-spoke above. I meant to say that the amount offered totalled across 4 years will result in higher-than-the-national average student loan debt. However, it may still be a reasonable amount, depending on the answers to my caveats, and future potential earnings. Sorry for not proof-reading more carefully before I hit send!</p>
<p>$9000 for first year loans? Ouch! Schools usually increase the loans in packages in subsequent years, so you can count on the loans going up, and up and up! DS's first choice college will cap his loans at $14525 for the entire 4 years... at first I thought that was a lot, but in comparison it looks pretty good :eek:</p>
<p>Thanks for the input.. My take is that is was an OK package but not a great/ good one. </p>
<p>It is a good school but he has a full ride at a solid state Flagship (honors college) and a couple of full tuition offers as well. I am not sure the "name" brand is worth it here. Son's goal is to get out with 20K or less debt. If the loan stayed constant and he managed to earn about 4K every summer to lower the loan amounts it is right at 20K. I was surprised the package included the spending and traveling expenses. I guess I assumed those would be extras and not mentioned in the financial aid.</p>
<p>Deb we have seen heavy loans from the engineering specialty schools as well but Son did not apply to any what we consider true LACs so I have nothing to compare.</p>
<p>We await UC Boulder, Penn, USC, and Northwestern</p>