OP, you asked about financial aid adjustments. I have only 1 data point, but it seems reasonably relevant: student from a family with resources similar to yours, but admitted RD, appealed for finaid review and did indeed succeed in getting a discount in Y1. The discount dropped a lot in Y2 and disappeared in Y3. There was no change in the family circumstances during that time. Anecdotal, but the parent heard from other JHU parents that that is not uncommon for finaid to be adjusted down each year.
As I said: 1 data point with a dash of hearsay, so I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. But even if you get an adjustment, be aware that you can’t count on getting it every year.
Because of your family having their own business & investments NPCs are going to be less reliable.
From here, it is clear that you have made up your mind that it’s JHU or bust, but the option of applying RD to other T20s and comparing financial aid offers is actually not a bad one: your package is strong enough for JHU ED, so you are clearly a competitive candidate, and it is reasonable to think that you may actual get some aid- JHU is not known as especially generous place.
I’m not so sure about this, but be aware your MD/PhD dreams are going to be hard to realize at JHU. The conversion rate from incoming med school aspirant to outgoing med student is not high. Having said that, a lot of the aspirants do divert to PhD, which is key to becoming a professor.
It sounds like your parents have significant assets in addition to income.
And because of the business…and if they owned those properties on 2017…the net price calculators will likely NOT be accurate…for any school…just FYI.
Even though the business took a loss, it’s very possible that some of that was related to deductions allowed by the IRS but that are NOT allowed for financial aid purposes. These would have been added back in as income when your institutional aid was calculated by JHU.
I’m not clear…did they sell ALL of their other secondary real estate? In 2017, were rents part of the equation?
Go,ahead and ask JHU if there is any chance your aid can be increased, but frankly, from what you are posting, don’t be surprised if they say no. This was an ED acceptance…and really I’m sure there is no incentive for the school to give you more money.
Also, keep on mind that you will need to show some change in finances (downward) that happened since you submitted your Profile. Simply saying “we can only pay $60,000 a year” is not likely to get you anywhere.
Then have a serious talk with your parents about college costs.
You do know that there are academics who got their undergrad degrees from lots of different colleges, including instate public universities.
Also remember that in today’s academic environment, most PhDs will do 1-3 post-docs and VAPs before being offered a tenure track professorship. And MD/PhDs will still need to complete a medical residency before they can look for a first professional academic position. During that time your loans will be accruing additional interest.
Post-docs and VAPs are not particularly well paid. Neither are medical residents.
(SIL is a tenured STEM prof at a top U in really hot field, but he spent 4-5 years as a post-doc and VAP before he landed his TT position. He tells me this is normal in academia nowadays.)
As a contrarian point, my financial aid along with classmates actually increased at JHU from years 1 to 4 despite no change in circumstances. As to all the other posters on here, you have to hedge your best. Why doesn’t every top 20 enrollee who is receiving financial aid just go to their local state school? Because if they don’t make it as premed- they might be in a worse state than if they had gone to a top 20. If you don’t make it at Hopkins, you can always get a six figure (including signing bonus with base at around $85k) consulting job out of college (and yes, it is that easy for firms like deloitte) - there are places whose consulting arms don’t recruit heavily at average state schools like Rutgers. For instance Deloitte audit and risk recruits at Rutgers but not the true consulting arm.
$70k is not soul crushing debt - med school debt is soul crushing.
StevensPR, are you old enough to remember the Spring of 2009 when companies slashed their recruiting targets, pulled back offers, and let go thousands of employees?
Or 2001-2003?
So easy to assume that the tight labor market and boom hiring for new grads of 2017 and 2018 is the norm if you don’t remember the bad years. It can take kids who graduate into a recession YEARS to get back on track.
I graduated from college into a bad job market- took the only offer I got. (Magna Cum Laude, blah blah blah). I graduated from a top 5 MBA program into a recession-- and again, took the only offer I got. It happened to be from the top company in my field but a terrible location-- but I didn’t have the luxury of sticking around after graduating hoping for an offer in a nicer city. Pesky loans and all that.
That’s actually a thing- taking the only offer you get. I know I sound like a doomsayer, but economies go up and down, but 70K in debt for undergrad just goes up. And up and up.
@stevensPR The OP isn’t receiving FA. For some that qualify for FA the top end schools can be cheaper. That isn’t the case here.
Consulting budgets are one of the first things to go from a corporate budget (along with T&E) in a downturn. Been there, done that. Try finding a job an event like 9/11. Every open req disappears overnight.
@stevensPR Your advice to just go into consulting and make 6 figures is bad advice. Having seen the recruiting for consulting at top schools up close, it’s fiercely competitive. CCers like to ignore that fact. Many applicants don’t end up with offers. So that’s not a good bet.
We know several well paid grads of University of South Carolina who are working for Deloitte. Imagine that.
We know a grad of Emory who works for Deloitte and doesn’t earn $85,000 a year yet…but she likes her job.
We know a Columbia grad who worked for Deloitte in NY for five years and got totally burnt out…long hours, and lots of travel. She banked her earnings and resigned after the fifth year. She is much happier forking for a smaller firm…after taking a nice LONG vacation.
You know…grads of public universities can be successful too.
@mom2collegekids as I stated in my update to the post, my parents have notified me that they are willing to pay approximately $60k/year and allow me to take out loans up to the Stafford limit of $31k.
@collegemom3717 thank you for your advice. I’ve spoken to multiple JHU undergrads, and all of them have said that their financial aid has remained relatively steady as a percentage of tuition for their first 2 years. While I don’t know their financial situation, it seems rather unlikely that JHU would keep all of the students’ financial aid offers high. However I will still consider your data point while making my decision.
The amounts listed here are what you can get each year.
If your parents will pay $60,000 and you take the $5500 Direct Loan…you will have $65,500 for freshman year. The sticker price is $72,000. So you are short $6500. Where is that $6500 going to come from?
It sounds like you didn’t receive any need based aid from JHU and you say your parents have enough saved to pay the costs. So…will they?
@thumper1 the point of this post was to ask more experienced people how I could get the extra $6500 per year as grant aid from JHU. A point I’ve reaffirmed multiple times and given additional information on.
Yes…and everyone has told you…it’s not likely you will get this money from the school…unless you qualify for some merit award which you probably won’t kniw about until after January 15.
Clearly, this is not going to come in the form of need based aid.
And the net price calculators are not set up for business owners, or owners of additional real estate. So…you can point out a difference…but those factors are not accounted for in the NPC.
If you received NO need based aid from JHU, your family income is north of $250,000 a year. Your family also has substantial savings for you if they have enough saved to fully fund the costs of JHU.
You need to discuss the costs with your parents.
You are not going to get a “Grant” from JHU…grants are need based.
@molbiohemonco1 You can start hustling to apply for outside scholarships. In order to get into JHU you probably have amazing grades and EC’s. That and the JHU name will help you obtain scholarships. There are a lot of small scholarships that don’t get a heck of a lot of attention. If you really want to go to JHU, start going through and applying to each one you are eligible for. To offer some examples: your local rotary club may have a scholarship, there are probably some scholarships around just for science majors going a medical field, there are various essay contests, etc. My son was about to get about 9k in outside scholarships this year, which stacked with his financial aid and merit scholarship (not at JHU, however).
OP- but be aware that many of these outside scholarships Psycholing mentions are for one year only. And you need to assess if $500 here and $750 there is going to make a dent in what you need.
The last thing you need is to discover next August that you are 8K short to go back to JHU and it’s too late to figure out a more cost-effective option.
If it were me- and I know it’s not- I’d have a sit down with my parents. Lay out the four year finances as best as you can predict; show them how much you can borrow on your own. And then ask, “what options do we have here?” I don’t think the financial aid fairy is going to help you here.
If you can afford JHU- great. Commit to your parents that you’ll work 10-12 hours a week on campus to cover your spending money; you’ll work every summer, you’ll be proactive about getting internships and paid research fellowships. And you’ll bank every penny you earn this summer to cover your books and lab fees (do you have a job from last summer you can return to?)
If you can’t afford JHU, what’s your next best option???
If they gave you $0 aid, I don’t think that you can. Are you working? If the gap is $10k and you take the $5500 federal student loan maybe you can earn the other $4500. You can save some by choosing one of the lower cost dorms and meal plans too.
@thumper1 My family income is nowhere near $250k/year, and for you to assume so is frankly insulting. Please don’t make judgements about my family’s financial situation beyond what I’ve chosen to share. I’m not being cheap here. My family has saved enough to fund JHU, but that would use up a large portion of our savings. JHU is my dream school, and it’s a school that I’m willing to put in the work on my end to afford. But tuition is slightly more half of my parents’ combined salary, and so I’m looking for some advice on how to make it slightly more manageable. When I’ve asked here, almost every single poster has told me that I’ll never be able to wrangle out $6.5k from JHU. Very few people have given me any sort of constructive advice on how I can get some grant money out of the university, and again frankly, if people don’t have advice on that front then I’m really not interested in what they have to say, because I’ve heard it enough.
Hopkins got $1.8 billion in financial aid money from Bloomberg, and I understand the stated purpose of that money - to fund educations for low- and middle-income applicants. Yet I haven’t found a single income threshold anywhere on the JHU website above where the increased money would not apply for financial aid purposes. My parents’ income is somewhere between middle-class and upper-middle-class (certainly closer to middle-class) for central NJ, where I live. Yes, they have a lot saved, but their yearly income is, again, nowhere near $250k/year. If Hopkins just received that massive influx of money, I am looking for ways to access my own portion of the money.
@psycholing If you don’t mind, could you please PM me the names of those scholarships so that I could apply to them myself this year?
@blossom I understand that those smaller scholarships won’t have an impact in and of themselves, but at this point any amount of money would help. When I sat down with my parents, they demurred and told me that we would make a decision after we met with our JHU financial aid officer. Because that doesn’t exactly inspire me with confidence, I’m going to gather as much scholarship money as I can on my own end.
Is it possible there is some error on you financial aid forms?
In addition, remember your assets do count too, as does the value of your parent business…even if it lost money.
Your best bet is to contact the JHU financial aid office and ask if they will review your financial aid application and reconsider. They might say yes.
@thumper1 I am going to take my financial aid forms to a financial advisor, so that they can help us fill out our aid forms more strategically for resubmission. I understand that the value of our assets are going to count, but my parents’ business is taken on a 20-year lease. We are thus operators of the business (alongside two other families) and pay for repairs, but we don’t hold the title to the business. We did report the revenue and net spend on our CSS; does this mean JHU might believe we own the business?
I’ll be sure to speak to the JHU financial aid office once more. I’m going to bring:
my offer from NJIT for $13k a year
hopefully, a revised FAFSA and CSS with the help of a financial aid advisor
I guess, a sincere promise that I’m going to attend JHU if I receive enough financial aid (which they might see as an advantage since it boosts their yield)
an explanation that my parents have sold most of their rental properties since 2017, so rent income is no longer an option in any significant capacity (and also, their remaining rental properties are owned jointly with 2 other families, so the remaining rental income is almost negligible)
Is there anything else that might bolster my case? I realize that individually, none of them are substantial, but I’m hoping that together, all of them can help me get to where I need to be to attend.
Sorry. – I can’t give you our list-- the scholarships my son applied to were specific to certain characteristics about him: e.g. our location and various other private matters. I think you can go on one of the scholarship websites and really search for every possible one. Most people only apply for the big ticket scholarships, and there can be quite a low bar for the others. Also go to your HS guidance office to check out local scholarships. Also just use google, e.g. “XXX county, NJ” and “scholarship”. There are literally thousands of small scholarships out there. For example: I unfortunately have several friends who lost a child during college (one died from an accident, one died from natural causes). Both immediately started a scholarship fund in their child’s name. It is awarded to a student who fulfills the characteristics of the child who died. Some scholarships are attached to particular sports, or particular hobbies. Just look around.