<p>My child attended Boston University, receiving approximately $46,000 in need-based financial aid. Due to a family illness she transferred to Rutgers University where she received no need-based financial aid. Has anyone experienced this type of difference in need based aid, especially when the EFC was revised downward by several thousand points after the need-based BU award was received? I realize that the cost of attendance at BU is almost twice that of Rutgers University so I expected some adjustment to the need-based award. I just didn't expect to get zero financial aid; not even work study. I'm scrambling now to figure out how to pay for the Spring semester since we used our entire college savings for the year to pay the Fall semester bill. Can anyone share information on what Expected Family Contribution (EFC) value resulted in financial aid from Rutgers or income level? After having talked to numerous NJ state employees working within the different financial aid organizations none would tell me what income levels qualify for aid nor what EFC value. Any information or guidance would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Did you call the Rutgers Financial Aid office and ask them why? I would not call the state about it unless you mean state employees working for Rutgers…</p>
<p>You should also run the NPC for both Rutgers and BU with your current numbers. When I run them for my family, I get that it is $15,000 cheaper per year to go to BU than Rutgers (and we are NJ residents). There is no FA offered from Rutgers, and they assume $5,500 of student loan, so our cost would be $24,700. NJ state schools have their own NPCs, not linked to the College Board, so have your tax forms ready.</p>
<p>I see BU being listed as $59,100, so minus $46,000 that is $13,100 for your daughter to attend. It does seem insane, but it fits the trend I am seeing with my son - don’t assume state schools are always cheaper than private schools, and don’t assume that FA is the same everywhere.</p>
<p>My advice is to look into other NJ state schools if you can. They might not be cheaper than Rutgers, but they might be. For example, I ran William Paterson and got that they would be $19,950 for my son to attend, with an estimate of $7,000 of aid. IMHO, as someone who teaches at a NJ state college, it is worth a few phone calls if her major is at any of the other NJ state schools. I know at least one NJ state school has a tuition-free honors program.</p>
<p>You might also consider a CC for a year, and transferring to Rutgers after that. There is a NJ mandate that state four-year colleges have to accept county community college credits.</p>
<p><a href=“http://admissions.rutgers.edu/applynow/morefortransferapplicants/njcommunitycollegestudents.aspx”>http://admissions.rutgers.edu/applynow/morefortransferapplicants/njcommunitycollegestudents.aspx</a></p>
<p>Good luck, I am sure it is difficult for her switching schools and dealing with your family medical issues. </p>
<p>rhandco</p>
<p>Thank you for replying to my post. I have spoken to the Rutgers Financial Aid officer assigned to my daughter several times as has my daughter. The Rutgers Financial Aid officer has been very helpful since FAFSA doesn’t take into consideration medical expenses that can quickly drain a family’s life savings. My sense is that the Financial Aid office at Rutgers is understaffed since my discussions with staff members have always been helpful when I was able to reach them. I also talked to an administrator at HESSA since we had a TAG grant last year BEFORE my daughter accepted admission to Boston University. This year, with our income lower then last year, I was told that we do not qualify for a TAG grant. I found this very puzzling and was told by a HESSA staff member that the calculation used to award TAG grants is complex and we do not qualify. I will run the NPC, which may give me a bit more insight into this financial aid puzzle. I filed a financial aid appeal a few months ago. Our EFC was adjusted downward several thousand points after the Rutgers financial aid officer reviewed the FAFSA and all supporting documentation. After a few months of checking the appeal status, I was told again this week it is being “processed” so I have no idea if my daughter will receive anything beyond a $5,500 subsidized Stafford loan. Your point about community college attendance is right on target and might be the only option we have for my daughter to continue her education come Spring semester. Once again, thank you for the feedback it is greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>What is your FAFSA EFC? </p>
<p>Rutgers really doesn’t have huge amounts of institutional aid to award. The most you are guaranteed would be $6500 in Direct Loans for the sophomore year, and any amount of the Pell Grant you are entitled to. </p>
<p>Was any of your kiddo’ said at Boston University merit aid? Or was it all need based aid?</p>
<p>Also, your student is a transfer student to Rutgers. Often, transfer students don’t receive the same level of institutional grant money awarded to incoming freshmen.</p>
<p>Rutgers doesn’t promise to meet need, and any aid is usually given to incoming frosh, not so much to transfers.</p>
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<p>Your D should probably start at a CC THIS FALL. It may not have been a good idea to use all the money for ONE semester!</p>
<p>What was your EFC?</p>
<p>EFC is not some number that schools have to meet. It is just a federal number that means little-to-nothing to most schools. </p>
<p>Rutgers offers merit aid to incoming instate freshmen. Here is a recent example where they almost covered full need:
ACT31/UWGPA3.8/EFC17.7K
Sub Stafford - 3.5K
Unsub Stafford - 2.0K
RU Scarlet Scholarship - 3.5K
RU Dean Scholarship (from specific school -A&S, RBS,etc.) - 2K
-----Total 11K—</p>
<p>If your daughter had top grades in HS and BU - talk to Finaid about merit aid, general and from her Rutgers school.
If your EFC<COA then at least you can ask for subsidized loan up to 3.5K</p>
<p>^OP is a transfer student</p>
<p>Thank you all for your replies so far. Several individuals asked what the EFC was for Rutgers. The EFC was 4200. What was really strange is that our son, who is also in college (not attending Rutgers, he is at a private out-of-state college) had a different EFC on his FAFSA. I can only assume his summer employment was responsible for the higher EFC number. </p>
<p>Also, the financial aid awarded by BU was based on financial need not merit. My daughter did have a full-tuition merit scholarship with a generous housing grant to a university in New England but the school upon further review did not offer the science major my daughter is pursuing. </p>
<p>I thought it was difficult working on financial aid and scholarships for college attendance when my daughter was in high school. I had no idea how much more difficult it becomes once your child enters college. Once again, thank you to everyone who has shared their experiences. It has been helpful.</p>
<p>Yes, the fafsa EFC is composed of a parent portion which should be the same for both kids and a student portion which will be different depending on each student’s income and assets.</p>
<p>You state that (with an EFC of $4200) your child received no need-based financial aid, but what about a partial Pell grant?</p>
<p>With a $4200 EFC, Op’s child will be eligible for a $1580 Pell grant</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/attachments/20142015PellGrantPaymentandDisbursementSchedules.pdf”>https://www.ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/attachments/20142015PellGrantPaymentandDisbursementSchedules.pdf</a></p>
<p>I am sorry you are going through all of this. Yes, financial aid is complicated. The fact of the matter is that no school guarantees to meet need as defined by the FAFSA EFC. Most schools gap, and often gap terribly as you have found out. Also, transfers often do not aid packages as generous as in coming freshmen. Usually schools process those packages last, after the incoming freshmen that they have to attract into coming, and then the packages for the upperclassmen that usually are similar to their prior year awards or that can cause problems. By the time the transfers are in consideration, a lot of the funds, if not all are used up. Leaves PELL, Direct Loans and any state entitlements. You can directly ask Rutgers for any of their own grants and funding, and see what they have to say about that. </p>
<p>It is entirely possible to get better aid from an expensive private school than ones more reasonably priced state school. In my state, the SUNYs tend to only meet full need up to tuition and fees. Any discretionary costs, any room/board, and not discretionary needs like books and supplies and transportation are up to the student and family So one can generally find a SUNY locally for commuting and get full need met, but not at a “sleep away school”, in general. </p>
<p>So it is entirely possible that BU would be less expensive than Rutgers for your daughter if they are giving more of their own money and more federal goodies than Rutgers is. You would get PELL and the Direct loan for BU too. You might want to talk to the fin aid person at BU and see if they can adjust her package in light of the new circumstances. </p>
<p>Where will your daughter likely be going to college this fall? Is she going back to BU? Taking off the term? I ask because you say that she is looking to transfer to Rutgers in the spring term. If she is not in school for the spring term, she would only get half the PELL for the year for that term (about $800) but can borrow the full $6500 for that term. It still is only $7300 in aid. I don’t know how TAG works, but when it comes to state awards, a fin aid officer at a school often has no leeway in professional judgement to make exception if the student does not qualify, whereas for US government aid, the FAFSA EFC, they do have that authority. </p>
<p>@cptofthehouse </p>
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<p>I don’t think that is what she said. her D transferred to Rutgers THIS FALL, and they paid for it out of college savings…and now they have NO money to pay for spring. </p>
<p>i think that if they can, pull her back out of Rutgers (if can get money back) and either have her go to a CC or have her contact BU and see if she can have her aid for next Spring and go back there. </p>
<p>I can understand that if a family member is ill, there would be a quick reaction to have the D come home for school, but that decision seemed to have been made w/o realizing that BU’s aid would not be following her to R…even when adjusted downward for differences in cost. The family seemed to have just assumed that because she got X from BU, she would get a “bit less than X” at Rutgers because it is less expensive. BU’s aid was BU’s money. Rutgers doesn’t have that money to give out…especially to transfers. </p>
<p>The title of this thread is disturbing…“aid zeroed out”…as if the aid would follow her to wherever she went.</p>
<p>As stated, I am very sorry that this has happened. I know of a number of similar situations. When I was in college, a student I knew went home one term for whatever reason,and decided to resume his education at UDel where he assumed it would be a lot less expensive. Back then, the numbers were far less, but I remember the consternation when he discovered he’s be paying more at his state school than at the pricey private. He ended up coming back to our college, which pretty much meets full need and finishing up there after a year and a half hiatus.</p>
<p>Is it possible for the student to ask to return to BU and see what kind of aid they will give her as a returning student? That is what the student from many years ago, that I knew did.</p>
<p>I think the student would have better luck getting aid back to BU if she doesn’t go to R at all. </p>
<p>This thread should be a “heads up” to those who are considering a transfer. Don’t cut ties with your current school until you have seen the aid pkg at your new school…cuz there’s a good chance that your new school will be more expensive.</p>
<p>Well, she went to Rutgers for a term. She can explain the situation to BU and see what they will do. Doesn’t hurt to ask. </p>
<p>^
Do we know that she went to R for a term? I think she just started this fall term. If so, if the money could be gotten back, I would pull her back out.</p>
<p>@cptofthehouse </p>
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<p>I’m not sure what the situation is. I agree that if Rutgers is unaffordable and the student has just started this fall term, it might be a good idea to withdraw, reapply to BU and also see what Rutgers will do for the spring semester now that the fin aid office has some handle on the situations. Can the OP’s daughter get TAP eligibility? What is the obstacle to this? Why isn’t she getting PELL with the EFC what it is? </p>
<p>The COA for Rutgers is close to $30K. That is $15K per semester… From the early posts, it appears that the cost at BU was $13K for the YEAR. If this is the case, Rutgers is costing more than twice what BU would if the second year aid were the same, and it appears that the OP’s EFC has gone down. </p>
<p>How much has OP paid to Rutgers this term? </p>
<p>A transfer to a community college is going to just take care of the spring semester because then the Student will have two years of college and should be going to 4 year school to get her Bachelor’s degree. By then, the bridges to BU would definitely be burned, and any discussion with Rutgers will have to be renewed. Right now is the time to get this resolved. </p>
<p>Another solution would be to transfer to a local state university that can confer a 4 year degree. If student is enrolled at Rutgers and no more money is forthcoming, withdraw and go to a local 4 year school. Work this term and go during spring and summer term. Summer term is often less expensive and by living at home, money can be saved. </p>
<p>But didn’t the student transfer to Rutgers for a reason? Perhaps that needs to be considered. It sounds like this student wants to be closer to home due to a family situation.</p>
<p>The family needs to find a more,affordable option than Rutgers…in NJ. Is there any school to which the student can commute?</p>
<p>^^
That may be so… Is the student a rising sophomore? If so, then go to a CC for this year. It is crazy to spend all the college fund on FALL semester and then scratch one’s head about how to pay for the rest of any needed semesters. I doubt she is graduating from college next may, so she needs a better solution. </p>
<p>It sounds like an immediate family member is seriously ill with very high medical bills (the reason why EFC dropped by a LOT). </p>