My son who has been accepted and would like to attend Auburn University who has a 3.8 GPA but his test scores fall short of those needed for Freshman Scholarships. He is and NY resident and we have an EFC of 4868 I am wondering how generous their need based scholarship packages are and what others with similar situations have received. I am also open to suggestions on best loan options.
unless your child is eligible for merit $$ from Auburn (and you feel that he is not), As an OOS with an EFC of 4868, you will receive approximately $1000 in Pell and a $5500 loan. The rest is on you.
You and your son should explore financially feasible options in NY
That is exactly what he received in his financial aid package but on AUSOM there are at least 30 Scholarships available to OSS students with simply a need based requirement, would he be eligible for any of those with our EFC?
most of those scholarships may only be one time scholarships for a small amount of $$. They will certainly not be enough to fill the 30k gap in your FA package. The biggest scholarships will come directly from the school and will be reserved for students at the top of the admitted students pool). Does he meet the requirement for the honors college?
No. We come from a small rural school district where most kids go on to to employment or CC and despite my stressing the importance of prep classes he was repeatedly told by his guidance counselor that his test scores didn’t matter and that his GPA, transcript, rank and AP credits would get him into whatever school he chose and she was correct about that but she never mentioned how important the scores would be as far as getting $$ and now they are killing him. I was also told repeatedly that as a single mother he would receive a great deal of aid and I guess if he were going to a CC or even and in state school the fed aid package would be considered substantial but obviously not with his choice of schools. I really dropped the ball and should have done more research on my own instead of taking the word of his clearly inexperienced guidance counselor so now I am scrambling to try to find a way to make this work.
I should note that he is a semi pro fisherman and has chosen Auburn because of their competitive fishing team. It is not considered an NCAA sport because there is award money involved, therefore there are no scholarships available. To pursue this he needs to go to a Southern School as there is no such thing as Competitive Collegiate Bass Fishing in the North where we live.
A gap year and spending some time re-taking the standardized test might be an option. The Alabama and Auburn scholarships are quite generous.
Yes, gap year might be just the thing! Focus on getting those scores where they need to be.
Is there a coach? If so, I’d give him a call, explain the situation and ask him for suggestions.
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him. I was also told repeatedly that as a single mother he would receive a great deal of aid and I guess if he were going to a CC or even and in state school the fed aid package would be considered substantial b
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? Who told you that? A school GC? If so, she probably was talking about instate NY public schools because he’d get STATE aid and fed aid, and the instate schools have a low cost.
If the CG implied that he’d get a lot of aid to an OOS public, PLEASE inform her how wrong her advice is. She should know better. She should know that 99.9% of OOS publics do NOT have the funds to support need based aid for OOS students. Most don’t have enough aid for their own instate students.
Think about it…would you want YOUR taxes paying for OOS students to attend your instate NY schools? That would drive everyone’s taxes sky high! Your taxes would go UP UP UP.
We were incredibly misguided. I don’t believe that anyone in our district has perused an high cost out of state school in 20 years so she has 0 experience in how to handle this I am furious and heart broken. His only other option that offers the fishing program that he is looking for is Columbus University in Ga which is much more affordable though it is his last choice. He got 0$ from University of Alabama which cost just about the same as Auburn. Any northern school is out of the question though as of now SUNY schools are quite expensive themselves though there is a bill on the table to make them free for all students with a HH income of less than $125,000.00 which I think is ridiculous and unsustainable. He will have to make a choice between the very affordable Columbus or be saddled with debt. Do you have any insight on establishing residency in Al. during his first year as a Student?
I doubt if this is going to happen especially with the major cuts to the education budget, essentially gutting SEOG and FWS.
What is his attended major?
Unless you move to AL and live there working for a year before he starts college, he will never be in-state there. You cannot get residency for the sole purpose of attending college, which is right now , what you and he want.
No, your son will not be allowed to establish residency in the state of Alabama. Alabama has very difficult residency req’ts for tuition purposes.
You would have to move there. Your child would have to NOT go to school. Then after you worked there for a year, establish residency then your son could start school there as an instate student.
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though as of now SUNY schools are quite expensive themselves <<<
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???
How is a SUNY too expensive? Did you run the NPC there?
But he could take a gap year and bring his scores up high enough to qualify for scholarships to Auburn and/or Alabama. There are other things you can do during a gap year besides test prep. Earn money for college, for example! And explore potential majors.
They are all in the low 20’s which is of course half of Auburn but like I said a Northern School is out of the question.
What is your son’s intended major? is he eligible for the honors college or STEM incentive scholarship at SUNY
His intended major is business with a minor in MIS. He is already earning some income as a fisherman and it is very important that he be on a fishing team as it is a potential and likely career path. So I guses we wait to see what little Auburn offers him and start looking into loan options.
Please run the Net Price Calculator on Auburn’s website. It will be nearly 100% accurate.
as for loan options…Can you qualify to borrow $150k of student loans? If not, it won’t happen. there are no student loans that allow students to borrow much on their own.
YOU will be responsible for any of the cosigned loans that he can’t afford to pay back.
The fed loans that he’ll be offered are:
Frosh 5500
Soph 6500
Jr 7500
Sr 7500
How much do you think he’ll be earning upon graduation?
He is not eligible for either and really does not want to go to a school up North as he is pursuing the fishing clubs in the south.
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He is not eligible for either
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He is not eligible for either what? Not sure what this is an answer to. please clarify.
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and really does not want to go to a school up North as he is pursuing the fishing clubs in the south.
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I sympathize with a young person’s desire to go to a particular school or to a particular area of the country. However, money often “calls the shots”. There isn’t a money tree out there.
And ruining his adult life burdened with unaffordable loans will not help him in the long run. You need to be the adult and explain to him that he won’t be able to afford to make $1500+ a month student loan payments for ten long years…and therefore YOU will get stuck.
Can you qualify to cosign these big loans?