<p>My daughter was named a NMF and her chemistry professor at NEU is working on getting the full tuition offer for her, but what about other financial needs?</p>
<p>I do not make enough to pay for a 3k meal plan or 3k+ housing expenses and all the fees involved in the process. Realistically, I will only be able to provide for her plane ticket. Does NEU offer any sort of financial aid to families unable to pay for room and board and extraneous fees? We couldn't find any reference to this on the website.</p>
<p>For the financial backstory, if it helps: We're a single parent family of three with only one income of less than 60k. Her father refuses to contribute any monetary aid to this. </p>
<p>She has a full ride at the University of Houston, but would prefer NEU. Is there an available scholarship so that she would not rack up a ton of student loans?</p>
<p>Can’t answer this from an institutional perspective, but just some thoughts that came to the top of my head. Anyone that finds a flaw (a very likely situation) please correct me.</p>
<p>Anyway, apply for financial aid using the FAFSA. That might help take care of a little bit of the cost. It also should provide availability for student loans that aren’t terribly high interest (this is a part where someone else should talk, because I’m not an expert on the finances).</p>
<p>Anyway, I think NEU can definitely be made affordable for you. You say she’s a chemistry major? That’s a good major for NEU’s coops, which she can usually get paid for. I know that most times, a coop is a wash (the student makes enough to pay room and board wherever the coop is, but that’s about it, no real “profit”). However, if she can get a coop in the city where you live and not have to pay room and board, the coop could get her around $10k to help pay for NEU. Depending on AP credits and all that, if she’s able to do coops at home, the student loan debt should be manageable.</p>
<p>If she’s a chem major, she can probably pay off a small amount of debt with relative ease.</p>
<p>Hopefully, the FAFSA will provide a little bit of money for you, as well as the opportunity of coops (or even regular summer jobs) will make the amount of loans you have to take out something that she can expect to pay back quickly after graduating.</p>
<p>Your family might be eligible for a Pell Grant and every US student that fills out the FAFSA can get a Stafford Loan of $5500 per year increasing in following years. Fill out the FAFSA!!</p>
<p>Also if your definition of a ton of student loans includes a full tuition scholarship I must applaud your daughter’s academic standing.</p>
<p>Never ever EVER use predicted co-op money as a factor. For nearly all students, co-op can’t even cover rent. You might be able to save some if you live at home, but then it’ll disappear after a few months on campus-- not to mention basic living expenses, books, etc.</p>
<p>Fact of the matter is, in this situation, you will HAVE to take out student loans. Loans are done by cost of attendance, which includes housing, fees and books. Unless you get a special grant or loan (like Pell, above), the regular loan amounts won’t cover everything.</p>
<p>I know of several students in that exact situation (parents can’t give anything) who ended up with a lot of private loans. Your kid should accept it, and know that it’ll be incredibly painful upon graduation — I’m living with about 27k, btw, even with a really good job and it makes me cry sometimes — or go to a cheaper school. </p>
<p>Also-- loans can go down. By a lot. Once I started making my own income from co-op, the loans offered to me dropped to less than a thousand a year.</p>