<p>I know that there is a parent portion of tuition, the financial aid portion, and the student portion. Though outside scholarships can go only toward the student portion of tuition, could it possibly go toward the parent portion?</p>
<p>Example:</p>
<p>Financial aid package: 10k
Parent Portion: 36k
Student Portion: 4k</p>
<p>Student wins a 20k scholarship per year. Does that mean student can only use 4k of the scholarship or does that mean 20k - (4k+10k) - 6k(of parent portion)?</p>
<p>It’s the latter, but I’ll spell it out a bit in case others have questions.</p>
<p>Based on “The Formula: How We Award Aid” in MIT’s Financial Aid information packet (which admitted students will receive a bit later), here’s how it works. Once MIT determines that you need financial aid, MIT will meet the first several thousand dollars of your need through a self-help work offer (this used to include loans, but I’m not sure MIT continued that policy). If your need is greater, MIT will offer you a package of need-based grants and scholarships to meet your entire need. If you receive outside scholarships, MIT will use it to offset your self-help portion of this overall award. Once your self-help has been met, MIT will use the scholarship funds to offset the MIT grants/scholarships, because the Institute won’t award you total funds beyond your need.</p>
<p>So, using your example:
Financial aid package: 10k
Parent Portion: 36k
Student Portion: 4k
Student wins a 20k scholarship per year. </p>
<p>In this situation, MIT will offset the 4k student portion, then offset the 10k financial aid package. This will leave 6k available to reduce the expected parent contribution.</p>
<p>Speaking as a parent whose daughter receives no financial aid whatsoever, I think the hardest thing for middle-class families to accept is the fact that the parent’s perspective on what the family can afford is quite different than MIT’s perspective. And it’s not just MIT. Many families probably begin this process expecting higher amounts of financial aid, but it all ends with a reality check. </p>
<p>I’ve come to appreciate MIT’s approach. Using your example, if you graduate within 4 years, and if all of your student portion consists of loans, you will not amass more than $16,000 of debt. The financial aid offer is thus a clear message to parents, as well as an offer to students: “Your family can afford X amount of dollars, and we expect your son or daughter to contribute only several thousand dollars per year.” One of the great things about Campus Preview Week is that officers in the Financial Aid Office will meet individually with the parents to answer any questions. During her first year, our daughter actually earned a bit more than the amount MIT stated as her student portion, but we asked her to keep it. I don’t think we could have done that, without having gone through this process.</p>
<p>@ CalAlum, was your daughter accepted to other schools that did give you some financial aid (e.g. harvard, yale, princeton)? I heard that sometimes you can negotiate with schools, if others offer better finad packages, or in your case, any at all.</p>
<p>^^ MIT does not negotiate with parents whose family finances are well above the so-called “cut-off point”. On the other hand, if the family finances are somewhat close, a negotiation would be worth a shot. Don’t get your hopes up, though. </p>
<p>My daughter was admitted EA to MIT and withdrew her application from a number of places when she learned the news; however, as I recall, she had submitted early to both Yale and Duke, and when they both admitted her RA, neither offered any sort of merit aid. Of the two, Yale was less expensive. The tuition and fees (total estimated cost) ran about $6,000 less annually than at MIT. There were other choices, however. The University of California at Berkeley and UCLA both offered really generous scholarships. Of course, every family’s finances are a LOT worse off today than they were in the Spring of 2011, but at the time, the opportunities available at MIT made the higher cost very worthwhile. They still are very worthwhile, in my opinion. </p>
<p>Here’s what you should do right now, if you’re interested in MIT: Begin aggressively applying to scholarships. I told my daughter that if she wanted to go to MIT, she’d have to apply to 12 scholarships. She ended up winning half of those. I should have told her to apply to 30! None of them was enormous, but together they reduced the cost of the first year by almost half, which helped. This is worth doing no matter where you decide to go. Any student admitted to MIT will be highly competitive in the scholarship pool.</p>
<p>^^ Several years ago Princeton University had an online calculator that families could use to see if they’d qualify for any financial aid (apart from loans). The cutoff point was an annual family income of $140,000, and this is the figure I was thinking of when I used that phrase in the above post. I’m not sure where MIT’s Financial Aid Office would draw the line, but I don’t know of any family earning around that amount or higher that has received any offers. Of course, I don’t work for the Financial Aid Office, and it never hurts to ask.</p>
<p>Is home equity included in their calculations? As in, because we live in a fairly new house, a lot of the family income goes to paying off mortgage.</p>
<p>@123s, your local school counselor is the first resource, because local agencies that offer college merit scholarships (banks, real estate companies, other companies; Rotary, Elks, and other clubs, etc.) often work directly with local school districts and schools. Stop by to let your school counselor know you’ve been admitted to MIT and are looking for scholarships to help pay for your education. Ask about scholarships offered by local groups and organizations.</p>
<p>For national scholarships, FastWeb is a good free resource. You can find it here: [FastWeb:</a> Scholarships, Financial Aid and Colleges](<a href=“http://www.fastweb.com/]FastWeb:”>http://www.fastweb.com/). Once you sign up, FastWeb will email you alerts about scholarships as you near the application deadline for each one. </p>
<p>@Walton12, I’m not sure how MIT considers home equity. Once you receive the financial aid offer, the Financial Aid Office will answer questions about how they determined family need in your case.</p>
<p>@Chanfest22: Haha, bizarre typo. Hope 2011 does turn out to be a better year, though.</p>