Scholarships, EFC, appeals

Paying for College
101

<p>It is only the richest 1/2 of 1 percent of colleges that will not expect you to take out federally subsidized loans before receiving their own need-based aid. They are some (but not all) of the Ivy level schools and some of the richest liberal arts colleges.</p>

<p>The goal should not be to avoid any loans. The goal should be to get a great education while only using federally subsidized loans. You want to avoid stretching your finances to the point where you need Parent PLUS loans or private loans. For each $1,000 that is borrowed, the repayment costs will be much much higher for a private loan than for a federally subsidized loan. Also, many loans other than Staffords and Perkins have high fees.</p>

<p>If you want substantial merit money, apply to some colleges where you will be in the top 15% of their applicant pool. Just because a college is not highly ranked in US News does not mean it will not provide a great education and a positive experience.</p>

<p>The easiest scholarships to win are local scholarships and scholarships through your high school. Put a moderate amount of time into seeking those, but don’t depend upon those types of scholarships paying your way.</p>

<p>If you win private scholarships, at most colleges that will help fill the gap between the financial need they meet and actual costs. Remember, only a minority of colleges (maybe 5%?) meet 100% of the proven need of incoming US freshmen. Most colleges that meet 100% of need would reduce the amount of work study or loans that you need based upon your outside scholarships. </p>

<p>Very few public colleges offer much need based aid to out of state students. Many public colleges use some merit aid to offset some of the extra tuition costs for out of state students for their top applicants. </p>

<p>However, in most cases, you still will probably be paying much more as an OOS than an in-state student at a public university. After all, the main goal of attracting out of state students for most public colleges is to produce more revenue. That is why so many state flagship universities have increased their ratio of out of state students in recent years.</p>

<p>Also, keep in mind that most colleges offer much better merit aid to incoming freshmen than to transfer students. If a student expects to be eligible for substantial merit aid, they may be better off attending a college with a more expensive sticker price for all 4 years, instead of attending a cheap college for 2 years and then having to pay full price at the expensive college for the last 2 years.</p>

<p>Moreover, don’t limit yourself in the application process. Apply to some publics and some privates, some colleges where you expect need-based aid, and some colleges where you expect merit aid. You want to have a nice range of choices in March, and be able to compare net prices vs. what is being offered. In addition, make sure your admissions safety is also a financial safety.</p>

102

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<p>Well I believe me and my family can finance upto $30K per year but I would like to cap it off at $25K, that would be $100K for 4 yrs. I don’t believe it makes sense to spend anything more than $100K on undergrad degree. MY goal is to make best use of that money and get in the best college possible. </p>

<p>Let’s say in best case even if it is interest free loan, that is still a debt. Loan is not a necessity although I would like to voluntarily avoid it.</p>

103

<p>CC does not recommend what you are trying to do, i.e., figure out which college you can afford since many colleges will reject you for no reason at all. </p>

<p>We do recommend having a set of schools identified to apply to with reaches, matches and safeties. Without that set of schools, you may do all the research but you may not get into a college.</p>

104

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You may wish to cap your school expenses at 25k; however, depending on your FAFSA/Profile, the schools could ask your family to contribute a lot more.

Most schools include student loans in their financial aid.</p>

105

<p>[2012-2013</a> EFC Quick Reference](<a href=“http://www.stratagee.com/resources/efc_quick_reference/1213_efc_quick_reference.html]2012-2013”>http://www.stratagee.com/resources/efc_quick_reference/1213_efc_quick_reference.html)</p>

<p>Found this Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) vs EFC.Typically AGI is arrived at after deductions such as IRA contributions. </p>

<p>I thought they add IRA/401K contributions in the year they accrue to your total income.
So how this table is using AGI amount which will be less.</p>

<p>Secondly, the table shows, if your AGI is $100K, EFC will be $19K. Does that makes sense? EFC amount seems low to me.</p>

106

<p>That’s the difference between a quick reference and a thorough reference. It’s just a simple approximation.</p>

107

<p>You should try doing a FAFSA and a CSS profile. None of these work.</p>

108

<p>Regarding the EFC Qucik reference, I don’t understand why you’re chasing your tail. </p>

<p>You have been told that the most accurate estimate of the need based FA package you will receive from a college will come from running each school’s NPC. If you have these tools available to you, then why would you rely on a more generalized and less accurate reference?</p>

109

<p>And If you have read my posts then I have also told here that I have run some NPC directly on the school website, from the CB. Since nobody knows for sure how it all plays out, it make sense to increase your own understanding to arrive at a decision.</p>

<p>Just because I posted quick reference doesn’t mean I consider that as Bibel. When I looked at it and based on the understanding I have developed running some NPC, it didn’t make sense to me entirely hence I posted a query thinking someone might have run into similar situation before. Is that implausible? </p>

<p>Why do I have to take it as THis is the way it works? I will not take this is the way it works, till I understand it.</p>

<p>You have been told…told by whom? and is that the last word in town?</p>

110

<p>Bella, once more…with vigor.</p>

<p>Use the NPC on EACH college website.</p>

<p>The NPC calculation should be viewed as an estimate.</p>

<p>The only REAL financial aid is the package you actually RECEIVE from a college once you are accepted.</p>

<p>You are spending a LOT of time trying to get an answer that isn’t there. NO ONE, and NOTHING, can tell you exactly what YOUR actual financial aid package will be right now.</p>

<p>Apply to a well rounded list of schools. Apply for financial aid…then wait and see what you get.</p>

<p>And as noted above…have AT LEAST one school on your list that is affordable given your family finances…that means…a school that costs what your parents say they can pay.</p>

111

<p>I have followed a few people’s actual offers over the past year or two.</p>

<p>The variations in financial packages for a single person have varied as much as 20,000 despite all colleges receiving the exact SAME financial information from that student.</p>

112

<p>Guys,</p>

<p>I’m still going to follow time tested method : Safeties, Matches and Reaches. The only difference is how do you select your pool? The more you are familiar, the more you know, you are going to be able to select better pool.</p>

<p>Because there is so much variance, so many variables involved, it is worth to understand this better than going by the gospel. </p>

<p>Think about this for the same cost you can go to a state university or you can go to a reputed Private University.</p>

113

<p>MAYBE you can go to a private university for the same cost as a public. The schools where this is the case are the MOST generous, with the best policies regarding need based aid. They are also amongst the most highly competitive for admissions.</p>

<p>So…as you do your research, be realistic with regards to your GPA, and SAT/ACT scores and college choices. You have to get accepted FIRST.</p>

114

<p>I would add that there are plenty of less selective private colleges that offer 50% off of tuition scholarships to their top applicants. Sometimes this can result in a net price that is similar to an in-state public flagship university, particularly if that public university provides little aid. This situation is definitely true in PA, for instance, where our flagship of Penn State has the highest in-state tuition in the US.</p>

115

<p>Charlie, the problem we have been having is 1) Our instate flagship is about 1/3 that of private with a half off tuition DS should get. 2) Most private schools just use merit aid to replace their financial aid, so the merit aid doesn’t actually reduce the price.</p>

116

<p>For most colleges that give out sizeable awards and most big scholarships, it’s a crap shoot as to what you will actually get. Any student who has a chance of getting a big outside awards should go for it and not worry about whether or not it will be “eaten up” by a financial aid award. You should be so lucky to get two such awards. It’s a big deal and slim chance to get either, so go to it. Yes, it’s a pain when an award gets integrated into another, but the fact of the matter is at the onset of all of this, you don’t know what you are going to have on the table and the more you get on there, the more choices you will have.</p>

<p>I’ve fooled around with this college stuff for a long time now and have some pretty good solid info as well as some feelings about trends. Still, I did not think that one of my kids had a chance at all of getting ANY merit money as he had abysmal test scores. Heck, i didn’t think he had much of a chance at some schools on his list as I knew that they went pretty much by formula and I knew their formulas and how they operated. But once we put into place some schools that were pretty much sure things, we did take some chances. Lo and behold, he did get some money offers, and some nice ones, and some at schools where It was chancey that he would even get accepted. So, yes, take some chances here and there because there is some element of luck in this whole thing. But you gotta cover your base, because the luck can be bad as well. My oldest had some things that were just sheer bad luck in his college application process, totally out of our control. These things do happen.</p>

<p>My one son applied to a large number of outside scholarships as he near perfect SAT1 scores and some other attributes that put him in the running at a number of programs. GOt a big fat zip. In Junehe sent off one more app that he really felt was a waste of time, and it was just for a thousand bucks, but he had everything on the computer so it did not involve a whole lot of effort. Forgot about and in August, got a letter that not only did he get the award, but the program was shutting down so they were giving him all that was left in the fun which was about $3K! Still not a huge windfall, but to paraphrase a commercial, 10 miniutes got him $3K which is not chump change IMO. Very sweet. </p>

<p>Not only do things often differ among schools and processes that distribute the money, things are changing very, very quickly A lot of things I could say about a school or process that I once knew, not even very long ago, has changed recently. New directors, new head of school, new policies. If there are specific issues, one has to ask the directors of fin aid and admissions directly, and they often hedge on the answers. Not only that, the answer can change by the time they are looking at the apps and making decisions as new factors can come into play.</p>

117

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<p>agree with what you said</p>

118

<p>I have read somewhere that CSS profile schools (non FAFSA only schools),your home equity may be considered towards your Assets. Is this true across the board or it again depends upon the individual school?</p>

119

<p>Depends on the schools. I think only a few schools (maybe HYPS???) don’t consider equity. Some may have caps.</p>

120

<p>Bella, not only is home equity often counted as part of your assets in most CSS PROFILE school, but how it is counted differes widely and can change. You gotta ask now to know for sure, and usually only the Fin AId director can answer that one. IT can not count at all, can count fully, or be capped at oftne 1.2X or 2.4X income or any figure a school wants to use. Also what the school requires to be used as a value can vary. The value is supposed to be the net value in a quick sale, not gross sales figure. But some schools will double check those numbers if they seem to low in an area the fin aid person knows.</p>