I did do the NPC for many schools, and I didn’t believe when I see the numbers were between 30-40K per year. That’s almost half of our entire family income. One school said my son would be eligible for 10K in scholarship, he happily ended up receiving $25K. So I did NOT base application on that as I was not clear on how accurate it would be. Also, there is a big warning about “ESTIMATE” so again, as a newbie it was unclear exactly how exacting that would be. I am NOT disappointed, more like enlightened at this whole process!
Are you from NY? If the family income is under $125,000 then Excelsior scholarship would pay for tuition at SUNY and CUNY. Then there would be about $15,000 left for fees, room and board.
If you did run the NPC for a school and they did not get you close to that number with financial aid, you could point that out to them. On one of the first college tours I went on, the presenter said to run the NPC and take a screenshot so that if your financial aid came back with less you could appeal it.
I agree the cost of college is outrageous. It can’t hurt to go back to the college to ask. Is your student a high stats admit for any of these colleges? If so, let them know that your kid is really interested and would go to the school if you could afford it. Probably won’t work, but you never know until you try.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this thread, and other earlier ones like it, are why the number that FAFSA spits out needs to be called something other than Expected Family Contribution (EFC). Maybe sometime way back when the FAFSA EFC was a better indicator of what a family could actually expect to pay at most colleges, but no more. It really is a disservice for many of those who are coming to the college application process for their kid(s) for the first time.
We are applying for Excelsior scholarship, but fall 19 application for it hasn’t come out yet. He applied to albany and got in. And from what i hear it the money you get isnt all it’s cracked up to be. He also applied for their foundation scholarships.
Another school gave us more than the NPC indicated!
@BelknapPoint I vote for Minimum Expected Family Contribution. MEFC.
Re: the net price calculators. They have some shortcomings. If the parents own real estate in addition to their primary residence…or own a business…or a self employed…they just might not be accurate. And…tanking a screenshot of your NPC results…only if you also take a screen shot of all of your entries…because folks DO make mistakes on the NPC entries.
Qq I did do the NPC for many schools, and I didn’t believe when I see the numbers were between 30-40K per year. That’s almost half of our entire family income
. One school said my son would be eligible for 10K in scholarship, he happily ended up receiving $25K. So I did NOT base application on that as I was not clear on how accurate it would be. Also, there is a big warning about “ESTIMATE” so again, as a newbie it was unclear exactly how exacting that would be. I am NOT disappointed, more like enlightened at this whole process!
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Hmmm…the NPC results were that “turn back now” warning…
I realize that you’re a first-timer and terms like EFC are confusing (wish they’d get rid of that phrase!), but once you saw those results, the red flags were waving.
There seems to be a widely-held misconception that colleges have these vaults of cash and if you just come in with a low enough EFC, then you’re golden…money will just be handed to you.
Wrong. Most schools have very little money to give.
Schools are in a bad situation. If they simply rejected your child’s app because you can’t demonstrate the means to pay, then the school could be rejecting a student who has grandparents who’ll pay, or maybe a NCP that will pay, or the parents are coming into an inheritance, etc.
So, instead, nearly all schools are “need blind” and accept students based on the students strengths. Then FA pkgs are given out according to their budgets.
Imagine if one of your kids wanted to go to a summer activity and they asked you for Christmas money. You might give them $100, because that’s all the BronxBaby family can give out its household budget. Of course your child would be like, “Mom and dad, can only earn/save $150 and add it to your $100! That is not enough! What were you thinking? The activity costs $500!” Yes, it does. But that doesn’t mean that the BronxBaby family has an additional $250 to give to make the school affordable.
I never thought about how EFC is such a misnomer. I do like calling it the Minimum Family Contribution instead! And, yes, NPCs need to be taken seriously. I’m kind of surprised that anyone thinks that families are just expected to “pay what they can pay.” I don’t know anyone who loves their EFC or, honestly, many who think it looks fair. In our case, our EFC is almost exactly what we make in one year. It’s high because of our savings and, make no mistake, we are expected to use that non-retirement savings to pay for college. Our other option is to find schools that cost less or give big merit (non need-based financial aid.)
OP, I’m sorry that this is coming as a surprise and I think you’re doing everything you can do.
Again, the NPC were not always consistent with what we acutally received, so not applying to a school based on solely that wouldn’t have made total sense either!
^^
Net Price Calculators aren’t always consistent because many don’t take into account merit scholarships (altho some do). Certainly if a school has competitive merit, the NPC won’t likely capture those awards.
Obviously if two families with the same financials run the NPC and one family has a high stats child, and the NPC doesn’t account for stats or merit, then yes high stats family may end up with a low net cost because of a huge merit award.
If you mean that the local school where tuition is being reduced to $14k being lower than NPC, isn’t that really because your son would be commuting? If he were to live on campus, what would his net cost be?
That’s my point, not applying to a school simply because of the NPC would have dissuaded us from applying to them all together. to be realistic, if I followed the NPC he wouldn’t have applied to any! :))
the NPC only estimated he would receive a $10,000 scholarship when he really received $25,000. thats an incredible difference. we haven’t gotten their financial aid award as of yet.
Well, his school app list certainly would have been different…and that could have been a good thing. Sure it’s fine to apply to a couple of schools, like the local Catholic private, because of the commute option plus merit might make it affordable.
That’s a lot more in merit!! Did his SAT go up?
What are your son’s stats?
What exactly did the NPC results show for that school? Try running it again with his best SAT/ACT scores and see if it’s giving the same $10k grant…and if so, is it also showing a grant of some kind?
Merit aid awards are sometimes NOT accurately reflected in the net price calculators.
I am sorta confused. Each of my kids schools like in Junior year went over applying to college and what all this means. Then we met with their GC. Then in senior year we met again with the GC and went over schools and affordability. This is at a Chicago Public school and my daughters private school. Don’t schools all do this?
Also call the schools in question. I am not one to give in /up unless totally unrealistic. You don’t know till you call type of attitude. At one of my daughters LAC we emailed financial aid plus the department head plus the head of school and admissions. We pleased our case and she got more money. I will say that they also really wanted her.
My brother in law couldn’t believe he didn’t get money from one school… So he called. They had him down as making $300,000/year vs the $70,000/year that he makes… He got more money. Mistakes happen.
No, all schools DON’T do that. My kids met with their GC once when we transferred to the school. If you weren’t going to a state school, they weren’t much help at all, even getting the transcripts to the schools.
Wow… Didn’t know how good /organized they were then. They actually tried hard to convince kids to apply to safeties to get merit money. Honestly, I didn’t appreciate it at the time. Why would they suggest to apply to a lower capable school for my kid…? . Well,because those schools will give 1/2 to almost full scholarships. We looked at it like the school doesn’t think he can get into schools x. Looking back now and what I know now. They were just trying to get money for us.
Duquesne used to give every accepted student a $10,000 scholarship. Then if stats were pretty high they might end up getting up to $20,000 merit and a grant of $4,000 for living on campus.
But if COA is over $50,000, even after $24,000 in scholarships, the remaining cost is still $26,000.
Most private schools have $40,000 or more COA.
Some give merit and need based grants.
Our NPCs came back with net price of around $20,000 at several instate private schools with a FAFSA EFC of $6,000.
We got a state grant, and some merit and need based scholarships, the kids take some loans and work.