<p>After applying to and visiting 15 schools, my D has her top choice lined up. When I say top choice I mean it's a 99 out of 100 on her scale while the rest of them are below 50.</p>
<p>She has a high school GPA of 3.9, rigorous workload, weak on ACT test (27), great community service, leadership, recommendations, etc. School accepted her within overall around 28% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>Total costs for this school are $60K per year. We have very little savings, but paid off the mortgage on our $375K home. Our income is around $150K per year.</p>
<p>FAFSA said our EFC was $21K. School came back with:</p>
<p>$10K academic scholarship
$8K loans.</p>
<p>I think the CSS profile and the equity in the house did us in. </p>
<p>We don't want her saddled with $32K of loans, so in my mind we are looking at a $50K per year bill -- impossible. We wrote an appeal letter; not sure if it will help or not.</p>
<p>I can't believe how far off we were from our expectations. We could stretch to maybe cover $35K per year but beyond that I'd have to mortgage the house again, which seems to be what the school expects.</p>
<p>This whole thing is making me sick. This is our first experience through this process. Is this normal? If they reject our appeal should I try to meet with the financial director or the college president?</p>
<p>Or am I kidding myself and this is simply a place where we don't belong...</p>
<p>Well, the school just sees your $150,000 income and thinks, “Surely they can make due on $100,000.” And they see your $375,000 house and think, “Surely any extra money needed can be found there.”</p>
<p>However, most schools don’t ask for enough information to see the specific circumstances of each family, so it’s a simple income/asset formula that doesn’t take into account many things. Most families would be in a wonderful situation with an income of $100,000, but perhaps there is something (medical debt, unreasonable cost of living, huge travel expenses, consumer debt, etc) that makes it harder for your family. In your appeal, try to show how you can’t pay $50,000.</p>
<p>I would say try to negotiate with the school. If you could conceivably pay $35,000, perhaps they will be able to close that gap. It’s not like you’re trying to go from $50,000 to $0.</p>
<p>However, if things don’t work out, and your family can’t afford it, your daughter should probably go elsewhere.</p>
<p>ChrisV2 the FAFSA EFC is meaningless except for the determination of eligibility for Federal Aid. It is NOT the amount you should expect your family to pay. </p>
<p>I’m afraid your income and home equity are in the top few percent of the US. You expected to get need-based financial aid? That was never going to happen. Schools expect a family with your resources to pay from income, savings, and to tap home equity. </p>
<p>You will not be successful in an appeal. Hopefully one of your D’s other schools is more affordable for you. Or you will have to tap into home equity.</p>
<p>Welcome to the wonderful world of college finance. </p>
<p>No matter what percentages your daughter has assigned to her school choices these are emotional responses. You all need to get the the reasonable, realistic, and rational mode of college planning.</p>
<p>Reasses the college choice on a cost/benefit model (no emotional responses involved here) and then look at all the things your daughter could do with the extra money elsewhere.</p>
<p>Remember that college is for four short years, debt may last forever.</p>
<p>OP, I doubt the appeal letter will help in this case. Your income is high (that EFC actually looks very low for that income level - I would have expected closer to 40K) and many schools will take the home into account (though some do not look at the primary residence). I understand you don’t feel you can afford the school at that price. We are also in the fortunate position of making good money, which meant my kids were looking for merit aid schools.</p>
<p>Agree with erinsdad,with your income the EFC looks very low,should be higher…Everyone has diferent financial priorities/issues,but paying off your mortgage without saving for college costs aeems short-sighted,as mortgage interest rates have been historically low for years,and if ypu saved in a stock fund for 15+ years,you likley have saved a nice amount for college</p>
<p>I agree, appeal likely won’t be successful unless for some reason they REALLY want your daughter in their freshman class. </p>
<p>With 150k income and a paid-off mortgage, you are in a much better position than most. But I know what you mean–we’re similar (actually, lower income, and not paid-off mortgage, but we have saved for college)–and our EFC was in the low 40s or high 30s (don’t recall exact #). So I’m surprised yours was as low as it was; I can see where it might have led you to anticipate they would give you something. And, actually, they did give you 10k/year. We didn’t even get that at the top-end LACs, just loan offers.</p>
<p>D went elsewhere. She had a number of good options we could actually afford. She chose one and loves it now. It was not her ‘dream school’; but now it is her ‘reality school’ and she is loving it. </p>
<p>It has worked out great. I hope your D has some more appealing financial choices? Run the numbers for her. Explain the raw reality, and the loan payments she’ll be looking at, if she stays with her favorite. Explain the financial hardship it will be on you, as well. If she’s as smart as I think, it will cease to be her favorite. </p>
<p>Sounds like she applied to lots of schools so hopefully on second look one of the more affordable ones will start looking a lot better.</p>
<p>Why not consider the CC route and then transfer to her dream college. This is one way to make college more affordable.
Debt is a millstone. Avoid it is at all possible which may mean looking at alternatives.</p>
<p>The folks at FinAid.og have put together a number of useful calculators. Sit down with your daughter and run the various offers through this one. It includes all of the financial and some of the non-financial factors: [FinAid</a> | Calculators | Advanced Award Letter Comparison Tool](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid)</p>
<p>When you do the data entry, take a sharp pencil to the figures each college/university includes for books, insurance, travel, and misc. Some of those costs are things that your family can control. Dream school may be a bit more affordable than you thought at first.</p>
<p>On the point about not saving for college, that’s not really fair. I paid the mortgage off early just so we COULD have free cash flow to save for college. I will be able to accrue $152K to cover this expense over four years, which means we can afford $35K per year with expected yearly 5% college cost increases that are typical of private institutions.</p>
<p>So I’m a bad person for paying off a 30 year mortgage in 10 years, and instead should have put more away for college and effectively been paying off college via mortgage proxy over a 30 year period? How does that make sense?</p>
<p>I really thought that having $152K in the hopper for this, along with my daughter’s academic and community record would be fine. This is not an ivy-league school, either.</p>
<p>Too bad that the whole private college system seems to be built on the notion that taking on massive amounts of debt is acceptable. For me (and I guess a minority?), it’s not.</p>
<p>BTW, the $21K EFC difference is due to my son who is attending a $47K 19-month technical school which the college said did not count in their calculation. They said that we should be able to afford $44K per year.</p>
<p>We drive a 15 year old car with 160K miles on it.
We have never been on a family vacation since Disney when she was 4.
I have the same three pairs of jeans I’ve owned for the last decade.
I wear the same two pairs of shoes I’ve had for 8 years.
I give over 10% of my income each year to charity.
We go out to eat once a month.
Don’t own personal watercraft, vacation home, fancy electronics, jewelry, toys, or anything else like that.
Trying to put money away fore retirement due to company eliminating pension, so I don’t become a ward of the state when I’m 70.</p>
<p>I’m wondering if you made a mistake on the FAFSA? It actually doesn’t matter now, but your EFC seems low for your income. There are very few colleges in the country which would give financial aid for a family with 150K in income unless you had two in college at the same time. I am so sorry that you’re finding this out now instead of when you started the process.<br>
You did one thing right, though…you found a school where your daughter qualifies for some merit aid.<br>
There are many families in your income bracket with kids in college. I would say, in general, that they are paying for college by
going to a public college, or
going to a private college because they have saved with that purpose in mind for many years, or
finding a college where student qualified for large amounts of merit aid
borrowing large amounts of money through PLUS loans, or refinancing to use their home equity
Four years… Does your daughter have significant AP/IB/DE credit? What is this college’s policy on that? Could she conceivably get a year done through these credits?</p>
<p>The costs of your less then 5% mortgage is likley around 4% after taxes, if you had beem investing in a stock fund for 10+ years,you’d have done significantly better,even considering the market tanking in 2007…that said,having a home mortgage free isn’t a bad thing by any means,but mortgage debt is ‘good debt’ so to speak…whereas college debt is not</p>
<p>ChrisV2, You have done, like most of us, all the right things. As for myself, I pay for my college EFC with student and parent loans, plus the cash flow I have by having a less expensive house than typical in my income range. I suspect the middle-class parents with who can do this without loans are few and far between. Yes, most of us are pinching pennies. I see you as being in an enviable position with a large income, paid off house, and able to contribute so much to college with cash flow. But, I’m just a person on a message board and has no idea of whatever other struggles you may have.</p>
<p>No kid should end up with one school rating 99 and all the others coming in under 50.</p>
<p>What else could you have done??? Started with finaid.org, to really learn how finaid works. By paying off your mortgage, you eliminated an expense that colleges will take into account. You freed up that portion of your income.</p>
<p>Btw, consumer debt and lifestyle choices are not considered in awarding finaid. Each can calculate home equity per their own formulas. Some colleges will allow for private hs tuition, most don’t. Same for certain non-degree granting post-hs programs. Each is allowed to use it’s own formula, as long as that formula is applied equally to all in similar circumstances.</p>
<p>The finaid appeals are intended for when you have unusual considerations- yes, you can sometimes squeeze 1-2k more out of them or a promise of a campus job. BUT, responses to appeals can take quite long. You need to come up with a Plan B FAST. </p>
<p>And, yes, go back over the Profile and make sure you did not put some protected assets into an “unprotected” category. Eg, retirement assets.</p>
While admirable, perhaps you need to make a difference choice for the next few years. The $35K you say you can come up with + $10K scholarship + $15K from charitable donations pretty much covers the cost.</p>