<p>Ek, I understand this. What I don't understand are other situations. Here was my son's most straight forward example. School A was an OOS public. Our efc was substantially less than COA. School B had a COA that was 4k less than School A. School B was also an OOS public. School B offered a partially subsidized Stafford, and School A offered only an unsubsidized Stafford and no other types of financial aid was offered,not even WS. I cannot understand why we did not qualify for a subsidized Stafford at school A. There were other examples of this, but where WS and grants enter into the equation at the private schools, it gets more murky and I would have to get out all of the financial award letters to get into specifics.</p>