<p>Diana…</p>
<p>I get it. I know how nutty the UC aid system is.</p>
<p>Did I miss where you stated what year you are? Are you a high school senior?</p>
<p>What are your stats?</p>
<p>Tell us more. You may need to do a gap year and re-apply.</p>
<p>Our D transferred after 3 semesters at CC; I transferred after 1 year at flagship U. Both of us got SOME taste of UG years & living in the dorm. I don’t really regret not living in a freshman dorm, as many of the freshmen honestly seemed SO immature. I lived in an upperclassmen dorm when I transferred, as did my D. </p>
<p>We both were very happy to graduate without crushing debt, which to us outweighed missing the freshmen & even sophomore experience. No regrets here. We let D live in a brand new apartment building on campus because she saved us money by attending CC before transferring (she said it would kind of like her freshman year). She agreed that living there was over-rated & was happy to move to an older apartment building where it was quieter for her SR year. ;)</p>
<p>mom2collegekids:</p>
<p>First, thanks for being one of the only understanding ones on this board. </p>
<p>I have a 4.2 weighted GPA, 4.4 weighted UC/CSU GPA, and a 2140 SAT I. </p>
<p>I’ve gotten into my dream schools, UC Berkeley and UCLA, but looking at the costs, I don’t want my parents to stress over paying for it, especially when they have my sister to pay for as well. What I’m probably doing is transferring from a CC to a public university, probably not a UC, but a CSU. :)</p>
<p>What is your M+CR SAT from one sitting?</p>
<p>I think you should take a gap year and apply where you’d get high merit.</p>
<p>Congrats on your acceptances. I’m sorry the FAid system is unable to make the schools affordable enough for you & your family to be able to accept them. It is really tough for the large middle class, including many folks who are at the lower fringe of it. :(</p>
<p>Your plan to go to a CC & then transfer is an excellent one, even if it would have been much nicer for you if you could go to your dream schools with sufficient FAid.</p>
<p>Mom2collegekids: </p>
<p>My M+CR score from one sitting is 1420, not significantly great but not horrible either. I did get Regents’ scholarship from UC Irvine, Davis, Santa Barbara, and merit and aid from Babson College, Fordham University, and Willamette University. The problem is though, everything is still quite expensive.</p>
<p>Himom: Thank you! And, exactly, that’s what frustrates me and what had lead to make this post. I am one of the thousands in this situation.</p>
<p>If you are good student, they give you merrit even if you made 6 or 7 figures, they happend to us, most of the schools that my D got accepted (ivy) they giver her a merrit scholarship, we us paying the most $20,000 a year.</p>
<p>Before your envy of poor kids upsets you anymore, let me explain the life of my free ride 0 EFC poverty kid. </p>
<p>She worked her butt off starting in 9th grade to become a National Merit Finalist, knowing there are some schools that will automatically award a free ride. She applied to 4 of them that she liked. She also maintained top grades and is Salutatorian. She worked hard to position herself for a few lottery schools that will give a full financial aid package. She was accepted to 2 of them, but she’s not going. She likes her safety better.</p>
<p>While maintaining top grades, she is involved in community, school, and church activities for 20 or more hours a week, while also working fast food 20-25 hours each week. She has a used car, but she needs it to get to work, not go to the movies or the mall. Her money helps pay for gas, groceries and bills. She paid for 6 duel enrollment classes out of her earnings. She does dress nice, but not in designer clothing unless she finds them at Goodwill. My kid is the queen of coupons and the clearance rack. Her entire senior year wardrobe, including Prom dress and homecoming dress cost less than $300. She does have a cell phone, but not a smart phone. It needs to be replaced, but it still works somewhat, so it will have to do for now, because other things are more pressing. </p>
<p>My daughter is a wonderful kid who is dealing with these new hardships with grace and aplomb. I wish the economy hadn’t tanked and caused her to go through the horror of layoffs and foreclosure and us having to deal with substantial medical bills. </p>
<p>Do you still wish you had the same opportunities as the poor kids?</p>
<p>I would hope that we all remember when responding that many of these commenters are teenagers being exposed to the realities of the world for the first time. Most of them are also very hard workers and good students – otherwise they wouldn’t be here, concerned about their futures and asking questions or feeling sad about the system. </p>
<p>Please have a little compassion in our responses when they get to this part of the process. Yes, many of them are lucky, but the system does have lots of unfairness in it:</p>
<p>-- FAFSA not counting home equity, retirement or the like. Many folks don’t have pensions these days, but they are put on an even footing in the financial aid process with those who do. A family without a pension in its future simply can’t afford to put out the same kinds of dollars toward college that a family with a pension may be able to.
– Some families have gone through a lot during this recession and are just now getting back to point where their incomes may be stable again. In other words, they may show a good income on paper that may indicate they could have been saving, when in fact, Dad or Mom had been laid off. Or mom just went to work after the children were all in school. Their income hasn’t been “middle” for very long.
– In California (if I’m understanding it correctly) or anywhere else, they don’t take into account whether it’s one earner or two earners making the money. If Dad is making $65,000 in likely a good, stable job, then mom can go get a part-time job to help with college costs and still be under the California threshold. However, two longtime earners with incomes of about $43,000 each are penalized — while the first example seems to have more income security and fewer costs (no day-care costs, only one person commuting, stay-at-home parent for meal and school planning and the like (IE: Dad’s job is like a more stable one and mom can always go to work if things get tough. That’s not an option when both parents are already working.)
– FAFSA not taking into account the non-custodial parent’s assets or wages. If child support stops at 18, the non-custodial parent may not have to contribute.
– The system does sometimes penalize those who have been frugal and saved. (I said sometimes. Certainly this is not always the case.)
– Merit money isn’t always fair. What about the good kid with a learning disability from a middle-class household? He’s likely the type of kid who will most benefit from attending a smaller, private school, but he’s not going to qualify for enough merit money to attend – no matter how hard a worker he is.
The system (like life) isn’t perfect or fair, and many of the kids on this board are just learning that. We’ve had decades of experience with that reality, so it isn’t a shock for those of us who are parents. </p>
<p>Like health care, college pricing has become more complicated than even most parents, though, understand at the start of the process. If you haven’t been frequenting these boards, it can be difficult to decipher and navigate. Personally, I’d like to go back to one price for all and taking the financial aid process out of the schools’ hands.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What are you implying? That your exemplary daughter has worked her ass off while I and other students have sat on our butts throughout our lives doing nothing? You, ma’am, need a reality check. </p>
<p>I’ve stayed up hours past midnight studying and finishing assignments in order to get good grades. I take the bus four days a week to wash dishes at a local restaurant for 8 dollars an hour. I haven’t even been to a high school or middle school dance. I’ve been wearing some of my clothes for five years, and whatever I get, it’s at the thrift store or on 50% sale. My phone is four years old and barely has signal.</p>
<p>Staying up late, working, and using old clothes are what countless students do, including students who have parents richer than you are. Don’t you dare claim that the rest of the world has it so much better than you do.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>As do YOU. The vast majority of low income kids do NOT go to school for free. </p>
<p>Also, even under the Blue and Gold plan, only tuition and fees are covered. A full ride includes room and board.</p>
<p>If you got into Berkeley and UCLA, you likely have the stats to get good merit aid at lower ranked school. Which is <em>gasp</em> how MOST poor kids can afford to go to school, if they can at all.</p>
<p>I completely agree. I do not, however, think that poor students should not get the aid because they definitely need it MORE than us middle-class students. I do think it is unfair that we are just expected to pay the full amount. The FAFSA said my parents apparently had 85K a year to give, which we definitely do not. My parents have excellent credit scores, we have never been in debt, and have saved for college but we still cannot pay that 30-40 fee! And loans can be so dangerous your options just become limited. It is unfair but I have no idea how it can be fixed.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Blue & Gold can be extended to books and other fees. Schools also give extra need-based scholarships, which amount to a couple thousand. In total, a classmate I know claims that he is getting $20,000 to go to a UC. When I asked what his EFC was, he said $3,000, making him only take out $7,000 of loans a year, provided that his parents is able to pay that 3,000 a year. Sure, not a full ride, and he has to borrow some money, but nothing relatively close to the amount middle-class students who don’t get aid have to.</p>
<p>^ The key word in all of that is “CAN”. </p>
<p>And what someone “claims” and what is reality can be two completely different things.</p>
<p>And $7k/year is still more than a student should be taking out as a freshmen.</p>
<p>I’m really sorry you weren’t given the facts on financial aid before applying to college. You could have had some affordable options. Perhaps something will work out for you, but don’t hate on the poor kids with the designer clothing and $200 cell phones and all that great financial aid. Good luck.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yep, a lot more than the $18k that I and many other students have to take out a year, huh? 28k is so much compared to 72k.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>False. I’ve applied to lower-ranked schools and have gotten the maximum merit scholarships plus some aid money. Even then, the cheapest option still amounts to 25k/year since it is out of state and private.</p>
<p>diana, again, MOST poor students are not getting aid like they are in California. If you want to complain about California’s financial aid policies, that’s one thing, but don’t make it seem like it’s universal.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Then you need to take a gap year and apply to places where you can get merit with your stats. You have good stats and you should get pretty good merit scholarships somewhere.</p>
<p>beachlover123, </p>
<p>If your FAFSA EFC is 85k, then your parents either have significant earnings or more than just significant savings, or both. Whether or not they can pay the EFC is another story entirely. Many families can’t easily pay their EFC. The trick is to know this early enough in the process so that the applicant can come up with a list of colleges and universities that will work for that family. Unfortunately, all to many families don’t do that kind of investigation at the outset.</p>
<p>[Out-of-State</a> Scholarships - Undergraduate Scholarships - The University of Alabama](<a href=“http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out_of_state.html]Out-of-State”>http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out_of_state.html)</p>
<p>At the very least, you’d get full tuition scholarship there.</p>