<p>I am just doing the same thing - educating others on CC about FA packages. It is just that we have different facts and different point of view. Another benefits for next year’s class.</p>
<p>I am glad that you are happy with your package. Your own opinion counts the most in terms of your own FA package. However, in the broad sense of FA, I think you are misleading people with the “extremely generours” comment.</p>
<p>Please, take from me. DO NOT accept the first offer not matter how good it looks. You could always do better. If you PM me the details of package, I could give you some tips as how to prepare for a negotiation.</p>
<p>BTW, do you know that the top limit of Stafford loan goes up every year? Unless the school has a cap policy, thet portion of loan goes up every year. And, a lot of school will give a sweet deal for freshman. One MUST discuss with the school to see if they will keep the same level of aid in year 2 - 4.</p>
<p>rocket6,
Don’t let anyone rain on your parade. For some, their package is always too small ;)</p>
<p>If you are happy with your award, as you clearly are and have every right to be, there is no need to go back and beg for more. That can come across as ungracious, petty or selfish. You are none of those.
Again, congrats to you, to applicannot, and to MaineLonghorn!! Wonderful news! You should be proud!</p>
<p>dadII : I will respond so Rocket doesn’t need to. Rocket is an extremely well informed young poster and is always very generous with her support of others. PLEASE do the same for her. She is thrilled and has every right to be so. </p>
<p>I believe by most any definition, when you receive a package that allows you to pay LESS than your FAFSA calculated “need”, the offer can be considered generous. </p>
<p>Student loans are not always ideal I agree, but a student can reasonable be expected to have a stake in their own education. If you don’t have assets, loans it is.</p>
<p>If my rough calculations are correct, our family will be paying something like 5x rockets’, yet I consider son’s Fin Aid offer very generous. They too presented us with an offer than REDUCES our FAFSA EFC (we are just “fortunate” enough to have a higher EFC than Rocket.) Furthermore, our EFC will be further reduced since son just won a NMSC “Special Scholarship”.</p>
<p>We are thrilled - though for many the check we write would be prohibitive, and for others the aid we received would be unneccesary.</p>
<p>I certainly agree with you that this site provides many perspectives.</p>
<p>I am cheering because we are getting no financial aid! S is attending the state flagship, and this will cost us half what one of the privates would have expected of us - a savings of $70K (over 4 years). He could have attended a different in state public with a merit award and paid a bit less, but he is very happy with this school, and we can actually kind of afford it.</p>
<p>“In fact, I personally don’t think any FA package that contains a loan is generous.”
And in fact, no one here was asking “do you think this is is a generous offer?”
DAD II- for you to inject your own opinion, which RL did not ask for, was uncalled for and smacked of someone trying to be a know-it-all party pooper, on a thread that is supposed to be devoted to people rejoicing at their good fortune. Next time, read the posts to see if someone is asking for opinions before you give one.</p>
<p>This is silly for me to ask for further definitions at this time of year, but can you explain EFC? I know it means “expected family contribution”, but I’m not sure how that works. Let’s say the college costs $50,000. If the family can allocate $5,000 cash out of the yearly budget, is that EFC? Or is the EFC based on annual interest of loans + cash outlays?</p>
<p>And, how do you determine COA? Is that tuition + R&B + books + ???</p>
<p>And, how do colleges determine these loans, grants, and aide? My son got a “nice” renewable scholarship, which virtually chops the tuition costs in half. How does a scholarship compare with loans or grants, other than in name?</p>
<p>LOL, indeed. I think someone is playing poker with the house money. If one is willing to leave $ on table and takes up unsubsidized loans with high accumulating interest, go ahead. I don’t think I will lose any sleep over that. </p>
<p>If one gets to be “happy” because they get generous FA package, wouldn’t they be happier to get more $$ but playing all the hands within the context of all laws and rules? </p>
<p>Do you ever negotiate over $1000 of a car purchase? Do you ever negotiate your salary for a new job? Why not do the same for $20,000 or more here?</p>
<p>menloparkmom. use your own rules again your own post. I did not ask you to comment on my opinion neither. The last time I checked, this is a web site for everyone to share their opinions. I am merely trying to share more data and my experiences on FA packagel. Different people have different understanding of the term “generous”. We will let everyone to reach their own conclusion.</p>
<p>I don’t think Dad II did anything wrong, except perhaps for poor tone choice. Yes, Rocket has a fantastic package. That’s not to say there isn’t anything that she could do to make it better, or that there isn’t any other AND additional way to provide reference for future seniors. Loans are particular toxic for low-income students like me and Rocket (? I think I’m remembering correctly), and so there’s nothing wrong with being disappointed with seeing loans in the package - even if Rocket is not.</p>
<p>I think it’s important to keep the financial aid package in context. For example, I got full tuition at the University of Pittsburgh. With my Pell Grant, Pitt would have cost me only $5000+ each year. That may seem like a bargain to some, but that’s 5/6 of my income or a hefty loan load! Yes, some of us will celebrate (and complain) about $1000. There’s nothing wrong or right about that.</p>
<p>yes I am low income…and yes, loans are especially bad for me…</p>
<p>BUT, I was not expecting a package to come anywhere near my EFC from Union…I had heard terrible things about their finaid…That is why I was cheering…that while it wasn’t the most stellar package imagineable, it made attendance possible. </p>
<p>My decision wasn’t going to be dictated by money…to me, that’s something worth cheering about</p>
<p>limabeans: Look in the financial aid section - there are very informative threads and I dont want to hijack this one too much. that said…
Cost of attendance generally refers to the TOTAL cost; tuition + room+borad+ fees+travel etc. Not all schools add the same things. Make sure to compare apples to apples.
EFC is expected family contribution and is calculated by the formula used in the FAFSA (Free Application for Student Aid). Simplified it is a percentage of available income and assets after certain allowances. This is a # calculated for you. You do not get to pick it. Unfortunately it is often LARGER than anyone “expected”. It is also NOT what you can “expect” to pay. Best to think of it as the minimum you will be expected to pay.
then,
COA -EFC = Financial “Need”
Some schools will fill 100% of financial need with their packages, others will not - leaving a “gap”. Evaluating aid packages is a skill all its own and best left to another forum.</p>
<p>IMHO, as I have posted before, if you get a package where you are paying less than your EFC: I would consider that generous.</p>
<p>limabeans, U R a senior member. Where have you been for all these time?? :)</p>
<p>Strictly speaking, theere are FAFSA EFC and CSS/profile EFC. For private schools, each of them use their own formula so the EFC from one school more than likely will be different from another. So, most of the people use FAFSA EFC as the the common # for discussion. The EFC is calculated mostly based on income, some parent assets, most of the student assets etc. </p>
<p>Even COA from different colleges are different. Some include everything one will incur on college. Some only figure in personal expenses without some items such as travel expenses. </p>
<p>So, if a college with a COA of $60,000 calculates your efc to be $45,000. Then they could give you $15,000 grant, loans, work study or nothing. Only those school who promise to meet 100% of your need will give you something. Then there are no loan schools who give out only grant to families of certain income range. </p>
<p>There are so many loans that I am not going to write them all.</p>
<p>Cross posted with skier. the key difference is that there is really not a set EFC.</p>
<p>Say you could only pay $5K a year. One school could, many have done this, figure your EFC is $10K a year (5K more than you could really pay, as skier pointed out). Even so they cover $3K more than their EFC, that still leave you a $2K gap. So, getting more than your EFC is not really that great in this case.</p>
so what car did you buy with the kind assistance of all the cc posters who were kind enough to share their (requested) knowledge in this area?</p>
<p>What posters are saying, dad, is that there is a time and a place for everything. This thread is a celebratory thread, and to tell someone that they coulda done better is off-putting. Perhaps a tutorial on “how to squeeze every nickel out of a school til they cry uncle and are bled dry” is a topic for another thread. And to plead poverty in one thread while chatting about successful 401Ks, pension plans and expensive cameras in other threads is a bit insensitive to those who really are struggling to cover their basic costs. Please try to see that.</p>
<p>I’m thrilled for the folks on this thread who feel great about their financial aid packages! Congratulations to you all. It’s nice when all the pieces come together.</p>
<p>If anyone here wants more info about the financial aid application process…there is a great section of this site called Financial Aid and Scholarships. Some VERY knowledgeable people post there including a couple of finaid officers who graciously offer their knowledge to this forum.</p>
<p>OT. LOL JYM626. If I tell you what car I purchased, will you promise to leave me alone for two days? At least I want to thank you for your high regard of me as being a person who always tells the truth. </p>
<p>You know I would not just say whatever car and get you off my back. </p>
<p>Go back to the original discusion. OP stated that the purpose is to educate the next year’s class. I happen to think that is misleading. I am here sharing MY experiences and knowledge of this matter.</p>
<p>BTW, R6L, I have said from the very beginning, the ONLY reason I came to post is because the phase “extremely generous”. I said many times that I am happy for you and your own satisfactory of the FA is the only one that counts. If you had started with what you said in post #31, I would have been standing next to you and cheer.</p>
<p>I’m recently returned from a somewhat lengthy trip to Toronto, business but social dinners etc. as well.</p>
<p>This thread highlights for me a difference I noted in Canada: in the US I tend to find “free speech” means we haul out our soapbox at every opportunity; in Canada, there seems to be more respect for honoring the topic itself. I found more meaningful speech in my discussions north of the border.</p>
<p>I understand this to be a celebratory thread. (Those would would like their aid packages critiqued will go to other threads for that.) So, in that spirit CONGRATS to those getting warm fuzzy feelings as they learn their college options!!!</p>
<p>seriously, R6L, do you see the discussion point from your own posts.<br>
</p>
<p>what if someone actually takes your “extremely generous” comment to the heart and applys to that college. And they get a FA package full of loans. what do you think about that?</p>
<p>If they read my posts and other terrible things about their FA, they might spend their hard earned $$ to apply to other great schools such as Yale.</p>
<p>Dad II, Rocket6Louise said that her award included Stafford loans. Since it is need-based award, I think its safe to assume she meant a subsidized Stafford. While obviously a grant is always nicer than a loan, I think subsidized Stafford’s are a pretty good deal – the government pays the interest until the student graduates, payments and interest can continue to be deferred if the student enrolls in grad school, at any time; and there are a variety of loan forgiveness options if the student opts for certain types of public service jobs post college. </p>
<p>If you think that’s a bad deal – you are entitled to your opinion. But to me it looks pretty close to free money. </p>
<p>My son got a half-time position with Americorps while still in school, and got hired at good job immediately after graduation. He applied the Americorps education benefit to pay off some of the loans, and then wrote a check to pay the balance in full – easy enough for him, as he had been on the job for about 5 months before that first payment came due. </p>
<p>Anyway… subsidized loans are not all that terrible – they don’t have to be paid back until the student is in a financial position to make the payments – and there is a good reason that most colleges include them in their financial aid packaging. The Stafford loan that is given to Rocket frees up grant money to give to another needy student.</p>
:)</p>