<p>Also, just to reiterate this, if you get a good/excellent/do-able FA package, HUGE CONGRATS!!! I’m sincerely glad the process worked for you…</p>
<p>If it doesn’t, well, that’s not a mark against you. Really. As an unpopular of an opinion as that seems to be.</p>
<p>Re: post 139
PHEAA is Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (or something similar as I recall from 30+ years ago)</p>
<p>I want to share in the thrill for those of you with great packages!!!</p>
<p>I also want to say that I agree completely with psych. Additionally, it is not only medical bills for family members not reflected in EFCs that can create financial hardships. Many solid, hard working students who are not A students, with somthing less than 1300/2000+ scores, and a low EFC, may get gapped a LOT at many private schools as well as their own instate public Us. They might hit on a great package, or they might all be lousy packages, and then there can be some that may land in the middle of those 2 extremes. Much of this may be more than luck. If that student can find schools that will really want them (ie: for some unusual talent, an EC), they might offer a better packages. One just can’t count on that.</p>
<p>Schools can do “professional overrides” (not exact term) and adjust the EFC to include medical expenses. When S was an incoming freshman we sent the request and documentation to his 5 top schools, and they all adjusted EFC. His school has also done so in the two years since then.</p>
<p>Um… Hello everyone 
I figured I’d chime in!</p>
<p>I must say, I am absolutely thrilled with Barnard College’s financial aid package that I received today. It’s not a free ride, but it’s still amazing (as far as I know), and the first one I’ve received from a “100% need met” school so far!</p>
<p>Prices: Total tuition is 40,896. Room and board is 12,950. Books/Supplies is 1,146. Misc is 1,366, and transportation is 440. Total overall is 56,798.</p>
<p>My award: Parental contribution is 8,470 and student contribution is 1,950 for an expected monetary contribution of 10,420. I received a $41,078 grant, 1,800 in work study and 3,500 as a subsidized Stafford loan.</p>
<p>I think that’s pretty amazing! Like I said, though, it’s the first I’ve seen, so what do I know?</p>
<p>FYI, according to FAFSA, our EFC was about 5,000. However, that was based on my mom’s info, and my (non-custodial) father has a much higher income (80,000 vs 54,000, but some ~50,000 of the latter is alimony from the former (it’s complicated)), so the difference is somewhat understandable. I think. Maybe?</p>
<p>Still waiting to hear from more next week. Hoping for good news, in both admissions and FA!</p>
<p>Prussia, I remember on the Barnard thread that you said you are considering a gap year. You need to keep in mind that for a need-based school, the gap year can change the picture – a LOT – especially if you work & earn money during that year. So after all your awards are in, you might want to take a step back and look at your plans and how they might impact the financial aid picture. Remember that your earnings and savings are counted much higher toward EFC than parental earnings/assets. </p>
<p>I agree that is a great financial aid award and certainly reason to cheer. I just want you to be aware that the need based award is for the coming year only.</p>
<p>I would encourage folks to talk with FA and your admissions counselor about increasing need money, particularly if you or your child have been “gapped” with loans. We have had success with several of the schools my son was accepted to and the packages are beginning to be doable. In order to do this, you will need to be willing to share your 1040 forms, copies of mortgage, medical bills, pay check stubs. To me it has been worth sending these documents.</p>
<p>Wow hornet, that is great! We tried at 2 schools with our older son, but were not sucessful (will spare everyone the details).</p>
<p>Our younger son has 3 schools that look like they are doable and are within $400 of each other. Then the others jump in cost. There is such a far spread between the 3 more doable ones and the others he would be intersted in. I cannot see schools that are asking for 10,000+ more for freshman year, to come close enough to our best 3 offers. Our son seems to be happy about attending his safety school.</p>
<p>That’s great you have a workable plan for your son, Northeast! Aren’t you glad the admissions adventure is coming to a close? I am. We are getting getting closer financially with child two. He has two state schools to choose from that are 11K a year (tuition, room and board-standard charges for all instate students) as back up in the event that the private colleges don’t work out. We have three good private choices that are now running at an acceptable range and then there is a big jump in price… The other five schools didn’t budge in changing the aid. Like your son, mine is fine with the remaining schools as choices.</p>
<p>Another good piece of news I learned about from several of the financial aid people. If the older child is in graduate school and still claimed by the parents for tax/insurance purposes -I think it was phrased as 50% of child’s expenses are covered by parents, FAFSA will treat it as two in college. It would be nice if our older child would go straight to grad school in terms of saving $$.</p>
<p>hornet, having those instate 11,000 back up schools let you sleep nights. We do not have that in NJ. My son did not get 5 cents in FA grants from our NJ public and did not get any merit either. Since they cost somewhere in the 21-23k price range, it is pretty sad. We did better with some private school options.</p>
<p>Sounds like your private school workable offers ran similar in number to ours.</p>
<p>NEMom: as a NJ native, I am beyond shocked at how much tuition is for commuter students at NJ state institutions. It is costing more for my nephew & my Ds former classmates to commute to Rutgers than it would be if we had to pay full freight at our instate and adjacent OOS public when she lives on campus. DH & I commuted to a local NJ state college & I can’t believe the jump.</p>
<p>Northeast- I am sorry NJ is so high. Wow, your instate makes privates seem very affordable! I can’t imagine what average families in NJ do. Your information explains why there are so many students from NJ in NC. Some of our schools have been jokingly referred to as the southern campus of the University of New Jersey. At the very affordable price that NC schools are, I knew starting out that nothing could trump the two state school choices for S. I do feel fortunate for that.</p>
<p>For the privates, it seems we are in the same range. One good thing is older D’s school-they meet 100% demonstrated need and it looks like she will have a real deal with her brother in school (state or private). I am very appreciative of her college!</p>
<p>Hornet, it does sound like you are all set!</p>
<p>RobD, yes, you should be shocked. R&B is not a bargain either. I have a B+ kid who has worked hard through hs. He is a really good kid with lots of solid ECs and decent standardized test scores. I was not surprised that he was not offered merit aid at our instate public. I am surprised that not one dime in FA grants was offered. We have 2 children in college, and we did not have a great year financially, so our EFC is fairly low for this year. Not a dime in grants. Are they kidding?</p>
<p>Hornet, I would not go so far as to say very affordable. None of our private schools came close to meeting full need. Also, I would not allow my 18 y/o to take on more than the 3500 in Sub Staffords. I have a big problem with loading young people up with too much debt. We believe that we can swing our 3 best private school offers. We do have two that then jump another 2500 out of pocket. I told my son that he can consider those. He might be considering one of them. There would have to be a good reason for him to attend school #4 or #5. After that, the schools are asking for way too much for our family. Additionally, there is a possibility that we may be knocked out of the box for FA in year #2 (unsure right now). This means that I do need to keep an eye on COA-minus merit aid, and forget the FA portion, just to be cautious.</p>
<p>Which reminds me, saying that your instate U is a financial safety does not work in NJ, unless your EFC is over 23k. JMO.</p>
<p>My son did not get 5 cents in FA grants from our NJ public and did not get any merit either. Since they cost somewhere in the 21-23k price range,</p>
<p>Is that tuition alone? or COA for an instate student? </p>
<p>I didn’t know any instate publics charged that much in tuition. I thought Penn St was the highers…but I could be wrong.</p>
<p>COA. If it were just tuition, their instate costs would be approaching least expensive private colleges for cost. Their tuition, I guess costs what instate schools charge for COA in NC. Believe me, if I could move, I would. Just grateful that my son has other options!</p>
<p>You know, I used to roll my eyes when I read that private schools could be less expensive than one’s instate public U. I never thought was really true for most, but figured that there are always exception. It turned out to be true for us. We were not offered a package that was that good at many private schools, but at enough of them (one only needs very good package). I can safely think of 5 private schools that offered a package considerably less expensive than our instate U’s lovely offer.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to hi-jack thew thread but I thought I would add a little research I did on instate COA (including room and board) at some state flagships. I will need to add New Jersey to the list!</p>
<p>One has to keep in mind the the lower cost of living also reflects the significantly lower average income (particularly in some southern states). However, with those few exceptions, I don’t know how families in general cover it. Wisconsin was shocking!</p>
<p>Iowa- 26K
Wisconsin 32K
Colorado 15K
Michigan 24K
Illinois 23K
Maine 18K
Oregon 18K
New York 15K
Virginia 20K
Florida 15K
Maryland 18K
Georgia 14K
Washington 18K
Texas 18K
Maine 18K
North Carolina 14K</p>
<p>Just looked at Rutgers NB. The cost of attendance for pharmacy,SEBS, or engineering is 28200 (instate). All otheer majors are 26,900. That was for 2009-10.</p>
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<p>I know of 2 families who relocated to the south from the northeast. Nobody’s salary went down due to the relocation. What went down was their property taxes, and they were able to get a much better home for their money.</p>
<p>^^^^</p>
<p>I can second that…</p>
<p>When we moved from Southern Cal to Alabama…hubby’s income wasn’t negatively affected…still has seen good increases and bonuses every year… </p>
<p>But…state taxes down, property taxes down, car registration WAY down, home prices awesome…We were able to custom build a lovely home here…which would NEVER have happened in Calif…</p>
<p>Even the lower income folks can own their own homes here. My housekeeper bought a nice “bricks and sticks” home in the county for about $60k about 5 years ago. She has about 1 acre of land for her gardening. That could never be in Calif.</p>
<p>CA to NC here, best merit aid ever (5 kiddos)!</p>
<p>Kat</p>