<p>Okay, so Middlebury has decided that, based on your family’s income and assets, your parents can afford to spend $33,000 per year on your education. So Midd is giving you about $26,000/year in financial aid. How much of that is grant aid and how much is loans?</p>
<p>Did you apply ED or RD? If RD, what other schools accepted you, and what were your financial aid packages from them like? What state are you in? If there a decent flagship state university?</p>
<p>When it came time to decide on a college, you presumably had all of the financial aid information in front of you. What has changed since then? Did your parents change their minds about how much they’re willing to contribute? Or did $40K a few months ago seem like less of a big deal than it does now? Did you read something that made you question your decision to attend Midd? Just trying to get my mind around this so I can offer better advice. </p>
<p>$3,000 of the aid is in loans form the school directly, $1,800 is in work study with the remainder being given as grant money.</p>
<p>I applied RD, however other schools that accepted me did not give me a financial aid package that made the school workable for my budget. My instate school gave me a good portion of tuition through scholarships but other than that I didn’t have any offers that were attractive financially.</p>
<p>I am from Tennessee and live roughly 30 minutes from The University of Tennessee–Knoxville (You know-- bright orange, “Go Vols” country) so I am VERY familiar with the campus and the programs available. I did consider the prospect of going for a while. However after speaking to the department head of one of the programs I was interested in at the school, it became clear to me that UTK wasn’t best for me academically based on my interests. But fiscally, even paying out of pocket it would still have been (and continues to be) quite a bit cheaper than Midd. </p>
<p>As for what exactly is making me change my mind now, part of it has to do with the fact that my family has been very unconcerned with regards to money and college and it was rarely discussed. My mother dropped out of high school so she hasn’t been involved in the process due to her lack of knowledge on the subject and most of my father’s family went to the same Ivy League school or they went into engineering and had a great return on their education. For my father, being able to pay tuition with family contributions or grants and then pay off student loans was hardly a problem. As a result, he was the one who helped me with the selection and application process and choosing schools came down to expected quality over expected cost. To be completely honest though, my own expected contribution in loans or the finances related to my parent’s contribution to my education (even when I inquired) were not discussed with me in finite numeric terms until this upcoming semester’s tuition bill came in.</p>
<p>What made the debt seem larger and more realistic to me was because of my experience working this summer. I began my first job at a grocery store to make some extra money and have met quite a few recent (and not so recent) graduates with varying degrees who are unable to find dependable long term employment. With the possibility of not finding a decent job after graduation and the risk of leaving school with large amounts of debt, quite frankly, scares me.</p>
<p>“chs1980…For a sophomore, max Stafford is $6500, plus $3000 Perkins. Midd’s calculation of EFC was 10K higher than the FAFSA. So while they met “need”, majority was loans & work/study.”</p>
<p>Exactly. I think the way it works is that $3000 is the cap on Middlebury College Loans.</p>
<p>Here’s what I think they do. They figure out your need based on their own institutional methodology. Then they subtract the $3000, then they subtract $1800 for work/study. Then they offer the difference between $4800 and what they have determined to be your need in a Middlebury Grant. THEN they offer the maximum Stafford loan (either subsidized or unsubsidized, depending on what you qualify for.)</p>
<p>So for a sophomore, the loan package would be exactly $9500, just as mkayak (and we) experienced. You then have the option of accepting or declining all or part of the loan(s.)</p>
<p>Other families may have different experiences but this has been ours.</p>
<p>trekslxchick, thx for your post. Sounds like we both had the same experience with Midd FA. Our family was very disappointed after hearing how generous they were supposed to be, even for middle and upper middle income families. Midd FA only looked at one year of our income, although we provided an explanation of years of unemployment due to layoffs & economy. Special circumstances were not considered. After we spent time analyzing their Common Data Set, it appears that aid is not as widely distributed as we had hoped.</p>
<p>Tee Martin was #17. #14 was Cedrick Wilson, himself a great player who caught a key touchdown in the 1998 National Title game. Don’t know if this will make the OP feel better or worse about Middlebury.</p>
<p>I don’t think 40K is that bad if you intend to have a well paying career, for instance, getting an MBA to follow your Econ degree. It’s the price of a really nice minivan, and you can actually pay it off in a couple years if you live college poor for those two years. But just a forewarning–I agree with the others that foreign language itself isn’t a good ticket to pay it back. The companies I know (in the US) who hire translators bring them all from the country they want translated into, and it’s pretty boring work that doesn’t really require “higher critical thinking skills” (like translating American software manuals into Italian, for instance). There is just no way a 2nd language person can translate into a language as well as a native speaker. Now if you want to go overseas to work in the private sector and translate something back into English, there might be some opportunities, but they do not pay very well. Keep in mind you are competing with Europeans who graduate high school fluent in a second language. None of the language majors I know are actually working in their language (unfortunately) unless they went into high school teaching. If that is the case, 40K of debt is a lot and you are probably better off at State U.</p>
<p>Well, my 2 sons just graduated from Midd, and we are among the few parents in their circle of friends who have jobs right off the bat. You pay for the alumni network as well as the critical thinking skills.
My one son did an Econ and Poli Sci major, and landed a great job working for a Washington think tank. He was hired at above entry level because of his Midd experience and skills, and has a more interesting job with more responsibility than his peers at the firm basically because of Midd. Oh, and he got the interview because an alum recommended him.
My other son became fluent in Mandarin plus did an interdisciplinary major so he’s got a job working in China.Eventually he intends to go to grad school.
It really matters what your intended career is and how motivated you are-it takes a stronger, more motivated, charismatic and “luckier” person to succeed from a bigger school. Some students hit bumps and with no one to take personal interest, they get lost. The finest students with the most motivation will learn in a closet-they can go anywhere.
40K is cheap averaged out over your lifetime of higher earning and greater opportunity.</p>
Use more debt than your competition or get out of the business. Any other policy is either self-limiting, no-win, or a bet that the competition will go bankrupt before they displace you. - Bruce Henderson