<p>Not sure exactly where this should be placed - since it's not really a fin aid question, didn't want to post it there. More wanted it to be a "get it off your chest" and support thread.</p>
<p>Are fin aid packages starting to come in for your child?
We got our first "official" package yesterday and here is my first "whine" of the season:</p>
<p>Dear School,
Your fin aid package is a disappointment. While we are grateful for the $15K merit award, the cost of your school is an inch shy of $40K. Our EFC for his child is about $9K. He is in the top 5% of your applicant pool and our only other aid is a $1500 grant??? Our app clearly notes a modest income, another child in college, etc....so really? You expect us to take out another $18,000 in loans (on top of the 3K sub stafford and 2K unsub stafford you listed in the packet) ????? I don't think so! We were planning another trip to visit your sweet campus, but now are doubting if we should bother. Signed, I-Am-Disappointed.</p>
<p>I remember last year my son’s packages were similar. Low EFC, good, strong candidate, yet most had large gaps.</p>
<p>The most perplexing was the one where he won the school’s top scholarship, for the most desirable students, yet the remainder of the package was purely fed money, which cost them nothing and came nowhere near meeting need. I thought it sent a rather mixed message, like “we think you’re outstanding and we really want you to attend but you and your parents will have to take on some sizable loans to come here.” </p>
<p>I whined about my EFC in the thread on the Fin Aid forum.</p>
<p>I guess it depends where you apply. The pricy privates my son liked he is not a top applicant for given his stats, so I was not expecting much.</p>
<p>The safety my son applied to gave him generous merit.</p>
<p>So I feel for you, I came to the realization a while ago that unless S was near the top of the applicant pool, it was going to be out of reach. And given his modest stats, he doesn’t want to be at the top at a low tiered school.</p>
<p>So while your child may be near the top of the applicant pool, what I’m hearing is that a lower EFC will not necessarily be covered - ‘the gap’. Others have looked at the schools typical award pacakages - some schools are more generous than others. Also, the economy has no doubt affect some school’s endowment and may reign in their generousity.</p>
<p>And in my case, a hefty EFC that is not realistic for us would mean a gap and large loans too.</p>
<p>Hopefully the other schools will show your S some more ‘love’ And I suppose you could appeal the award</p>
<p>I can understand the disappointment, but really? Do we expect money to grow on trees? The only true thing money gets a person is freedom. In this case, it will be the freedom to have more choice in a school and that might mean they go to their number one choice. For those with less money, the choice might leave little to be desired, but you have to keep your eye on the goal, and that should be to get a college education. If you are a top student at the top of the applicant pool, that may garner you more choice. But for most people… they are going to be somewhere in the middle and the resources will be stretched. Why so many assume the money is just there waiting to be handed out (and too, that federal dollars mean little to colleges) continues to boggle my mind.</p>
The reason why we assume that is because colleges often use language implying that it is the case for marketing purposes. We don’t tend to approach what colleges tell us with the same kind of skepticism we apply to, say, car dealers; but maybe we need to.</p>
<p>For instance, these are all quotes from real admissions websites (names have been changed to protect the guilty): </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Et cetera, et cetera. I would just like this thread not to degenerate into the typical rants about how families who need FA feel “entitled.” If we expect to get enough aid to allow our children to attend the colleges of their choice, it is because the colleges themselves have encouraged this expectation. So lecturing us for our naivete is a bit off the mark.</p>
<p>The financial aid aspect of choosing a college is extremely hard (at least it was for our family). It is one thing to be rejected (as in a “no” on the admissions side) but how much in loans should parents and their kids be willing to accept? How much is “dream school” worth? I think for many of us on these forums, education is highly valued. But what are we willing to pay for it?</p>
<p>If you don’t like the package, go to a cheaper school.</p>
<p>I went to an in-state college that cost a grand total of around $40,000 for 5 years education (1998-2003). I graduated without any student loans and have not complained one bit.</p>
<p>Now I don’t have Princeton or Harvard on my resume, but the work that I do is incredible and there is nothing better that I’d enjoy more than what I am doing right now.</p>
<p>The first school S and I looked at was an expensive private. This was before I had a full understanding of what our EFC would be.</p>
<p>They made a big point of saying that if you really want to attend that school, they would go the extra mile to make it happen for you.</p>
<p>So this is a $50K school. S received 5K in grants and 6K in loans. I somehow don’t think the school is going to go an extra $20K so S could attend.</p>
<p>In our case we decided that as parents we could not take on big loans since our job situation is not guaranteed, and we have 2 younger kids to plan for. And S should not be saddled with payments that rival a mortgage payment for much of his early life. That made the choice easier - and it’s probably going to be an in state public. Not a ‘dream’ private school. Because that dream is just an unrealistic, even dangerous fantasy.</p>
<p>There is a gap for lower EFC’d families, and there is a gap for higher EFC families. The whole EFC notion is predicated on the assumption that we have had this earning power for many years. Also with the expectation that we will have this earning power for many years to come and will have the ability to pay down large loans. I am just not willing to make that gamble.</p>
<p>Some of you are missing the point. I am VERY grateful for the merit aid. He has of course applied to other schools that will likely have better offers - one , though not a favorite is great. </p>
<p>The point of the thread was just to give me and others a place to verbalize a rant and hopefully feel a little better getting it off our chests. I didn’t want this to be about measuring, or anyone feeling ungrateful, just a place to vent. :)</p>
<p>We’ve been through the process once before, and were better prepared for the actual results this time, but thought that this one school in particular, might have a bit more to offer.</p>
Fine, but if that’s the reality, the schools’ rhetoric needs to start matching it. </p>
<p>I don’t mind the fact that we can’t afford a BMW. We drive a Ford Focus and we’re happy with it. But if the BMW website said, “we are committed to making sure that a BMW is affordable for any family that wants one,” and then we went to the dealer and found that they expected us to commit close to half of our after-tax income to their car payments, we would not be happy about that.</p>
<p>Believe me, most full-pay families feel just as frustrated with the outrageous pricetags, and most of them are taking out loans to make it happen too.</p>
<p>Listen, I whine when I don’t win the lottery on the rare occasion that I play. Nothing wrong with that. Hope does not equal expectation. Sometimes we get lucky. My D got a lot more money at one school than we expected. Based on her stats and their published information, she was low and it was a long shot, but they gave it to her anyway. If we hadn’t had the hope to try, we wouldn’t have received good news. Sometimes when you hope you get disappointed. Acknowledging that doesn’t make anyone a bad person.</p>
<p>This scenario of “gapping” is more common than not (very few schools meet 100% of the schools’ determined need) and this is a very good reason to apply to more than a handful of schools and some financial “safeties”. Securing admission is just the first part of the college journey, the ability to cover the finances is the real “deal breaker”.</p>
<p>Applying to a more than a few just doesn’t vary options but will allow for some “leverage” (maybe, if the financial gods smile) in dealing with packages and peer schools. That’s a big maybe!</p>
<p>Look at the bottom line, the out-of-pocket expenses for each school, not just what is being awarded. When mine all applied packages varied as much as $20,000 per year, same kid, same stats…</p>
<p>Make sure to compare apples to apples, look at transportation, new wardrobe, ability to obtain work on campus and the rate per hour they pay (D#2 paid @$7.00 per hour, DS#2 paid @13.50), what was in the “misc” expenses…</p>
<p>Hopefully, other packages will be more generous, but I wouldn’t count on it.</p>
<p>Well, luckily with sites like CC I knew enough going into the college search (with avg students) NOT to pay attention to what the college sites say about cost/aid and to base everything on the true cost (tuition/room/board/books/transportation/spending). That cost was first criteria for searches…any grants/scholarships would just be a bonus.</p>
<p>Top tier private colleges/universities are very expensive – $50K+ per year. However, no one has a right to go there, or a right to get a free ride or a partial free ride. Why do some people feel that they are entitled to a hand out? Anything a college gives is charity, so keep your mouth shut except to say “Thank you”. Don’t be like Oliver “Can I have some more, please?” That scholarship money is coming from the college’s endowment, from full paying students, from alumni, and from firing professors. There are great cheaper private and state schools, some really much cheaper. No one is forcing anyone to take a “package” they don’t like or can’t afford. When I was in college, there were plenty of students who worked long hours in the cafeteria, library, gyms, etc. to help pay for tuition, and that school was just about the most expensive in the country at the time. I took out lots of loans myself that my parents did not pay back, since they did not have the money. It took me years to pay them off. But I did. So it has been in the US, and so it shall continue to be. In other countries, college can be close to free. Even Canadian universities are good and cheaper than in the US. There are plenty of options other than asking for a bigger hand out.</p>
<p>Is there a full moon or something? What’s wrong with people today? We all have ranting threads. No one “expected” anything, “asked for a handout” or felt “entitled.” Jeez Louise.</p>
<p>There’s a difference between an expectation and a feeling of entitlement. If you tell me, “every Friday night for the next six months, I’m going to take you out to dinner,” that creates an expectation. If you say that to me, and then the first Friday night I call you up and say, “so, where are you taking me tonight?” you say, “huh? what are you talking about, I’m not taking you anywhere,” I’m going to be disappointed…even annoyed…because you told me one thing and then did something else. That does NOT mean I felt entitled to be taken out to dinner, nor that I was asking for a handout. You see how that works, ConCernd Dad?</p>