<p>IMO, you can also whine about missing merit aid. But merit aid whiners have to bring snacks along to share when they whine. :)</p>
<p>nightchef: At one of the privates S liked, I definitely had a sinking feeling when the offer came without merit, because that meant the package was going to be too out of range of what we could afford.</p>
<p>Re YouDon’tSay, post #202 [“In missemily’s scenario, the EFC isn’t on top of the loans, is it? Aren’t the loans to meet the EFC?”] </p>
<p>No, student loans are NOT intended to subsidize the EFC. The loans typically included in a financial aid package are intended to reduce the COA, leaving the student + family with the responsibility to meet EFC out of their own resources - those resources could include private loans or a Parent PLUS loan. The loans offered as part of the financial aid package are to meet “need”, not EFC.</p>
<p>So, lets say COA is $30K, EFC is $10K, leaving $20K of “need”. A typical financial aid package might be $4K loans, $2K work-study, and $14K of grant – this would be considered an award that meets full need, and actually would be pretty good. </p>
<p>If the $10K is the FAFSA EFC, and the college in my hypothetical gave $20K of grant money, the student would not be eligible for federally subsidized loans. Why? because eligibility depends on unmet need. The parents would still be eligible for a PLUS loan, because PLUS loans are available up to full COA, to cover both the EFC and any unmet need – and of course the student and family could take private loans. </p>
<p>But again: federally subsidized loans are available to meet “need” – NOT EFC. EFC is the part that the student is supposed to come up with on their own. </p>
<p>(Philosophically, I agree that a loan is not really financial aid – it is debt that includes origination fees and an obligation to repay. A student who borrows $10,000 is likely to end up paying a lot more than $10K before they are done with the process. But that’s not how the system looks at it – and the flip side of the coin is simply that subsidized loans are paid for with taxpayer dollars, especially now that everything is moving toward direct lending only. So as a parent, I see a need for help in meeting the EFC, but as a taxpayer, I don’t want my dollars going to pay someone for something that they theoretically ought to be able to pay for themselves without government help – so I certainly can see the rationale behind the student loan system.)</p>
<p>calmom, I’ll pm you. Thanks for the response!</p>
<p>
FALSE, at least the way you phrased it. If you need FA and you are reasonably sure of your EFC (no complicated circumstances), I think the best strategy–IF you have a clear first choice that you would be willing to “sacrifice” financially for–is actually to apply ED to a no-loans/capped-loans school that meets full need. If the package is truly undoable, you can withdraw from the ED commitment without penalty.</p>
<p>In exchange for a possibly increased chance of admittance to a “large-endowment” school, you give up the possibility of comparing aid packages. My family chose to make that decision and it is the reason why I don’t have a story of my own, as a middle-class student who qualifies for significant need-based aid, to tell on this thread.</p>
<p>Keilexandra has an extremely important point.</p>
<p>For those schools with comparatively transparent financial aid policies, ED can actually be the way to go. A $0 EFC student who applies ED to Princeton or Rice is actually in a strategically beautiful position. Similarly, you can see K’s case.</p>
<p>missemily,
your Whittier package actually looks quite generous. Its essentially a full tuition scholarship. Thats wonderful! Did you ask your FA counselor to explain the other 10K worth of estimated fees contributing to the COA? As you have said, you will have negligible travel costs, you can buy used books, and if the fees Whittier lists included things like health services and student center fees , etc, you really will have minimal additional OOP costs. There will sometimes be things like lab fees, freshman orientation fees, etc, but these are not usually terribly costly.</p>
<p>And I too, want to applaud and thank you for your willingness to share your d’s FA package and to brainstorm out loud here. Not only can you get clearer answers with clear numbers given, but you really help your fellow CC’ers and will be greatly appreciated by those going through and trying to understand this process.</p>
<p>Applicannot-Princeton does not have ED.</p>
<p>Keilexandra, good point. If you are willing and capable to pay, ED to handful large endowment school may be the way to go. </p>
<p>I guess we just have a different interpretation of “concern” and the ED concept. </p>
<p>For example, ED to school A could get $25000 grant and $7500 loan, which is doable. But then school B could give you $40,000 grant free of loan. If you really want to go to A and could do with the low FA. I guess you could do ED and give up the chance of compare FA.</p>
<p>BTW, None of the best NB FA schools has ED.</p>
<p>I just want to add a note to the parents who have fairly strong financial aid packages (like MissEmily) but are trying to plan and make decisions about loans.</p>
<p>There are “hard” costs and “soft” costs. The “hard” costs are the things that are fixed and you can’t get out of, like tuition, mandatory fees, the minimal cost for housing & cheapest available meal plan. The “soft” costs are the things that the college has calculated based on its own guess, but which can be reduced if you are frugal… </p>
<p>When figuring out how much you will have to borrow to meet the parts that are above and beyond what is going to show up in a bill from the college – don’t forget to subtract out the expenses you will no longer have when your child leaves home. That is – how much do you spend now to feed your kid at home? (I’m a single mom and was surprised at how much my weekly grocery bill went down when my son was no longer at home). What about other expenses, like fees related to various EC’s and activities, or the cost entailed in transporting your kid to and from those activities? Is the kid covered on a car insurance policy, and does the policy need to stay in force while the kid is in college – or can money be saved there? </p>
<p>These aren’t huge sums of money but I did borrow more than I needed for my son’s first year of college because I failed to account for this stuff. Especially if you are looking at parent loans or unsubsidized student loans (which charge interest from the outset) – you will want to avoid borrowing more than you actually need.</p>
<p>I had an a similar package to someone on here…</p>
<p>EFC: 6,400
COA: 22,505</p>
<p>Package:</p>
<p>Direct Subsidized Loan: 3,500
Direct Unsubsidized Loan: 2,000
Perkins Loan: 3,050
Grant: 9,142
Total: 17,692</p>
<p>Gap: 4,810</p>
<p>My parents were okay with that…</p>
<p>The only whine was the unsubsidized loan.</p>
<p>If I can manage to get a couple thousand in scholarships to get rid of that unsubsidized loan though then I’ll be okay…</p>
<p>Sure, I was a little disappointed I didn’t get more grant money, but what can I do? I applied ED and their packages include loans. I wasn’t that upset about it.</p>
<p>post 198 DadII… If a student has a 0 EFC and can gain admission to a top school CMHPY and the others than they should apply ED because these schools will grant almost complete financial aid other than the expected summer earnings. </p>
<p>There is no reason that a student in this catorgory should not apply early.</p>
<p>^^ momma3, NONE of those colleges have ED.</p>
<p>*
I’m looking at an offer ds has rcv’d, but the numbers add up to more than the COA, so I’m thinking that extra EFC can’t possibly be on top of that. I’ve got an e-mail into the HS college counselor.*</p>
<p>What is in the aid package…</p>
<p>Is it possible the numbers add up to more than COA because COA for 2010-11 will be higher? </p>
<p>Is this a private or public? </p>
<p>Does it mention a Plus loan? Is that amount approx your EFC?</p>
<hr>
<p>*
For those schools with comparatively transparent financial aid policies, ED can actually be the way to go. A $0 EFC student who applies ED to Princeton or Rice is actually in a strategically beautiful position.*</p>
<p>True…as long as the 0 EFC (or low EFC) will not get destroyed when NCP info is submitted to an elite school. There are kids with low EFCs that only qualify for fed aid, but don’t get the big institutional aid because they have affluent NCPs or lots of home equity that the elite expects to be tapped. Home equity and NCP info don’t get included on FAFSA for EFC.</p>
<p>A student with 0 EFC (on both FAFSA and PROFILE, though the latter doesn’t technically have an EFC) should get a full ride minus student contribution of work and savings at any school that promises to meet full need with no loans. Having a 0 EFC actually opens up that pool a bit, since some “2nd-tier elite” colleges have capped their no-loans promise at 40k or 60k.</p>
<p>My earlier statement applies to any student who has determined his/her family’s EFC to be affordable and is applying ED to a school that meets full need with an explicit loan expectation. This assumes, among other criteria, that the EFC is roughly equivalent across FAFSA and PROFILE. For divorced/unmarried parents, an unaffordable PROFILE calculation (if there is no hope of NCP waiver) will knock out of contention ALL schools that currently promise to meet full need. I don’t know of any FAFSA-only full-need colleges, as much as I wish otherwise.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>True…but there are always some single parent families with low EFCs (FAFSA) that are shocked to find out that their CSS “EFC” will be different once the NCP info is included (if required). There are people who don’t even realize that they NEED to submit a CSS until too late.</p>
<p>^This is why it’s so important to be informed about FA. But other low-income (or middle-income) families shouldn’t be universally dissuaded from apply ED.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Okay, who cares, really? Here are a couple full need schools that DO have ED</p>
<p>Tufts
Rice
WashU</p>
<p>At least people here have FA packages. I cannot expect one. Yeah should have saved more but like someone earlier said. Our savings/investments took a huge hit in this recession.</p>
<p>^^Full-need, no-loans (for everyone) schools that offer ED:</p>
<p>Swarthmore
Amherst
Bowdoin
Colby
Claremont McKenna
Columbia
Davidson
Haverford
Pomona</p>
<p>For low-income students, the list is expanded, and if you include modest loan caps, it expands yet more. This is still only applicable to “top-tier” students, but to that group–including middle-income with an affordable EFC–ED can be beneficially strategic.</p>
<p>[Project</a> on Student Debt: Financial Aid Pledges](<a href=“http://projectonstudentdebt.org/pc_institution.php]Project”>http://projectonstudentdebt.org/pc_institution.php)
Project on Student Debt offers a mostly comprehensive list, though I know of a few loan-cap schools that are omitted.</p>