"Building a list of potential colleges that will be a good fit financially isn’t just a math exercise—it requires some savviness with vocabulary, too. From types of loans to policies around need-based or merit-based aid, the world of college financial aid has a jargon all its own.
Here’s a guide to help you understand the financial aid terms that deal with colleges’ financial aid policies and need-based aid — plus 75 schools that meet this criteria. To learn more about those schools, check out MONEY’s 2019 Best Colleges ranking." …
University of Rochester supposedly meets full need - problem is what they determine your need to be may not be realistic. Our EFC was $44000 and they expected us to pay over $60k. We have a pretty straight 1040 tax return, no additional assets or income/investments. Not sure how that works…
Was this the FAFSA EFC? If so, that only matters for determining government aid. As the linked article makes clear, schools that provide institutional need-based aid will make their own determination on what the student’s “need” is. Everyone seeking need-based aid from a school needs to understand that the FAFSA EFC number means little if anything.
I realize that, but it’s interesting that all the other schools D applied to both as an undergraduate and transfer student came up with aid making the cost of attendance very close to our EFC, and none of them were meet full need schools. I’d love to understand how Roch came up with such a higher figure.
“Meet need” is based on each school’s definition of “need”, which can vary greatly from one school to another, and may not match what the student and family believe that they need.
Running the net price calculator on several schools on that list of “meet need” schools can show significant differences in net price for the same financial situation.
In other words, the claim to “meet need” is no guarantee of good financial aid, and the lack of such a claim is no guarantee of worse financial aid than that of a school claiming to “meet need”.