<p>So I was, miraculously, accepted to Tisch School of the Arts for Cinema Studies. I had no anticipation of being accepted but NYU has always been my dream school and Tisch has the best film school in the nation so it's definitely a blessing! The problem is paying for it, as I'm sure it is for many of us. </p>
<p>I looked at my financial aid and this is how it's broken down to:
$21,000 - Scholarships
$5,500 - Grant
$3,000 - Work Study
$33,912 - Loans
$63,462 - Total</p>
<p>My EFC is $0 and for good reason, neither of my parents are employed and they haven't been for a year now. I live in household with 6 other people and we are living off of food stamps, SSI, and unemployment compensation. </p>
<p>Currently, I am up for a scholarship to the University of Texas at Austin known as the Terry Scholarship that is a complete full ride with all expenses covered, the most prestigious scholarship in the state of Texas. So it's a big conflict with the decision. I wouldn't mind going to UT, but seeing as I was accepted to my dream school, I would much rather go to NYU. </p>
<p>A friend of mine suggested that I write the Financial Aid office explaining to them all of this, including my Terry consideration, seeking more financial aid from the school.</p>
<p>I am waiting for several outside scholarships but not all of them will be able to cover this, and the thing that worries me is that this is just for ONE year. I cannot imagine how it will be for all four years.</p>
<p>Any advice?</p>
<p>Definitely call the office and try to get more, and apply for a bunch of outside scholarships. I was accepted to the same major but I didn’t get any grants and my scholarship is only 8K. My EFC is somewhere in the 10K-12K range.</p>
<p>I have applied for about 17 outside scholarships so we shall see what pops up, the problem is that a good portion of them are announced in June. </p>
<p>Are you going to attend?</p>
<p>I don’t know yet. It’s my top choice by and far, and has been for a long time, but I have an 8K scholarship, 3K work study, and then 50K in loans (44K beginning a federal PLUS). That’s a huge debt.</p>
<p>I couldn’t agree more, especially since this is only the first year. We have to realize that it’s this for all four year, which is what scares me most. Maybe i’ll be able to figure out how to pay for next year, but what about the following three years?</p>
<p>Bumping for maybe some more opinions. </p>
<p>I called the Financial Aid office and they wouldn’t budge. They didn’t even take my situation into consideration, I even asked them if they had funds to maybe fly me up there for the admit weekend and they don’t. This is such a complicated situation. I hate that it costs so much.</p>
<p>o0Andy0o,</p>
<p>So sorry you are confirming the worst of what we wrote and hoped was not true. That NYU is unbudging when it comes to financial aid. This is one of the negatives of a big bureaucracy where you are one of the many “numbers” when it comes to service.</p>
<p>If you have other college choices that are good for your intended major and are less expensive, I would think about them seriously. Unless you are in a major that will help you to pay back your loans fairly quickly (relatively speaking), NYU will be a school that you will have to pay for dearly.</p>
<p>Let me put your FA package in perspective for NYU. You have an very good package compared to other admitted students. You actually got more than my son who is a MLK Scholar.</p>
<p>o0Andy0o,</p>
<p>I just realized that you have been admitted to Tisch Film School, well it makes it more difficult. You are in an elite program. However, it is hard to say what your income will be, with this major. Yet, you are now in one of the more well-connected programs and locations for this specialization. With your FA package, which some would be thankful to have and the nature of the program, it may be worth your while to think about “sacrificing” to be in the program. It depends on your ambition, motivation and “aggressiveness” in capitalizing all that NYU and NYC can provide for you.</p>
<p>Haha, If you become a Tisch student, be ambitious, hardworking, motivated, and “aggressive” in pursuing your goals, but please do not be obnoxious or “uppity” about all of this. We are all humans after all. (This is based on some “stereotypes” I have heard of.)</p>
<p>O0Andy0o,
I feel your pain. The only way I can see this to work for you is the following:
you have 26500 free money. Stafford 5500+2400 Perkins =34400. So that is 34400.00 of scholarship and student loans to cover part of your tuition and room and board.
Do you and/or parents have any savings put aside for college?
You will need to apply to many outside scholarships, work and save your money and cut your costs by getting Low Cost triple housing and getting a work study job. can your parents get a parent plus loan for approx the balance of the bill?</p>
<p>Evolving,</p>
<p>I know! This is what makes it such a difficult decision for me! Go to the best film school in the nation, my absolute dream school, and risk being $130,000 in debt afterwards or go to a public school that may be all expenses covered? </p>
<p>Do you mean that the Tisch students are stuck up? Haha.</p>
<p>milkandsugar,</p>
<p>Unfortunately, we don’t have any money at all saved up. I have applied to several smaller ones but the larger ones (Coca-Cola, Gates Millennium, and AXA Achievement) I did not become semifinalist for. The only large one that I am still waiting for is the Ronald McDonald House of Charities HACER scholarship of $100,000 but I won’t find out the results for that one until late May/early June. The majority of my scholarships will not be announced until late May/early June so that just defeats the purpose of it all in that I won’t know if they will help me or not. This is all a very complicated situation.</p>
<p>Well, o0Andy0o,</p>
<p>If this is hard for you and you need some time to make a final decision when you are notified in late May/ early June about scholarship results, maybe you can just pay the non-refundable enrollment and housing deposits (the latter only if you will live in school housing). </p>
<p>I think the total may $1500 this year (not sure about this because of changes in NYU policy this year) vs. the $1800 last year ($300 enrollment, $500, housing deposit, $1000 housing reservation).</p>
<p>So you may have to lose the $1500 or so if you back out in June when you have heard from the scholarship organizations. Not good but not such a bad thing if you really want to keep your place at NYU while giving yourself more time to decide.</p>
<p>o0Andy0o, don’t feel so bad. I got into Stern, with $0. My parents are in a much better situation than yours, so I guess that’s why. But they are not so rich that $60,000 a year is affordable to them. I don’t know how FAFSA figures out the EFC, but according to ours, if my parents gave that much towards my tuition, my family would have to walk around naked and skinny from lack of clothes and food. :)</p>
<p>So I will probably have to pass up going to my dream school. It breaks my heart, but graduating in so much debt just doesn’t seem sensible.</p>
<p>Well, I wrote to the FA office and, as expected, got a standard “we do not have an appeals process” and “you have received the best award based on your FAFSA.”</p>
<p>Oh well.</p>
<p>Tough. NYU draws a very hard line that they will not cross. I guess they have to do it, because once word gets around, they would be inundated with appeals and calls for more money since their FA policy is often deficient in meeting all need without a large amount of loans or saved money.</p>
<p>At least you tried, good for you. Wish you well in your new college and be happy you will not have massive debt to pay off fresh out of college or grad school. :)</p>
<p>ccbound11,</p>
<p>Did you type up a letter or handwrite it? Did you fax or email? What all did you do exactly? I was thinking about handwriting them a letter and faxing it to their fax number and hopefully a handwritten letter will get through to them rather than a phone call or email. I am not going to go down without a fight! This is my dream school and the only other school I was accepted into and I know that must mean something!</p>
<p>You would do better to call and speak to a financial aid officer than write a letter. For freshman there is no appeal process, upperclassman have a formal process. If you search cc, you would see that most students call and many get a slight increase of 1000-2000 right over the phone. If you are expecting more, don’t count on it.</p>
<p>NYU is not going to give you an extra $25,000 per year - or any other number close to enough to make it affordable for you. You need to move on to your other options.</p>
<p>o0Andy0o, for the record, I wrote an email, and they responded the next day.</p>