Trying to figure out finances before applying to colleges-UC questions

Parents Forum
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<p>Since my son's a junior, I'm trying to really get a full understanding of what will be financially feasible and what won't.</p>

<p>I am still quite unfamiliar with possible scholarships at the UCs and Cal State schools. My son will qualify for the Blue Gold program, but if he were to attend a UC out of the area, we would still be on the hook for apx. $12,400 for room and board which is more than we can or want to pay.</p>

<p>Are there any scholarships on top of the full tuition Blue Gold or should we just go ahead and nix out of the area UCs?</p>

<p>The same would be true for Cal State schools, correct? Room and board runs 11-12K.</p>

<p>Our EFC this year was $9500. I expect it to go down by the time our son starts school in the fall of 2015, but won't know details until then. </p>

<p>I think we can probably do $5-6000 for the first two years and then after that, maybe $2000-3000 a year since the 529 account will be empty and our income will be lower.</p>

<p>So does my thinking make sense, then, to not have him apply to schools outside the area unless they offer 100% need-based aid or significant scholarship? I don't think this son should be saddled with much debt.</p>

<p>He's a strong student with SAT over 2200 and a strong GPA with over 30 community college units, but he's not an exceptional student except for his cello playing and the fact that he's faced some severe health challenges.</p>

<p>Just want to know if my thinking is right on the UCs and Cal State schools. It's the room and board that won't be free that we can't really cover.</p>

<p>Amazingly enough, our oldest son is at MIT and, after MIT's need-based scholarships and our son's NM corporate scholarship, he's paid an average of less than $3000 a year for his first two years. I think we are very spoiled (but exceedingly grateful!!)</p>

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<p>If your EFC is $9500 or less, then you’ll qualify for need-based aid. My experience with UC’s is that they came fairly close to meeting full need – there was a gap of a few thousand dollars, but the cost was affordable. My kids were offered small merit awards on top of the need based aid that reduced loan amounts. I don’t know if it would be aslow as you are looking for, but I don’t think you should rule anything out – just be honest with your son about your financial constraints. </p>

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<p>Calmom, so you’re saying that they might give more money on top of the tuition? I just assumed the Blue Gold meant just tuition and nothing more.</p>

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<p>Go the the financial aid threads and look at schools that give guaranteed merit scholarships. Sometimes, with strong students, private schools are less expensive than publics due to generous merit scholarships. Alabama is a public school that gives great aid. He may not get that at the top tier schools like MIT, but he can get a decent education at a decent school.</p>

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<p>You’ve mentioned the CSU’s a few times. Just to make it clear, CSU’s do not offer the Blue & Gold. That’s only for the UC’s. </p>

<p>Use the net price calculator for the UC’s - they can be fairly accurate. You may qualify for additional grants (on top of Blue & Gold).</p>

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<p>Delurking to give some feedback. As MLM suggested, go to the price calculator for each college. We do not qualify for Federal Aid or Calgrants (except possibly the new Middle Class aid). My D was admitted to UCR, and when the financial aid offers came out we found she had a 18K grant (not merit-based) as well as a loan package, which considering she will be dorming turns out cheaper than if she went to a CalState. UC grants differ - I’ve been told that UCR is fairly generous with grants as they’re trying to attract students who might otherwise go to another UC. </p>

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<p>Right-I realize the Cal States don’t offer Blue Gold but I suspect my son would get some need-based aid so that it would be comparable to a UC. I haven’t run any f. aid calculators, though. I will do that. Actually, I think I’ve used them before but found them vague because they never come out and say, yes, you would qualify for a Cal Grant or Blue Gold. And speaking of that, what if a family qualifies for both Cal Grant A and Blue Gold and even a small Pell Grant? I know my oldest qualified for a Cal Grant but at Harvey Mudd at least, all it did was decrease his Mudd scholarship, so it didn’t work out at all to be beneficial.</p>

<p>Corgigirl-that’s great to know that your D got such a generous grant!</p>

<p>Because there are so many potential smaller scholarships, I am just trying to get a feel for who gets those, if they add up to much, and whether or not it makes sense to apply to schools if you don’t know whether or not you can afford them.</p>

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<p>Oh, and does someone have a direct link to a f. aid calculator? I’m on UCSD’s site</p>

<p><a href=“Financial Aid Estimator”>https://students.ucsd.edu/finances/financial-aid/forms/calculator.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>and I don’t see a link.</p>

<p>Never mind-found it!</p>

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<p>Ok, that was very helpful! If he went to the local UC (assuming he can get in), our out of pocket billed amount would be around between $4000-5000. That’s totally doable for at least two years!</p>

<p>If he went to a UC out of our area, billed amount would be between $9000-10,000. That may or may not be a possibility but it’s better than I thought, because it does include about $3000 beyond tuition.</p>

<p>I also ran the f. aid calculator for the local CSU. If our son lives at home, tuition is covered by a grant!!</p>

<p>Interestingly, I did the numbers for living on campus at a CSU, and the grant amount was exactly the same. Therefore, it seems like applying to an out of the area CSU school doesn’t make sense financially. I wonder why there’s no increase in aid for our son for living on the campus of a CSU school but an increase in aid for living on campus of a UC. It makes the UCs more affordable than the CSUs except for the local school.</p>

<p>Do these numbers fluctuate depending on California’s budget?</p>

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<p>CSU policies tend to emphasize serving local area students admissions, so perhaps it is no surprise that financial aid does not vary for students commuting to versus living on-or-near campus at CSUs. The UCs appear to assume that students will choose them for reasons other than being in the local area, and that fewer students can choose a commute-range UC because there are fewer UCs than CSUs.</p>

<p>Typical result is that the net price calculators show that CSU commuter < UC < CSU on-campus.</p>

<p>UCs do have Regents’ scholarships for top students, which appear to typically apply against the expected student contribution (student loans and work earnings expectation). Obviously, getting a Regents’ scholarship at Riverside is easier than at Berkeley. They may have other large and small scholarships (e.g. Drake full ride for Berkeley mechanical engineering students, Jacobs engineering full ride at San Diego, Stamps scholarships at Los Angeles), but not very many of them, so expect the big ones to be very competitive. Some CSUs have merit scholarships as well.</p>

<p>The big merit scholarship lists:
<a href=“Automatic Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships - #300 by BobWallace - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums”>Automatic Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships - #300 by BobWallace - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums;
<a href=“Competitive Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships - #50 by BobWallace - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums”>Competitive Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships - #50 by BobWallace - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums;

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<p>Thanks for the explanation, ucbalumnus. That makes sense.</p>

<p>I <em>think</em> my son would be looking as more unique majors than traditional engineering, though still impacted as most are, such as “Computing and the Arts” at UCSD or Game Design at UCI (maybe) and possibly something like multimedia at SDSU (or maybe engineering there).</p>

<p>I think we’ll cross off Animation as a major at both CSULB and Fullerton because of the cost. </p>