<p>I have another question to add to my post #34. If two schools use the same federal methodology via FAFSA, how can they arrive at two different EFCs for us? I didn't notice that anyone mentioned our EFC on our financial award letter.</p>
<p>"We all grew up thinking if we worked hard we could have a solid middle class life as our parents did."</p>
<p>Did your parents go to "prestige colleges"? Both of mine - middle class - went to City College of New York - for free! (NYU was the safety school that no one could afford.)</p>
<p>If the housing is expensive, chances are there's a huge amount of built-up equity for many. I should only be so lucky. The median family income in San Francisco is $49k - you think many of them own houses? Of course, there would have been savings if the money hadn't gone into expensive housing, but it amounts to the same thing.</p>
<p>Let's be clear: we are WELL ABOVE the median family income - by 15% or so - probably puts us in the top 35% of American families.</p>
<p>Give me a $1.2 million 2-room rat-infested walk-up in Manhattan: I'll take out a reverse mortgage, and live quite comfortably for the rest of my life. (and leave plenty to the kids, as well.) Ah, but I'm dreaming....</p>
<p>They don't give you the parent loans. They give you the total and options you can consider to finance the amount. They have decided you can contribute that amount based on the FAFSA, CSS (if they ask for one), or their own form (if they ask). Cetain things like income, equity in a house, savings in a child's name, etc....vs other kids in school, illness, divorce, etc...they ask for those things on the forms and your tax forms. Then they decide. They don't care about what other debt you have, nor do they care if your child can carry his loans when he graduates, or if your child can actually contribute said amount. That is up to you to decline if you see fit.</p>
<p>You are where I was last year. :(</p>
<p>So Curmudgeon what do you do, how do you ratchet her up? We are now at the heart of it. Does she have to go to a college with stats well below hers?</p>
<p>texastaximom, not those loans, the loans that are supposedly part of the " need aid". I know how plus loans work with the remaining EFC. I'm talking about the post above that said the aid package had 11k in loans and w/study for the kid only AND other loans (I assumed that meant loans not solely in the student's name) -IN THE AID PACKAGE, not the EFC.</p>
<p>zagat, you find out ,tell me and then that will make two of us that know.</p>
<p>My secret master plan, that I have worked a couple of hundred hours on so far consists of the following:</p>
<p>1)Pouring over used books looking for a signed original of the magna carta
2)Two words-power ball
3)chasing the few big merit scholarships with the rest of the lemmings</p>
<p>Lkf, the schools may give different financial packages without changing the EFC derived from the FAFSA. The differences are expressed in the form of different gaps. The school can use different approaches to redefine your true financial needs or simply decide on a partial funding. </p>
<p>Now, for the question about outside scholarships. There is, alas, no universal answer as it totally depends from the schools with the biggest offenders being the state schools. The vast majority of the private schools will allow outside scholarships to reduce the amount of loans and work study. If the scholarships funds start to reduce the amount of the EFC, then the schools MIGHT negotiate a partial reduction of direct school grants. However, outside scholarships will ALWAYS help your situation. </p>
<p>As far as scholarships exceeding the tuition (free ride), you should know that the excess over tuition, books, and general fees will be taxable. I guess that this would be a small worry comparing to the issue of paying for a larger portion of the bills.</p>
<p>xiggi,
Thanks for the info! Indeed, free ride plus outside scholarship would be wonderful, even if the extra money is taxed. Maybe if my son wins private scholarships of any substantial amount, I guess it would be a good idea to see how each school would view that money before making a final decision.</p>
<p>Yup, I'd go with Powerball.</p>
<p>Hey, I started buying lottery tickets recently...no kidding!</p>
<p>Cur...the 11K in that specific package came out to 2625K federal loan, 4K perkins, 2350 "other" student loan, and 2K work study which means 10,975 or essentially 11K that is my son's portion. They tack these on as they go along and they are considered "aid" and "meeting his need."</p>
<p>A good package wouldn't have this many loans IMO, which is why he isn't going there. I don't know how they decide when the amount would be excessive. Maybe that is our job. I think coming out of school with at least an extra 24K in debt than the average college would not be a good thing. It's like how they decide your kid should make a certain amount over the summer to contribute, or that you will find a work study job to cover that amount. Crystal ball? Formula? I know we had to list their meager assets.</p>
<p>And I hate to poke the open wound, but the federal loans increase as they approach graduation and the ability to start paying on them. So your 2625 freshman loan goes up 1 or 2K per year...there is a set amount.</p>
<p>When I see that all of you well educated parents are having to make so many hard choices for yourselves and your kids, I wonder if I need to choose a career based on how much money I can make. Everyone says not to do this, but it sounds very hard to have studied and worked hard and not be able to pay for colleges and basic nice things.</p>
<p>How happy can you be if you're following your passion but not able to provide what you'd like to give yor kids?</p>
<p>Suze, It does seem to suc... seem unpalatable, huh? I can assure you this wasn't the plan for most of us. Sometimes fate has a twist or two in store for you that you couldn't see.</p>
<p>Just be sure you don't complicate matters by having smart and hard-working children. You are much better off having kids with barely enough motivation to wake up, and with a community college degree their highest goal.</p>
<p>
[quote]
As far as scholarships exceeding the tuition (free ride), you should know that the excess over tuition, books, and general fees will be taxable. I guess that this would be a small worry comparing to the issue of paying for a larger portion of the bills.
[/quote]
Please let me have to worry about this and if you could, I'd like to win that raffled Suburban ,too.</p>
<p>We expected our D to attend the state college, even thought she might win the free tuition. Life would be easy, she could stay in the dorm 50 miles away and come home on weekends...or commute if need be.</p>
<p>Even after seeing her PSAT scores we were still clueless. After all...we are both just regular college grads...nothing special. We both stuggled in Math and Science. </p>
<p>All of a sudden, she started expressing goals much higher than can be reached at our state college, (they don't even have an astrophysics major). We realized we were over our heads both academically and financially. Like many others...our EFC is rediculous.</p>
<p>Thanks to this board, we found out about a lot of merit scholarships. D applied to bunches of colleges...all ones with good scholarships and good majors. She was offered a lot of scholarships but chose the full ride NM honors program at University of Arizona. There were only about 3 others that we could afford at all, even with the great scholarship offers. </p>
<p>I have to say thank you to the people on CC. I do not believe she would be going where she is without you.</p>
<p>yep,jvd. That's how they do it. Sneaky little devils .They let you think they are normal then when you can least afford it-"Hey,dad you know I'm freakin smart,right?" Who knew? If we'd have known sooner we could have withheld ed-u-ma-ca-tion at appropriate intervals and defeated this whole smartness cult these kids have.</p>
<p>I think an addendum to all this would be to thoroughly investigate PLUS loans, because from the looks of it, that's where a lot of us are headed...</p>
<p>The interest rate on PLUS loans are (and will be) less than almost anything else except a Stafford, which should ALWAYS be taken advantage of, esp. at a current rate of 2.77%. Repayment terms are pretty liberal, altho a little complicated in that you don't borrow a 4-year lump sum right off the bat, but you do it by the semester, which means at some point you'll be paying off more than one loan concurrently. I'll be delving into it personally within the next couple months--what fun!</p>
<p>Good morning! Well I am reeling from all of this info!!! I did like the idea of having the kids get married in order to emancipate!!?? Hilarious! Hey- how about relocating to locale of S or Ds choice school and seeking employment at the institution in order to get the employee discount for our offspring? I mean- how easy would that be?!</p>
<p>Curmudgeon--what a thread! We went into this whole process thinking one thing and found the reality to be quite a shock. We were so caught up in where S would get in, that we didn't think ahead about tuition increases, increases in EFC, etc. S is a good, solid B+ student with decent stats and we looked at many schools where we were told he was a good candidate for merit aid, mostly schools found in UNSWR regional rankings. Not a top student, but in or close to the 75%ile for those schools. The offers were small or non-existent, --probably due to high application numbers (or misrepresentations on the part of the colleges, who knows).</p>
<p>S's junior year we will have 2 in college, his senior year we will have 3 in college. I thought I hit lotto when I discovered that our EFC will go down by 1/2 and 1/3 in those two final years. We might be able to do the private school, I thought. But as Jamimom pointed out, how much aid he will get will depend on the %age of need met and how they will meet that need--heavy on loans or work study? ( I do not understand how work study "works". How is that considered
aid? You still have to front the amount at tuition time.) I am waiting for an answer to that question from the private college we are considering. If they meet the need with more grants, then the cost in those two years will be the same as the oos public which is his other choice. If it is mostly loans or work-study than the public is more feasible. And defining the "worth" of one school or the other is tenuous, at best. How can we really know the quality of one education over another? I have yet to find colleges post the starting salaries for jobs they directly assisted their students in obtaining. The jobs students get are based on their initiative, connections, personality, etc. We have a friend whose child graduated from the top SUNY in 2003 , great stats and grades, but got lost in the sea of students and never found his niche. He is a manager at a fast food restaurant. You can't blame that on the school.</p>
<p>We knew we would have to take out loans to put three through school, and they would have to take loans as well. They also will be required to work their tails off to help. Trying to find out how much "free" aid money will be forthcoming is now a full-time job, and has given me a full-time headache. </p>
<p>My girls will be looking down South as they love it there (we have relatives down there and visit every year). The cost is much more reasonable as well.</p>
<p>I appreciate the knowledgeable posters on CC who have helped us along the way.</p>
<p>curmudge and others - You will have to verify the below, as it is based on my decreasingly reliable memory. At Tulane, they specifically addressed the dovetailing of merit and need-based aid at the info session. Since I knew we would not qualify for need-based, I was not paying strict attention, but I remember being impressed by what I thought I heard, which was: merit aid will NOT replace need-based aid, ie once your need-based aid is determined, any merit aid you receive will be on top of that.</p>
<p>As I said, "trust but verify." If this is true, they can't be the only ones?</p>