Hi everyone, I used the College Board Vanderbilt financial aid calculator and it says I only have to pay 5k a year, which doesn’t sound realistic because my family makes 160,000 a year and has 100k in savings. Will Vanderbilt really give my family this money if I’m accepted? Will other top schools give me this money? Thanks
That doesn’t sound right to me.
There’s a question about your parents’ total income adjustments (not AGI). Did you accidentally put in their AGI?
Do you have an extremely large family or have very high medical expenses?
Do your parents pay for an expensive private high school for you/your sibling(s)?
Huge itemized deductions?
Do your parents own a business?
I would expect your family to be close to full-pay unless there are some strange circumstances involved.
Use the NPC directly on the Vandy website instead.
Unless you’re in a family of 10 kids, I’d say that sounds most unlikely. As the above poster says, go to the Vanderbilt Net Price Calculator instead. Mine was pretty much dead on.
I adjusted the total income adjustments, and used Vanderbilt’s calculator, but it still says I only pay 23,000 per year. idk m8
I ran the NPC for a pretend scenario with the following:
married parents, oldest 50 years old
2 children, only 1 in college
$160,000 AGI, $100,000, no investments
home worth $300,00 with $150,000 in equity
no private school tuition
no money/assets for the prospective student
I have NO idea how close this is to your situation, but what I got was an EFC of $55,000 approximately.
Again, do you have an extremely large family?
Do your parents own a home/have equity?
Private school tuition for multiple children? (I know personally this does make a difference to Vandy)
Do your parents own a business?
Something still doesn’t seem right.
55k/year seems too high to me… How could they possibly demand that? Does the EFC really go up that markedly past $125k/year??
Well, I personally wouldn’t know. I’ll try it again and see what happens.
My family has a married mom and dad, with dad is 54 years old. I have a brother, he is in college 5k a year tuition. 10k medical bill uncovered. My parents don’t own a house, and no investments, no equity, and no retirement savings put in this year. Also, I am planning to live with my parents
Ok, I made the parents younger (45) and put in a high COL state (California). I also put a larger amount for medical expenses (5k) and for deductions (30k).
EFC $38933.
So yes, the 55k seems too high.
OP, depending on your personal situation, it seems you may indeed get a number closer to the 23k you mentioned. I am surprised, but I certainly hope that is the case for you.
Cross posted with you, OP.
Ok, so NO equity, large medical bill, AND a sibling in college (big one). Then, yes, I can certainly see your EFC at 23K or so.
But when does your brother graduate? Your EFC will go up considerably when he does, so please take that into consideration. You should run the NPC without the sibling in college and see what you get.
@Belle315 Thank you for your help 
@plopsun just wanted to give you some realistic feedback. VU has great FA, but it may not stay the same for 4 years. I’ve had 2 daughters there, we had similar stats ( however we own our own home, income a little higher, had very large medical bills, 2 kids in college last 2 years, and now one in medical school). Our FA started at about 24,000, went up to 28,000 when both girls were in school, however since oldest graduated, it went up to 30,000, then $34,000 this year (which was more than we could afford). It seems that each year, the tuition went up enough that we could barely afford it, but had to make great sacrifices. This year it was too much, we could not swallow an additional $6000, so our daughter took out a small loan. They did work with us and get it back to within a range we could afford (with a $3500 loan for our senior). I just wanted you to be aware that what you get freshman year may change, and it changes (for better or worse) with your parent’s income and siblings in college. All that being said, we are very happy with the outcome for first daughter, and second daughter is a happy senior. Both were challenged beyond their expectations, and given amazing opportunities.
@plopsun, our experience was very similar to @moonpie’s regarding the increase in cost each year (D is currently a junior). The first year FA was unbelievably generous, and I made a point to ask Vandy if I could count on similar FA the other 3 years. Their answer was that as long as our financials didn’t change too much, FA should be similar year to year. However, that has not really been the case. Our cost went up by 50% for sophomore year, but our income/assets barely changed. Since our first year had been easily affordable, we sucked up the change and found a way to pay. Like @moonpie said, there were great sacrifices.
This year, we have another child in college, so we expected D’s cost to decrease, but it actually rose. I spent the better part of an hour on the phone having them explain how this could happen. What they finally admitted was that there is a threshold for each student in terms of cost, and Vandy will never go below that threshold, no matter what the financial changes or how many siblings in college. We have basically been at our threshold each year, so they are not reducing cost because of having 2 in college. Finances are beyond tight this year.
Next year we will have 3 in college. At least now we know that Vandy will expect us to pay at least as much as we are now, and probably more. D will have to take out a loan for her last year because even though our other 2 kids have scholarships, we just will not be able to afford to pay for all 3 at once.
well, that is very interesting
Then how can they claim to meet 100% demonstrated need?
I’m speculating here, but based on my conversation with them (financial aid dept.), Vanderbilt feels this minimum threshold IS meeting 100% need. In other words, they feel we can find a way to afford that minimum amount through loans, student income, or other means.
Perhaps an interesting anecdote: The previous year we had tried to put 1 of our younger children into private school, but after a semester we realized that the tuition and extras that always come along with school were draining our finances severely, so we had to pull him out after only one semester. This year, our cost for Vandy went up by exactly the dollar amount of that 1 semester of private school tuition, in spite of having a second child in college. At first I had my Vandy D call and ask financial aid to explain, and they told her that since we could obviously afford $x for that private school, and were no longer “using it”, we could afford to pay it to Vanderbilt. I then called to explain to them that we most definitely could not afford it, which is why we had no choice but to pull our kid out. Their response was “Well, you were able to come up with the money somehow for 5 months, so you could technically afford it.”
I really don’t want to tear Vanderbilt’s financial aid down. The first year was really amazing. The cost was half that of D’s other top choice school, which is an Ivy. The second year’s cost was surprising but we felt it was fair because Vanderbilt is a great school and D is getting a fantastic education. It was only this year that we were hit in the gut so-to-speak, and that was only because we expected costs to go down with 2 in college. To be completely fair, the financial aid rep did offer to go back through everything, and she was able to reduce costs (not sure how) by about $1000, which for us makes a difference. But like I said, she told me that this was the absolute lowest cost we could expect, unless there was a major decrease in income.
this is a bit concerning…What range was your adjusted gross Income? I am trying to understand what happened to really low income families?
Our AGI is in the 100-150K range, so not low income. However, we have 6 kids, so our EFC is probably considerably lower than you might think.
I’m thinking truly low income students/families would have a very low “threshold” amount that they would be expected to pay. Of course there may be some who don’t pay anything, but I have no firsthand knowledge.
@Belle315 I hate that happened to you as well. I’m really happy to write that last check in December. My youngest is touring Brown and RISD this week. God help me.