Updated financial aid package LESS?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Rice University
1

<p>I got into Rice ED and received a preliminary package of $38k a year. I was explicitly told by a financial aid officer that this amount COULD NOT decrease and that, in fact, it would probably increase. Yet, I am now being offered only $37k. This doesn't sound like a big deal, and I am still grateful to Rice for such a large amount of money, but this leaves my parents with $9,000 to make up. Considering their current financial situation, they could not possibly afford to contribute this much. I counted on Rice's assurance that families that make less than $80k per year would not have to take out student loans, but it looks like this is what I'm going to have to do. </p>

<p>In fact, nearly all of my interactions with Rice's financial aid office have been negative. Considering how much I fell in love with this school initially, this is a pretty embittering experience, and I'm starting to wonder why I didn't simply take a full ride at UF.</p>

2

<p>If there is any chance whatsoever that you will need financial aid, do not, and I repeat DO NOT, apply Early Decision… Thats a direct quote from countless posts about ED. </p>

<p>If you or your parents can’t afford the difference then it’s time to call Rice and/or UF. I Don’t think Rice or any selective school cares “how much you fell in love with the school”, but you need to get moving on this now. Good Luck</p>

3

<p>I don’t think that they really care how much I love the school, either. I’m not naive enough to think that they would. Maybe I was hoping that they wouldn’t be so adamant about the quality of their financial aid if they were planning to screw me over later. And of course I can’t call UF; I had to withdraw that application when I got into Rice. I’m going to call their financial aid office on Monday (not that this is going to help, because my previous experiences with FA indicate that they don’t really give a ****); I’ve already sent an e-mail.</p>

4

<p>"I counted on Rice’s assurance that families that make less than $80k per year would not have to take out student loans, but it looks like this is what I’m going to have to do. "</p>

<p>Does your family have assets that are worth a fair amount of money? Or a trust fund with money in it? Because if you do, even if your parents have a low income, you’ll get less financial aid. </p>

<p>Also, honestly, I would take Rice with 9,000 dollar a year loans (plus interest for 4 years) ANY DAY over not paying anything to go to Florida. Seriously, Rice is a much better school.</p>

<p>At least you get to go to Rice, I have to go to friggin UVA I mean it will be ok but it won’t have a small campus or a residential college system like Rice. I mean Rice does cost like twenty one thousand more a year than UVA, but still I think Rice is a far far superior school to UVA it would definetely be worth it. Oh well, I’ll probably have fun in college anyway I hope.</p>

5

<p>No, my family has zero assets. No stock, no property, no trust fund, and virtually no money in their bank accounts. In fact, they are barely able to pay their monthly bills.</p>

<p>Believe me, if I had $50,000 squirreled away for my college expenses, I would not be complaining right now.</p>

<p>UF is a great school and has a great engineering department. I think we’ll have to agree to disagree, but no school is worth going nearly $40,000 into debt for. If it was $10,000, it’d be a different story, but really, the discrepancy between what they promised and what they offered is unacceptable.</p>

6

<p>Just as they don’t care how much you fell in love with the school, they didn’t plan on screwing you over either. This is a crazy year and just as your parents current financial situation may have changed so to has many colleges FA resources. Rice is likely just spreading the pain among many and not picking on you.
You need to take responsibility for your part by applying ED without the resources to make good on your part of the commitment. I’m not saying it’s fair, because so much of this process is unfair to begin with.<br>
Our and many families EFC is totally Bogus and unfair, but most successful people - “get over it and get on with it” and thats my advice to you.
If you or your family can’t come up with the extra 1K then thats the way it is, but I bet you can figure it out, even if it’s a little painful right now.
Once Again Good Luck…</p>

7

<p>Again, if Rice anticipated a significant financial loss, then they shouldn’t have claimed that they were going to increase the amount of financial aid that they planned to extend. Rice generates $4,610,164,000 per year to support its relatively small student body and has one of the largest endowments per student in the country. I somehow doubt that their financial situation is dire. But thanks for the advice. I’m obviously not going to mope; I’m going to take action as soon as I can to ensure that anything that can be done to resolve this issue will be done. In my e-mail, I calmly explained the situation and kindly requested that my financial aid package be reviewed.</p>

8

<p>every single university has dire financial problems with shrinking endowments due to the recession. Harvards endowment dropped by 25%… simple fact</p>

9

<p>does your family have any assets? I have not heard any cases where they did not follow through with the 80k thing… unless you have assets (houses, cars, etc.)</p>

10

<p>DUDE.</p>

<p>You realize that you don’t have to spend the 40,000 dollars (plus siginicant interest) every year.</p>

<p>You can simply take gap year and decide to not go to college next year; do something ineteresting, maybe get a job somewhere. Then reapply to different schools , get into UF, and go there. I’m pretty sure Rice can’t stop you from doing this.</p>

<p>Anyway, you can just go to Rice for a year and then transfer to UF after a year, that way you’ll only be ten thousand plus interest in debt. Sure, you’ll have to make new friends, but I’m sure that a friendly guy like you will be able to manage.</p>

<p>Honestly, this a dirty trick that the Rice admissions officers pulled; they said that they’d guarantee that they’d make you pay no loans if your parents made under a certain amount, buut they lied.</p>

<p>I mean, Pyles and Thomas Kwok got complete FULL RIDES, and don’t have to pay anything, while you have to go into siginificant debt even though your parents’ income levels are both low (no offense). That’s so unfair. I mean, you got a 2210 and 33 and impressive GPA, you had a great shot of getting into Rice even if Rice admission officers didn’t take into account the fact that you aren’t rich and probably can’t afford expensive test prep. You should tell the Rice Thresher about this (anonymously) and tell them to write a story about it to expose this apparent corruption. I wonder if the Rice admissions officer played the same dirty trick on other unsuspecting ED students too.</p>

11

<p>Wow Soulside one more time.You need to take responsibility for your part by applying ED without the resources to make good on your part of the commitment. Your irritation with the school is misplaced and I would be very sure that you come to terms with that before you talk to the FA office. No school wants a less than happy student and certainly won’t fight to find extra $ to keep an unhappy prospective student.
Hang in - keep it positive - and see what you can work out - Your almost there and I bet you can find some very good answers…
Kindly requesting that your financial aid package be reviewed was the best move.</p>

12

<p>I’m startled at all the bashing of Soulside. While I agree that applying ED without major financial assets wasn’t wise, what he’s complaining about is really the reduction, against which he’d received a guarantee. And I do think it’s callous of the FA office to behave as though the $1000 increase won’t matter to you; I know very well how much such increases can matter in times of need. If they promised that the award couldn’t go down, they shouldn’t have decreased it, no matter what.</p>

13

<p>fiddlefrog… no bashing of Soulside intended… I too understand how he feels…</p>

<p>He has every right to feel upset, but if shares his anger with the FA dept. it won’t be pretty. </p>

<p>This school is not the first or last to do something like this to the ED apps. Many that do it cover it by recalculating the EFC or other factors that change the numbers in their favor. It just happens, but it’s great when Soulside and everyone else lets us know, so we can see pattens.</p>

<ul>
<li>My All Time Favorite college outrageous fact - is when schools (and rating sources) report the average amount of student debt after 4 years. But don’t include the parent plus loans in the calculations. Our students graduate with an average of only 18,000 in student debt after 4 years (reported) and an average of 47,000 in parent plus loans (never reported or mentioned anywhere).</li>
</ul>

14

<p>I am confused by this. While a $1k increase is largish, an extra $4k in loans over the life of an undergraduate education valued at close to $200k is not that big…</p>

<p>That having been said, ALL rice students on any sort of need-based aid are at the mercy of the aid office; we all have to have faith in their integrity. FA is recalculated every year and no one can be “guaranteed that aid will stay the same”. Without seeing soulside parents’ tax returns from 2007 (submitted for the preliminary award letter) and the tax returns for 2008 (for the final award), there is no way anyone can judge/comment about the fairness of this case.</p>

15

<p>

You are MISUNDERSTANDING what it means that “students with families that make less than $80,000 don’t have to take out loans”. It means that the STUDENT will not have to take out loans to meet their SELF-HELP portion of the total financial aid package: FA packages are made up of:

  1. work/study (self-help)
  2. student loans (self-help)<br>
  3. grants/scholarships. </p>

<p>The REST of the cost of the schooling is supposed to be paid by the family - the family’s “EFC” or "Expected Family Contribution (although some families choose not to pay it - or expect their kids to pay it). The EFC includes a summer earning contribution from the student, along with money from parental income and assets. </p>

<p>In the case of families with incomes below $80,000, the STUDENT LOAN amount is removed, and all slack is taken up by grants/scholarships. This is a GENEROUS thing for the school to do. Right now, the OP is talking about the parental contribution - the EFC amount. He/she is saying that their contribution is going to be $9000, instead of, I’m assuming $8000 a year, and is saying that he/she is going to have to take out loans to contribute to their amount. That’s not being screwed over or forced to take out loans. Families are supposed to make their EFC contributions! </p>

<p>If the FA doesn’t agree to change your aid, here are some suggestions. The difference is $1000. Work another job/babysit at night/walk neighborhood dogs/pick up aluminum recycling - and make extra money this summer. Ask out of your housing agreement and live off-campus in a shared apartment near Rice (check the online housing guide for people looking for roommates - many places within a few blocks of campus, and you will save money since Rice budgets the same amount for on and off-campus housing. You can still eat oncampus etc and be a full member of your residential college.) Or bite the bullet and pay the extra $1000 the first year, then plan to live offcampus the following years. Or do your workstudy job, but also work a little extra. Over 30 weeks oncampus, you only need to earn an extra $34 dollars a week. </p>

<p>There are plenty of opportunities to earn that much; tutoring a local kid in Chemistry/Calculus twice a week in the library should do that, working at the faculty club serving food or for catering events. Or live a little frugally, buy used books or borrow books from the library or read that ones on reserve. Rice budgets a standard amount for personal expenses - some pay more, some pay less.
I’m sorry that there is a problem with $1000 - and perhaps you can get it resolved. Perhaps (:eek:) Rice discovered a change in your resources or assets, and it was correct for them to adjust your EFC up by $1000! In any case, by using a combination of the suggestions above, you should be able to make up the difference. And I hope the rest of you 17-year-olds understand how the system works a little better!</p>

<p>P.S. We’ve now had Rice financial aid for 5 years, with two more to go. We’ve never had any surprises in our FA packages. It’s been good solid financial aid each year. :)</p>

16

<p>Just to give an example to the great post above- One of my son’s FA packages at a public school offered us $16,500 in student and parent loans. That’s how they make up the difference between EFC and grants while claiming they meet the needs 100%. We were floored!</p>

17

<p>If you can’t afford it, you can’t go. Call the UF admission office and see what they can work out. It isn’t necessarily “too late.” The only way out of an ED contract is financial hardship, but this is financial hardship. So…Don’t be shy or embarrassed and just call UF. The worst thing they can say is “no.” But, and you never know, they may say yes. It’s tough to know. Or, they may say, yes, but next year. </p>

<p>I find the whole system whereby schools tell kids and parents all sorts of stuff about financial aid and not to be concerned about cost, and then change their offers and switch around, and whatnot to be highly unethical. I find the constant defense of these institutions’ unethical behavior hillarious. “Don’t double deposit!” These are kids. The schools are run by adults. They have honor codes and like to pull out the “honesty” card at every turn, but this practice is extremely dishonest. “How dare a kid apply to a college without first telling them they will need aid???” How dare a school continue to send out these lies about costs and then offer these kids crippling debt and call it “aid?” Aid to WHAT? Aid to the schools, not the kids.</p>

<p>It’s ridiculous.</p>

<p>Call UF and see what you can work out. If you have to take a year off? So what. I know at your age everything feels incredibly urgent, but it isn’t. You have lots and lots of time to grow up and get an education and go to work and all the rest of it. Time is on your side right now: take advantage of it.</p>

18

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<p>Of course families are supposed to make EFC contributions. You misunderstand. Firstly, I do indeed understand Rice’s no-loan policies, which is where the root of the problem lies. The difference is not merely $1,000. Do you really think I’d be ranting and raving about a measly $1,000? Given my family’s finances, I’d be incredibly lucky if my parents could contribute $3,000 a year. If the EFC is $9,000, this leaves me with a $6,000 per year to make up. Again, given my family’s finances (and credit history, for that matter), there isn’t a single lender in existence that would lend them $6,000 per year. So, again, it all boils back down to me. In addition to work-study, I’d have to take another job or jobs. I would also have to take out student loans. So much for that. It’s not as if I was planning to live luxuriously or something like that - I already incorporated a fairly frugal standard of living when calculating my annual expenses at Rice. There was also no “change in resources or assets” for Rice to discover, aside from my parent’s annual income dropping by $2,000 from 2007 to 2008. As I already mentioned, my family has NO assets. I am not exaggerating. </p>

<p>So, I suppose that the real issue here is what Rice has calculated as my family’s EFC. $9,000 a year out of $70,000 is equivalent to 13% of my parents’ total income! Really, now, I don’t think that’s reasonable, especially considering that they already have difficulty with their expenses. </p>

<p>Still, thank you for your (and everyone else’s) advice. Though frustrated, I didn’t write FA an angry e-mail or anything like that, and I mentioned all of these issues to them, so I’m hoping that they’ll boost my package at least a little bit.</p>

19

<p>So, your parents’ income level is around 70,000, and you think “Oh, well Rice admissions office says that if your parents make less than 80,000 dollars, you basically get a full ride.” That is such an INCREDIBLY STUPID thing to do.</p>

<p>You should have realized that if your parents are making around 70,000 a year, that is so close to the 80,000 dollar maximum income level for a guarantee of receiving loans.</p>

<p>You have no assets? Are you homeless or something?</p>

<p>Honestly, ths was a ridiculously idiotic thing to do on your part, and you were playing Russian roulette. You realize that around 70,000 dollars is so close to 80,000 dollars that any financial aid calculation that goes not in your favor will send you over the threshold and make it so that you have to pay student loans? </p>

<p>With Thomas Kwok, it was completely different, his parents made under 30,000 a year, which is far less than 80,000 dollars, so it was guaranteed that his financial situation as so dire that he wouldn’t have to pay any money. I thought your parents’ income levels were far below 70,000 bucks, but I was wrong.</p>

<p>Around 70,000 a year is so ridiculously close to 80,000 dollars, if you were really that hell-bent on not having to take out any student loans, you should have applied regular decision. Serously, why did you even apply to Rice early decision anyway, applying reg decision only would have made you wait a little while longer.</p>

<p>Rice is a prestigous school and if you don’t want to go there, thousands of kids will want to take your place. Rice can do what it wants and is not contractually obligated to do anything for you. If it felt like it, it legally could change its financial aid policies and make you pay full price.</p>

<p>Look on the bright side though, at least you got in.</p>

20

<p>

But you state in your first post

I only see a difference of $1000. And preliminary financial packages are preliminary based on the previous year’s tax returns. All colleges make adjustments when the current year’s tax forms are filed. </p>

<p>Your problem is still that your parents don’t think that they can meet their EFC of $9000. Or their original EFC of $8000 from the preliminary package you were offered in December or whenever ED results came out. I truly am sorry for your situtation, but did you not see the problem with the financial aid package back then? Are your parents expecting you to take out private loans to finance the gap between what they are willing to pay? </p>

<p>Basically, with an EFC of $9000 - you should be able to earn $3000 this summer, parents should be able to contribute $3000 (they should realize at least $2000 in savings by not having you eating/showering/shampooing at home - even more if they pay for car insurance for you), and they take out ParentPlus loans for the other $3000. (I believe that if they don’t qualify for Parentplus loans, you may be eligible for additional Stafford or Perkins loans - but you’ll have to check with Rice about that.)
And, the endsputrid,

You are still misunderstanding. She is not being asked to take out student loans. She is saying that she will have to take out loans to help her parents meet the EFC. This would be the case whether she applied ED or regular decision. Financial aid packages don’t cover the cost of family’s EFCS!></p>