<p>I post this in the UPenn thread as this is a college my child is targeting.</p>
<p>I'll speak plainly - Are there any other parents out there in my financial situation (see below) and have have NOT paid full tuition at a top 30 private school? Most schools my child is targeting don't offer many merit scholarships.l Is there any hope that I won't be paying the sticker price at UPenn? </p>
<p>Please read on, and thank you for anyone replying.</p>
<p>I just ran the CollegeBoard EFC calculator and in summary it says:</p>
<p>Parents' Contribution for Student = $ 62,579 (per year)</p>
<p>I make enough in salary and have enough saved that I am expected to pay in full. </p>
<p>But I am not a millionaire, I just have a good salary (under $200k) and have saved some. But paying for UPenn, at about ~$50+k per year for 4 years will wipe out two thirds of my savings. And I have other children to put through college. </p>
<p>Living on the east coast of the USA is not cheap. I work hard to make my 401k contributions and after that, bills, bills, bills, keeping the kids enriched, and NOT taking expensive vacations, and NOT buying expensive cars, there is not much left. </p>
<p>If you could post any real results where families saw UPenn or like schools 'chipping in' money for a situation like mine, that would be great.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance, and look forward to your posts.</p>
<p>I am entering Penn in the Fall as a freshman and my family had an EFC of around 55 thousand and at first we didn not qualify for aid, but then we called and talked to the people at the aid office and they eventually gave us 7 grand in grants, one of the main selling points was that we have 2 houses to pay for and that i have a brother who is also in college.</p>
<p>Sorry, but if your EFC is well above the cost of tuition, room and board at even the most expensive schools, you can’t expect a school to give you any financial aid. The only chance you have is if the school gives out true merit aid or if they do not use the EFC calcualtion to figure out financial aid and you then qualify using this criteria. Harvard and Yale changed their financial aid structure to try to reach a larger pool. If your income (by their calculation) is up to $180,000 (Yale) to $200,000 (Harvard) you pay only 10% of your income towards tuition. </p>
<p>I don’t know if this will help you out. (Of course, first and foremost your child would have to be accepted!) But even if that had happened, we were still above their ceiling as a two income family living in NY. I’m not sure what other Ivies rolled out a similar plan. You would have to check on that.</p>
<p>For us, knowing we would not get any financial aid, we were very realistic with D about what schools we could afford realisitically. We were upfront from the start. We knew we were not comfortable spending more than $40K a year towards school (including tuition, room and board.) Therefore D only applied to schools that offered merit aid. She may
have had a shot at the Ivies, but we were unableto pay full freight. So she had to choose from NYU, Brandeis, GW, American and Muhlenberg who all offered good merit packages.</p>
<p>She is thrilled to be attending NYU…in the end it was he first choice…and we are happy because we got some aid. </p>
<p>My advise is to be realistic to yourself and your son about what you can or will pay.</p>
<p>That’s terrible, and it’s because there is no clear-cut graduated increase or decrease in EFC.
The best option is loans, which Penn is quite generous in giving. Penn’s SFS ([Welcome</a> to Student Financial Services](<a href=“http://www.sfs.upenn.edu%5DWelcome”>http://www.sfs.upenn.edu)) is pretty straightforward and willing to work through your issues. You should visit there, along with your child, during the move-in period.</p>
<p>steve: have your kid apply and then worry. if you have a lot of other children, that might be an extra consideration. but everyone pays bills…no one cares that you do too. if your younger children go to private school, that’s an extra expense that they also consider.</p>