Speaking to the upcharging in the E-School. We have two children - one at VT in engineering and one at UVA in engineering. We have the 529 prepaid program and still have to pay an additional amount each semester to UVA - not VT. But it sounds like quite a few of the schools at UVA upcharge as well…
thank you, VAEng! Can I PM you about the two E schools? We live in VA, and my son applied to both.
@VAEng, I had kids at UVA and VT in engineering as well. They have both graduated but both schools have had an upcharge for engineering for many years. At Virginia Tech, you pay more for engineering, Pamplin College of Business, and architecture, for example.
@sevmom Interesting point - fortunately the 529 has covered all the engineering costs at VT - not so with you UVA.
@ashto12 Feel free to PM me! I have a sophomore (I know - “2nd year” LOL) at UVA and junior at VT.
@VAENG You are lucky then! The VT bursar’s office says the prepaid 529 does not cover the additional engineering fees. https://www.bursar.vt.edu/faq.html
Click on Parents, then Virginia Prepaid.
“Will prepaid 529 pay my departmental fees such as engineering, software, and lab fees?
No. Prepaid 529 will only pay normal tuition”. , etc.
thank you, just did!
“Sources indicated they took their offer of 1 Ivy to another and got a better deal. I have no reason to discredit their character. Ivys have a large endowment. They want to get who they want to get, so why wouldn’t they make an offer. They say Princeton could not charge and still have enough $.”
Curious – Your friends were getting need-based aid. Period. Full stop. 100% for sure. While an Ivy may call that need-based aid a “scholarship” it is still need-based financial aid. The endowments at the HYPS level are so large that folks who might appear to be well off ($200-300k annual income) can qualify for financial aid.
For example, the son of NYC mayor Bill DiBlasio currently attends Yale on need-based financial aid, which some (like your friends) might call a “scholarship.” DiBlasio makes $225k as mayor, lives for free in Gracie Mansion, and owns an apartment and a townhouse in Brooklyn (FMV $2.8 million) that they currently get rental income on.
FYI, most top 25 colleges (who use the CSS rather than FAFSA) consider home equity in their need-based calculations. But up in the HYPS stratosphere, home equity is excluded from the formulas. So DiBlasio was able to qualify for need-based aid at Yale. But probably would not have been able to qualify at schools slightly downstream from Yale who consider home equity (like Amherst, Cornell, Dartmouth, Rice, Vandy, WUSTL).
Last, the Ivies and other top 25s are open to some limited amount of negotiation of need-based financial aid awards. They did not do that back in the good old days, because the Ivies had a policy of giving all students admitted to any Ivies the exact same packages. That practice was broken up by the U.S. DOJ on antitrust grounds in 1991.
So are we done now?
LVmykids - Comm School already has a $5,000 extra charge for each of the last 2 years. Based upon the info you quoted, it looks like they will add another $2,500 per year of extra charges, but I don’t have an info on it.
As noted above, it is common for flagship state universities to charge more for popular programs or programs that cost more money to operate. Penn State does it for instance for engineering and nursing.
The situation where the Ivy student negotiated was likely a rare case. To protect the confidentiality, will refrain from sharing the details. The student was exceptional in certain ways, so it’s not the norm.
Curious – how much annual AGI was that family showing on their tax return? What basis do you have to believe that the “scholarship” was merit based (which doesn’t exist in Ivy land) rather than need based?
It could just be a matter of need based aid being negotiated (based on asking the school to take another look in terms of what need based aid comparable schools came up with ), as opposed to merit (since there is no merit aid there).