Hi!!
I was accepted into Vassar Class of 2020 and both the EFC through the FAFSA and Vassar’s Net Price Calculator say that my net price should be about $18k. Both my parents work part-time with an combined annual income of about $40k. I also have an older sibling in college which we are paying for.
However, our financial aid package has us paying about $36k (DOUBLE THE EFC). We tried writing a letter and appealing, but they responded by saying they cannot offer any more aid at this time. I love Vassar SO much and there’s no way I will be able to attend if they don’t lower our cost by AT LEAST about $5000. Does anyone have any ideas?? Or experiences they have had with Vassar’s financial aid process? Any advice would be VERY appreciated.
Thank you so much 
have a great day!!
what is the rest of your financial picture? Large assets? Self employed parents? Any real estate other than your primary residence? Do,you have student savings?
Is that $40,000 your parent adjusted gross income?
Is yoir older sibling an undergraduate?
I don’t know exact numbers but I believe we have a good amount of assets. My parents are not self employed and have no other real estate. But that is all accounted for by the $18k EFC
Your assets do count in the FAFSA formula. Is that annual income the AGI?
Vassar is a school that uses the Profile. Either you made a big mistake on it…or there is financial information you aren’t including here.
Is your sibling an undergrad??
Vassar is a meets-full-need school, right? There must be some serious family assets if Vassar expects you to pay $36k on income of $40k, with a sibling in college. This is corroborated by the FAFSA EFC of $18k, which is a very large number (for FAFSA) for an income of $40k.
Before anyone can give you any ideas that might be helpful to your situation, you need to provide a more detailed picture of your family’s financial situation - income and assets for you and your parents. Also, how are your older sibling’s education costs being paid?
If FAFSA is not looking at assets, how the heck does the FAFSA EFC get to be $18k on an income of $40k?
If the older sibling is a grad student, and you indicated two in college when you did the financial,aid forms for Vassr, this could explain why your family contribution is double what you thought it was going to be. Vassar probably doesn’t count grad students in the count…and this woild just about double your family contribution if you had indicated two in college (and one is a grad student).
@BelknapPoint I know assets count…but the OP is making it sound like the only thing that should matter is her income.
I will say…if the income is really $40k…and the OP met one of the following:
- Can file a 1040EZ or 1040A (not probable with the asset amount likely).
OR
- Was eligible for a means tested benefit like SNAP or free/reduced lunch.
OR
- One parent was a dislocated worker
The student would have been eligible for the si oilfield needs test…and assets would not have counted.
Guess this wasn’t the case.
My family has a lot of investments (~$400k I believe). The $40k income is their current net income. My dad filled out the FAFSA with all of the details so I don’t know exact numbers. My brother (a rising junior undergrad) got a good package from where he goes that was much closer to his EFC. But in the end, isn’t the EFC all that matters when determining the package? There is nothing wrong with my EFC, just what Vassar’s offering me. Thanks for the responses
The FAFSA EFC is meaningless for schools that use the Profile. The information on the Profile is what is used to determine institutional need based aid.
What is your family GROSS income?
$400,000 in assets would add $20,000 to yoir family contribution…but that would be reflected in the FAFSA EFC also.
There has to be something on your Profile that is ticking this up.
Does your family own a home…how much is that worth…and is there a mortgage on it? Maybe it’s home equity which would not be on the FAFSA.
My bad… I read your post too quickly (and my response with the copied text) and thought there was a “not” in there.
If AGI is under $50k are assets ignored in the FAFSA EFC formula?
Are these assets rental properties?
Please provide details of the FA package that Vassar offered. How much in grant aid? How much in loans and what kind? How much in work-study?
Only if the family meets one of the other qualifiers…noted in post 7.
It’s income threshold AND one of the others. With the assets they have, not likely the others apply.
No rental properties–kjust an owned home.
Their total tuition, fees, room, board costs come to about $68k, and they offered me $27k in grant aid, $3.5k subsidized loan, and $2k work study,
Something is on that Profile that is NOT on the FAFSA. There is some additional financial data that is included on the profile.
Home equity in the primary residence is one thing.
Are your parents married to each other?
Are you absolutely positive that both your FAFSA and Profile indicated that two siblings would be in college for the 2016-2017 school year?
Who knows with Profile, but the FAFSA EFC may be wrong.
It doesn’t seem like the FAFSA EFC for the family should combine to be $36k per year. The assets would add $24k to the EFC, but the income doesn’t seem high enough to add $12k to the total EFC.
That said, there seems to be something missing. How does a family of 4, earning $40k per year, have $400k in assets plus a paid-off home?
Did your family inherit a chunk of money?
Why do both of your parents only work part-time? And, what kind of work do they do? I’m only asking because there is something wrong somewhere.
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However, our financial aid package has us paying about $36k (DOUBLE THE EFC). We tried writing a letter and appealing, but they responded by saying they cannot offer any more aid at this time. I love Vassar SO much and there's no way I will be able to attend if they don't lower our cost by AT LEAST about $5000.
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Your parents are helping to pay for your sibling’s college, and you’re saying that if your cost was dropped to $31k per year, Vassar would be affordable???
How does that make sense?
The FAFSA EFC should not be the same as the NPC. Vassar and similar colleges don’t use FAFSA mehod for EFC, they use Institutional Method which can be significantly higher. So something is wring with your NPC inputs or Vassar only NPC. When you appealed, did you show them the NPC results so you could find out why it is different than your offer?
Mom2Two, there are lots of reasons that they have $400k, they had better jobs in the past, they inherited money, sold a rental property, were self employed and sold the business.
I have been running a lot of NPCs lately in preparation for taking K2 to see colleges. For fun I ran Vassar’s with my numbers and while it was not as generous as some of them that do not include home equity, it was decent enough.
$400k in assets only reduce OVERALL EFC (the amount for both kids together) by less than 30K (5.6% x 400k X .2 (to allow for the expected 60% instead of 50% per kid). For most home equity schools, it is limited to 2.4 x income (no idea about Vassar but we have a lot of home equity and it was not counted that badly in the NPC I ran.)
OP, you do not sound familiar enough with your parents finances to be the one having the primary contact with FA. You need to get your parents to call the FA office at Vassar and go over your CSS with them.
What did other similar schools offer you? Was it closer to what your brother is getting?
Several full needs colleges were offering K1 a decent amount of aid. The one K1 wanted said no aid at all. While I can understand there being a 5k difference if you have a 50% EFC on COA, this did not make sense. So I spoke to the FA office. After asking us some questions I realized that they had made a basic mistake in our finances and thought we owned something that we were renting. Once we were able to explain that to them, K1 got a good aid offer.
In this case we did tell the schools what other schools were offering not because we wanted it to match, but because we said that the EFCs cannot be so different for peer schools and it turns out there was a mistake. The same thing, if they meet full needs and you got much better offers or your brother is full needs and has a much better offer then there is something wrong unless perhaps Vassar counts home equity at full value which did not seem the case on their NPC.