we dont have the money they think we do.

Colleges & Universities A-Z Cornell University
1

<p>I have had my eyes set on Cornell for a long while. But when my financial aid package came, I saw that I will be receiving NOTHING but a $3500 loan freshman year.</p>

<p>Honestly, my family cannot afford to pay 50,000 a year for me to go to college. I have a sibling who just got out of Cornell last year, and my family is swimming in debt. My only other option is my state school which will provide me with a full scholarship of 20,000.</p>

<p>Do you see any possibility that Cornell will change my financial aid or even match the amount im getting from my state school?</p>

<p>thanks</p>

2

<p>Sigh. Go to the state school.</p>

<p>Which state school, may I ask?</p>

3

<p>Hey, I would say why not try to negotiate? There is nothing to lose, and it could be the ONLY way in your situation. </p>

<p>I am lucky to have my need met fully. Oh, well, $3200 loan is almost nothing compared to what Cornell is giving me.</p>

4

<p>How high is your family’s comb. income?</p>

5

<p>It is very unfortunate for families with income above 120(I think that’s the new number?) and below an amount that families could feel comfortable in paying 50,000/year. Unfortunately at at school like Cornell, you have families from 2 extremes - ones that qualify for financial aid, and ones that could easily pay the full fare. There are some students borrowing majority of their tuition in order to go to Cornell. Schools like Cornell use a strict formula to figure out your family’s contribution, unfortunately your family probably fall somewhere in the middle. It’s a tough situation. My daughter’s friend is paying 100% of cost through student loan, that is a lot of debt to graduate with.</p>

6

<p>my parents make around 110K a year…if my brother just graduated from there and they know that we had taken out many loans for him, is this even a legit reason (on top of sick grandparent, high living expenses in the metropolitan area, stuff we pay money for that doesnt show on record etc)</p>

7

<p>Your family contribution is based on income, assets and number of children in college at the same time. They do not consider living expenses or amount of loans accumulated through education.</p>

<p>My family contribution was pretty ridiculous until my brother started college…then it went down a lot. I’ve also appealed my package every year…the FA office knows me pretty well by now :-)</p>

<p>You can certainly try to appeal the decision as long as you can document your financial hardship.</p>

8

<p>I have a similar situation, and I’d really appreciate some advice:</p>

<p>My dad earns about 240k a year, but says he cannot afford to send me to Cornell</p>

<p>He says he has some amount of money saved, but he’d rather use that to pay for my med-school</p>

<p>However, as of now, I don’t want to go to med-school, but then again I don’t know what I may want in the future. </p>

<p>I’m pretty sure that if I was an only child he’d send me to Cornell, but my brother will start med-school when I am a junior in college. This means that he’ll be paying $100,000/yr for college, and on top of his house mortgage of 40k/yr and taxes amounting to 60k/yr, we’ll have little money left (which will also go towards car payments, etc)</p>

<p>I’m pretty darn sure I’m not going to receive any financial aid this year from Cornell, but I was wondering - when my brother starts med-school in my junior/soph year, will they give me FA? </p>

<p>I know that even with my brother and I attending for $100k/year total, my dad will have about $140k left…</p>

<p>however, like I said, we have other things to pay for as well (taxes and mortgage are huge)</p>

<p>My dad is also concerned about the status of his job - he says that his company is firing people left and right and he may be next. However, he has a job waiting for him in another country just in case, but with less pay (but still about $200k/yr)</p>

<p>Right now, he feels that Cornell is a waste of money, and he rather I go to my state school (UT Austin) for cheaper. </p>

<p>However, I feel that I worked my but off - I got into a good school (Cornell) and I deserve to go. I’d understand if he said that we have NO money saved at all, but the fact is that we do! And I don’t even know if I want to do med-school</p>

<p>I know he’s being practical - UT Austin is def. a great school. But I feel for some reason, that Cornell will overall offer me a better experience. </p>

<p>I don’t know how to convince my dad; even I see the logic in his argument. But I really want to go to Cornell. </p>

<p>What to do?</p>

<p>And do you think it is possible to get FA in my junior year if my bro starts attending med-school, even if our income is pretty high?</p>

<p>Thanks, and sorry for the long post</p>

9

<p>I think financial aid will only consider siblings who are full time undergraduate students. As a medical school student, your brother would be considered a graduate student.</p>

<p>Given your dad’s income…it is unlikely you will qualify for financial aid, although I know of few rare instances where a kid who had a family income of more than $250,000 got some FA because they had 2 kids in college.</p>

<p>I hope you can work out your situation and join us on the hill!</p>

10

<p>^^ thanks for the reply</p>

<p>The stupid thing is that they would send me to MIT or Stanford if I had gotten in, paying full tuition.</p>

<p>They just don’t think Cornell is all that much better than UT Austin (and thus it won’t be economically efficient to send me to Cornell), and I can’t seem to convince them otherwise</p>

11

<p>I too had only gotten 3500 in loans. Cornell’s EFC for my parents was 7k higher than Fafsa’s. Every other school calculated it right- why couldn’t Cornell?</p>

12

<p>k14, you can tell your dad that you r ready to take a loan that you could pay for yourself after college…
anyways, its more common to take loan as a med school student. Its not that hard to pay it back either. I heard that u only need to start paying back med school loans once you have completed your residency…
another point that you can make to convince your dad is that you might not be able to get into any med school from state school like UT Austin (even if that is not true). Just show him the medical school acceptance rate for people that have a gpa of 3.5 or more from cornell( its a little more than 80 percent )</p>

13

<p>k14 - perhaps you can work out a ‘family loan’ situation with your parents. Write a proposal that you will pay them back - with interest - on the cost difference between UT Austin and Cornell. The parent PLUS loans, if you can get them, are 8.5% (pretty steep in these days of low interest). So if you can work out a loan from them that is less than that, you’d be doing well. They may still not be willing to do that - you would be strapped with a lot of loan money! - so you should really do the calculations and see if you think it’s worth it. There are loan calculators online that can help you figure out what the total cost would be. You might be very surprised. Also, you should consider that if your parents use their savings to put you through college that you could be supporting them in their retirement years. It’s not a small decision.</p>