<p>I have 2 at Smith - I don’t worry about bait and switch - after 3 financial aid cycles and going into my 4th - Rich colleges like Smith don’t bait and switch - my experience is that in your second year - if you have loans - your loan amounts go up - which was made clear to us. Other than that I have found Smith to fair and generous. You should always read the fine print but it is schools with more limited endowments that have to stretch their financial aid dollars that you have to worry about.</p>
<p>I think most colleges as a matter of course will up the student’ s contribution each year. Many are upfront about this. As the Stafford loan maximums rise, so do the amounts that a student is asked to borrow.</p>
<p>I will know next year at this time. I don’t expect my son’s college to be engaged in such behavior, as it’s a classy institution, but I think the point is well taken and is worthy of discussion for undergraduate and graduate education.</p>
<p>As an incoming freshman into Syracuse, it’s fair to say that they actually look at your academic status and your involvement in the community when deciding if they will keep/improve your financial aid offer?</p>
<p>We believe that there was some front-loading in my daughter’s aid package from Mt. Holyoke, though we’ll never know for sure because she’s going elsewhere. They offered her a 21st Century Scholarship and a Mary Lyon grant. The grant couldn’t have been need-based, because the scholarship more than covered our need. We assumed that it was a “signing bonus” to get her to attend, and that it would have vanished in the second year.</p>
<p>Generally there’s a web site you can visit to get info on special named or departmental grants, where they will tell you how much it is, who it can be awarded to, how many per year get it, and if it is renewable.</p>
<p>A friend of mine just described a situation I had not thought about before. Her daughter was offered a large merit award from an expensive private school, but it was still too expensive. So they thought about her going to community college for a couple years and then transferring to the expensive school. However, once they realized that they wouldn’t get any merit aid as a transfer student, that option really didn’t make financial sense.</p>
<p>I had issues with my college involving loans. There is only a certain amount of loans that they will allow students to have according to the level that they are at. This is probably not new info to anyone, but even colleges make mistakes with it. </p>
<p>I spent time at a community college and then moved on to a university. I did have to figure things out along the way and was pretty clueless about the whole thing, so that had something to do with the confusion.</p>
<p>I had approximately a year, maybe less to graduate in my final days as a senior. I needed both loans and grants to live with while finishing school. Abruptly i discovered that the community college had given me too much money when i was there and now the university would not have any more for me. that was going to be my last semester.</p>
<p>I had a good relationship with a miraculous adviser/counselor at school that used some of my many extra classes to switch out for required ones. So i did get to graduate.</p>
<p>My son’s college reduced his grant when our salary increased slightly but I knew other families with similar increases and their aid stayed the same (5,000 and under increase) It pays to ask how much of a difference in salary, more or less will effect grants.Some colleges are more “dollar to dollar” than others.
Also in more fine print, some colleges, I think Bryn Mawr was one, said they expected fairly large student contribution over the years,starting with 2400 for freshman and whether or not they could earn it, it would be charged. They also took a larger percentage of earned outside scholarships than other colleges, something my daughter didn’t like and it made her less inclined to go there. She wanted to apply her scholarships to her need which is why you would want them.</p>
<p>I 've seen the post, asking a college to match another offer. How is the renewal evaluation in this case? The college usually keeps the same level or the exact extra of its grant?</p>
<p>Since most of the top schools that I can think of already meet 100% of need, they are already offering you what they can. They aren’t going to lower your EFC unless you can show them you have extraordinary circumstances that warrant a professional evaluation.</p>
<p>Still waiting on daughter’s school. They must be getting bombarded by emails and calls; they sent out an email to the kids saying they are working feverishly to get award letters into the system after getting done with the incoming frosh class /class of 2016 and to please send/share the email with all the people who help pay the tuition. I’m on pins/needles waiting to see how much $$ we have to round up for sophomore year.</p>
<p>Penn used to do this back in my day. A colleague had to take out massive loans for her sophomore through senior years (yes, she COULD have transferred out).</p>
<p>My daughter’s merit was 80% of tuition, so it went up when tuition went up. Her need-based decreased somewhat when her sister graduated from college, but not tremendously. She didn’t get the Pell loan, but kept most of the cash assistance. One goofy thing, though. For her junior year she received a named scholarship, but because she didn’t need the money (RA that year, so no room and board expense), they gave her the honor of the scholarship but no aid increase. Understandable, but she wondered why they didn’t hand it to someone else who needed help.</p>
<p>My daughter’s experience wasn’t even a year to year change. She applied early decision to her first-choice school for Fall 2012 and accepted in January, thereby cutting all ties with other schools she had applied to and agreeing to a need-based financial aid package that was acceptable. We have fluctuating income due to self-employment, and after filing our taxes and filling out the FAFSA, were notified this month that her award for her freshman year would decrease by $6000.00. OUCH! I’m now too depressed to even look at how we’re going to fund this, let alone opine to her again that a work ethic is a really good thing to have.</p>